Ecclesial Missionary work

Sunday:              

We board a bus at 7am to take a couple of hours journey to a rural, mountainous area of El Salvador. Four of the Aussies go on this trip because one of us (Lyn) will preach. The rest of us are here to be her support team. Wearing a borrowed collar, she has prepped a sermon to be delivered to a congregation of children and their carers (who only speak Spanish) and a visiting group of about 14 Bishops and Denominational leaders from around the world. The visuals she prepared cannot be used in the venue, but her message is strong and captured everyone as they considered God challenging us today.

After worship, the church is rearranged and we share in lunch.

After lunch, most head back to San Salvador, but two of us remain to pay pastoral visits and deliver food packages. We pray for families, for health and employment, for schooling and for the creation around us. Most of the homes have dirt floors and limited facilities. We are welcomed and we experience the connection of human spirit. We are transformed by grace shared.           

Reflection:

I have been connected with the World Methodist Council (WMC) now for some years. I was suggested by our then General Secretary, Terrence Corkin, to be part of the worship team for the World Methodist Council Assembly in Houston, Tex, USA, in 2016.  I wrote several liturgies for that global gathering, even though I had to pull out of going for family reasons. As a result, I was invited to be the Worship and Liturgy Convenor for the ensuing quinquinennium, which extended into a longer term due to COVID. During that period, I led worship at WMC Steering Committee and Council meetings in Rome, Seoul, Mexico, and Stuttgart. I also attended Steering Committee in Gothenburg,

During that period, I worked to try to introduce inclusive language, multilingual worship and weaving of liturgical and theological materials from different parts of the world. The work challenged me and I learnt from many people about differing ecclesiologies and worldviews. I contributed to deliberations regarding Ukrainian and Sudanese refugees and global migration, targeted solidarity in Israel and Palestine, self-determination and liberation in places of political or economic oppression or settings of ongoing colonialism. I was instrumental in promoting Consensus discernment and was delighted when (at my suggestion) Terrence was invited to Seoul to run training sessions.

Being part of the WMC also forced me to better understand who we are as the Uniting Church. We have an important part to play within the world church and I don’t think it is helpful to leave it to individuals discerning God’s call. The UCA is in a position to be able to offer significant global leadership. So, why do we hold back? What are we afraid of? God sets a mission before us, yet we hesitate.

Perhaps we have become so institutional and empirical that we can no longer measure spiritual, relational and missional value? We have not cultivated ways to consider loaves and fishes as offerings for sharing, only seeing resources as consumables to be purchased in a supermarket as part of a household budget. One of the five attendees in El Salvador received some limited support from UCA towards attendance. One of the group received support from the WMC as a part of governance responsibilities. The rest of the group (of retirees and missionaries) were fully self-funded. Yet, we all made substantial contributions and exercised missional ministry on behalf of the UCA. We each do so willingly, but I don’t think people at home know what this level of unit-ing costs.