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By Elliott Wright*
6:00 P.M. EST Oct. 14, 2010 | STAMFORD, Conn. (UMNS)
Members of Ba Se United Methodist Church meet in Can Tho City, Vietnam.
Started in February, the congregation now has 62 members. Since, January
2009, Vietnam has become home to 85 new United Methodist congregations
through an initiative of the denomination’s Board of Global Ministries. A
UMNS photo by Ut To, GBGM.
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From Vietnam to Malawi, the number of new United Methodist congregations outside the United States has grown by more than 200.
A total of 210 new worshipping communities were organized from January
2009 through September 2010, Thomas Kemper, chief executive, United
Methodist Board of Global Ministries, told directors at their Oct. 11-13
annual meeting. That is more than halfway toward a goal of starting 400
new worldwide congregations between 2009 and 2012.
More than half of the progress has been in Southeast Asia, said Kemper,
notably in Laos with 33 new congregations and Vietnam with 85, for a
combined increase of 118. There was also a significant increase of new
congregations in Africa — 39 in Malawi and 17 in South Sudan.
“Almost all of this growth is through a dozen or so mission initiatives
in four African countries, various parts of Asia, and Eastern Europe,
work that relates directly to Global Ministries,” Kemper stated. “It
does not include new congregations developed by United Methodist annual
(regional) conferences in other parts of Africa, the Philippines, and
Western Europe.”
In addition to Laos and Vietnam, new worshipping communities in Asia
include nine in Nepal, six in Cambodia and three in Thailand. New
African congregations include three in Cameroon as well as those in
Malawi and South Sudan. Four new congregations have formed in Central
Asia and another four have started in Honduras.
Each of these countries is a Global Ministries “mission initiative”
begun or resumed within the last 20 years, many since the year 2000.
Malawi is the newest addition to the initiatives; South Sudan is not a
formal initiative but is moving in that direction. Some of the new
church planting benefits from the 400 Fund, part of The Advance giving
program.
Congregational development is one of the current focus areas of the
denomination. The board’s mission initiatives program, started in the
mid-1990s, is aimed at renewing or starting new mission work, mostly in
areas currently without a denominational presence.
United Methodism in Malawi is growing under indigenous leadership with
about 140 congregations. A UMNS photo by Thomas Kemper, GBGM.
View in Photo Gallery
Grassroots approach
Kemper said that the impressive growth in Vietnam and Laos is the result
in part of a grassroots, “people’s church” approach to planting new
congregations. Indigenous lay pastors and committed laity are utilized
as the major means of evangelization and congregational organizing.
Professional church personnel provide inspiration, training, and initial
organizing skills.
He indicated that the methods used in Laos and Vietnam are now being
introduced into Thailand, where the United Methodist presence is quite
new. The Rev. CherLue and Mang Thao Vang are new missionaries assigned
to direct the work in Thailand. Now U.S. citizens from North Carolina,
the Vangs are of Hmong background, born in Laos, and met while in a
refugee camp in Thailand.
“We have learned that indigenous Christians are expert at evangelism and
church planting," said the Rev. John Nuessle, staff executive for
mission relationships. “Missionaries remain essential as initiators,
facilitators and educators, but we are now ‘growing’ our pastors locally
in many places.”
In Vietnam, the church is only now in the process of becoming officially
recognized within the socialist country, but met a major provision for
that recognition with the dedication of the United Methodist Center in
Ho Chi Minh City. A next step is obtaining a registration certificate
for religious activities, which church leaders in Vietnam hope will be
granted in December .
The Rev. Jong Sung Kim, whose Global Ministries portfolio includes
Vietnam, says that one reason the church in Vietnam is growing rapidly
is that the local (lay) pastors not “only have a high commitment to the
mission of church but are highly educated before they enter the
ministry. Many of our pastors hold college and graduate degrees.”
Using mission partnerships
Malawi is another location where United Methodism is growing under
indigenous leadership. The Malawi Conference, with some 140
congregations organized into circuits, is now a Global Ministries
"initiative" with a growing network of partner congregations and annual
conferences in both the U.S. and Germany. “The rapid growth of the
Malawi Conference has been achieved through mission partnerships,” says
the Rev. Patrick Friday., who works with the agency’s In Mission
Together program.
Honduras, which now has 16 congregations, is the only mission-initiative
country in Latin America and the Caribbean, largely because most
countries in that region already have autonomous Methodist and United
Methodist churches that are mission partners with Global Ministries,
explained the Rev. Edgar Avitia, a Global Ministries staff member who
relates to Latin America.
“Those partnerships, such as with the Methodist Church in the Caribbean
and the Americas, and Methodists in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico and, most
recently, Nicaragua, have been instrumental in resourcing mission in
Honduras,” he said.
The oldest of the mission initiatives is in Russia and surrounding
countries, with separate work in Latvia and Lithuania. Methodism existed
in those lands prior to the communist takeover in the early 20th
century. Russia today has more than 100 United Methodist congregations,
all with indigenous pastors, and a theological seminary in Moscow.
“The Russia Initiative was born in the marvelous times of eruption and
new opportunities after the disintegration of the Soviet Union,” said
Bishop Hans Växby of the Eurasia Area. “Today the growth is less
dramatic. Our churches are going through an exciting period of maturing,
especially in terms of financial self-sufficiency, and also of creating
new faith communities in other parts of a city or neighboring
villages.”
*Wright is a freelance writer and consultant for the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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