School of Ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina

Mission and ministry through theMillennium Development Goals

A resource for parish studydeveloped by the Rev. Leon Spencer

Participants edition

This resource is part of a series of studiesdeveloped by the School of Ministry

1901 West Market Street, Greensboro, NC 27403(336) 273-5770

www.episdionc.com/schoolofministry

2006

Mission and ministry through theMillennium Development Goals

The intent of this study is for us to reflect upon God’s mission on earth and upon God’s calling to us to fulfill that mission, and for us to consider how the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) may relate to mission and ministry. From your engagement in study and reflection, we encourage you to reaffirm decisions previously made, or to make decisions, individually and as a congregation, to engage in global witness by addressing, in some manner, the Millennium Development Goals.

This course consists of five sessions:

Session 1: God’s mission, the Church’s ministry, and our calling Session 2: The Church and the Millennium Development Goals Session 3: The Millennium Development Goals Session 4: A vision of partnership Session 5: What shall we do?

Each session consists of text and provides opportunities for reflection and discussion.

Two books stand out as valuable for your use in this study:

The first is the National Council of the Churches of Christ’s Eradicating Global Poverty: A Christian Study Guide on the Millennium Development Goals (New York: NCCC, 2006), available through Friendship Press at $7.95 (order toll-free at 1-800-889-5733). Written by Lallie B. Lloyd, it stands as an excellent six-session study, attractively presented. It certainly serves as a good alternative to our own study, the principal differences being that we have “personalized” this study for our Episcopal Church and our Diocese of North Carolina contexts, and have underscored theological reflection about mission and ministry and partnership more extensively. The NCCC study moves through each of the goals more extensively.

The second is Sabina Alkire and Edmund Newell’s What Can One Person Do? Faith to Heal a Broken World (New York: Church Publishing, 2005), which focuses upon faithful action to reach the Millennium Development Goals. Contact Education/Liturgy Resources in Oxford (919-693-5547) for copies.

One other resource deserves mention at the outset, namely the website of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation (www.e4gr.org). This movement has been the key source of Episcopal Church initiatives regarding the MDGs. On their website are a variety of educational, liturgical and action-oriented resources. We’ll draw upon some of them in this study, but we encourage participants in this study to examine that website yourselves.

This study seeks to provide experiences that are participatory, encouraging both deeper understanding and transformative reflection among a broad adult audience. Through a positive respectful conversation, we hope this study will contribute to strengthening the sense of community; affirm the biblical foundations of our faith; assist in developing practices to live into the new humanity offered to us through Christ; draw us once again to the commitments we make in the Baptismal Covenant; and challenge participants to relate study and reflection to action in the name of Christ. The format is based on the model for covenanted conversations used at the diocesan convention in 2005. We commend to you the Covenanted listening; covenanted conversations prayers and covenant that appear on the next page.

Covenanted listening; covenanted conversations

The School of Ministry encourages study groups to engage in covenanted listening and conversation. These prayers and covenant are adapted from Good News: A Congregational

Resource for Reconciliation, by the Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston.

An Opening Prayer

O God, we stand on the border to your Kingdom. We pray that your Holy Spirit will be with us to guide us in our discussions. Grant us an openness to hear you in the words of those around us, and courage to proclaim you in our own words, through the love of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Covenant

As we gather in the name of Christ to share our thoughts, feelings, and ideas we accept this Covenant to guide our conversation along his path of love:

We will allow each person an equal amount of time to speak.

We will listen to each person without interruption or comment.

We will speak in a respectful way without criticism or rancor.

We will honor the feelings of others as genuine and sincere.

We will disagree without threats or accusations.

We will agree that we are all seeking the mind of Christ.

A Closing Prayer

Dear God, thank you for the presence of your Holy Spirit in this conversation. We ask that the Spirit will go with us as we leave this place to be your ministers. Give us grace to be healers of what hurts us and heralds of what makes us whole. In the blessed name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Session 1God’s mission, the Church’s ministry, and our calling

Readings: When [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom.

He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them,

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Luke 4:16-21

ission is widely understood to “belong” to God – a classic axiom is that mission is God’s transforming action in the world. (Some missiologists – theologians who study mission

and its manifestations in the Church – can get quite fussy about misuse of the word mission as M“belonging” to the Church, or us, rather than being God’s.)1 David Bosch, the South African theologian, offered a succinct yet profound definition of mission: “Mission,” he wrote, “is the good news of God’s love, incarnate in the witness of a community, for the sake of the world.”2

In this first session we are asking that you engage in an initial discussion about God’s mission, the Church’s ministry, and our calling. (The Millennium Development Goals will come later!) We encourage you simply to look at several readings, included here, and share your initial responses with one another.

Where we are beginning is with Scripture, seeking to understand more fully God’s mission on earth. We then turn to the ministry of the Church, seeking to understand more fully how we may, in Prof. Bosch’s words, “incarnate [God’s love] in the witness of a community, for the sake of the world.” And finally, we turn from there to our calling, seeking to relate our own experiences and insights

and gifts to God’s mission and the Church’s ministry.

Scripture3

First, read again the passage from Luke’s gospel that appears above. It is Jesus’ first sermon, given in the synagogue in Nazareth. The House of Bishops, in their March 2006 pastoral letter, called it “the desire of God, the peaceable kingdom, a society of justice and shalom.”4 Listen to those words, and consider together these questions:

What does this passage say (or imply) about the person of Christ?

What is his “agenda”? What, in other words, does this passage reveal about God’s mission?

What do you understand mission to mean?

Ministry

How do we know when we as the Body of Christ areliving into God’s mission? The Theological Education for the Anglican Communion group and

1 We’re not going to be fussy, however. After all, the catechism in the Book of Common Prayer asks, “What is the mission of the Church?” See p. 855 for the answer.2 David Jacobus Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, c1991), p. 519.3 All scripture quotes in this study are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.4 The Sin of Racism: A Call to Covenant, a pastoral letter from the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, from the Episcopal News Service, March 22, 2006.

the Anglican Consultative Council found one way when they created a list they called “Marks of Mission.”5 They were naming signs that we were discerning God’s mission and our ministry.

Examine, then, the “Marks of Mission” and Prof. Bosch’s definition of mission, both appearing to your right, and consider these questions:

What do you understand the ministry (or mission) of the Church to mean?

Does Prof. Bosch’s definition appear to you to capture the essence of Jesus’ Nazareth sermon in Luke 4? How? If not, in what way “not”?

How do the “Marks of Mission” – signs that we have responded to God’s mission – connect with the passage from Luke? With the definition of mission?

Our calling

Discernment is critical to our lives of faith. Each of us may grasp the message of God and God’s mission on earth; each of us may affirm the Church’s ministry in all of its richness. Both aspects of the Good News revealed to us are foundational and deserve our thought and prayer. But a third piece of the faith picture is also essential: Discernment of our own gifts as they may be used by the community of faith – the Church, the Body of Christ – in fulfillment of God’s mission. We are talking about our calling.

An important aspect of our discernment is to reflect upon our gifts. Another important aspect is to honor our own experiences, which help to reveal our gifts. It deserves mention here that our living into the MDGs does not mean we abandon the needs of our more local neighbors. Still, as we turn in this study to issues of human need and human dignity around the globe, it’s worthwhile to affirm our own experiences:

Share your “global” stories. What has moved you as, perhaps, you traveled beyond our borders? What has made an impression upon you as you have seen or read about how others live or lived?

For people of faith, our engagement with the MDGs is about God’s mission, our ministry, our calling. To them we now turn.

Session 2 The Church and the Millennium Development Goals

5 The Theological Education for the Anglican Communion (TEAC) network expanded the “Marks” named by the Anglican Consultative Council from five to seven. Cited by the Episcopal News Service, June 21, 2005.

Mission

is the good news of God’s love, incarnate in the witness of a

community, for the sake of the world.

David Bosch

Marks of Mission

To proclaim the good news of the Gospel

To teach, baptize and nurture new believers

To respond to human need by loving service

To seek to transform unjust structures of society

To safeguard the integrity of creation and to sustain and renew the life of the earth

To worship and celebrate the grace of God

To live as one holy, catholic and apostolic church

The Theological Education for the Anglican Communion (TEAC) network

Readings: If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them,“Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs,

what is the good of that?

James 2:15-16

he Millennium Development Goals,” former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold remarked, “embody the response God calls us to give to our suffering world. The

MDGs reflect God’s passionate desire for justice and mercy, and the work of re-ordering and rebuilding we have been given.” This study affirms that understanding. We are not encouraging study, reflection and action on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) because of any views about

“T

multilateral initiatives or international organizations, or about national interest, or even because it may seem to be a “good” thing to do. Rather this study emerges from the conviction that the MDGs may “embody the response God calls us to give to our suffering world.” 6

Canon John Peterson, formerly Secretary General of the Anglican Communion and now the Canon for Global Justice and Reconciliation at the Washington National Cathedral, declared at our diocesan convention in 2006 that “one of the scandals of this decade is that it was the United Nations who proposed the Millennium Development Goals and not the Church. I have always argued,” he continued, “that the Millennium Development Goals are at the core of the Gospel Mandate.”7 It is with that understanding that we developed the theme for our convention, “A Missionary Diocese in a Global Society” – the MDGs – affirming the Millennium Development Goals as appropriate as Christian witness.

General Convention 2003

We’ve said as much in the official acts of our Church. The MDGs have repeatedly been on the table at Anglican Communion gatherings, and at our 2003 General Convention, the Episcopal Church adopted a resolution (D006) “endorsing and embracing the achievement of” the MDGs.8

The Diocese of North Carolina

In 2004 our own diocese adopted a resolution

(2004-1) “On Support for United Nations Millennium Development Goals.” Following the lines of the General Convention resolution, it addressed funding matters as well as the vision of the MDGs. It reads:

Resolved , that the 188th Convention of the Diocese of North Carolina affirms and embraces the achievement of the United Nations’ Development Goals (MDGs)…. And be it further

Resolved , that the Diocese of North Carolina as a part of fulfilling its mission to “reconcile all people to God and each other in Christ” and in accordance with the challenge set forth by the 73rd and 74th General Conventions (2000 and 2003) and the 1998 Lambeth Conference: set as a goal, beginning in 2005, to give 0.7% of the annual diocesan budget to fund international development programs, and challenge all congregations in the Diocese of North Carolina to give 0.7% of their budgets to fund international development programs; and be it further

Resolved , that the Bishop of North Carolina charge the Chartered Committee on Global Mission with the responsibility of implementing this program by making informed recommendations to the

Bishop and Diocesan Council about the disbursement of the 0.7% funds;

building an accessible database of and facilitating connections among all ministries in the Diocese engaged in world mission and international development; and

providing opportunities for education and engagement with works of reconciliation,

6 The Most Reverend Frank T. Griswold, “A Theological Reflection on the Millennium Development Goals for the Season of Advent,” www.episcopalchurch.org/3654_69645_ENG_HTM. htm. He is “the former” as of November 4, 2006.7 Address to the Convention of the Diocese of North Carolina, Winston-Salem, January 27, 2006.8 General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of...the Episcopal Church, Minneapolis, 2003 (New York: General Convention, 2004), p. 265f.

including using our connection in the Anglican Communion to build relationships with people and communities in the developing world; and be it further

Resolved , that all Episcopalians in the Diocese of North Carolina are encouraged to contact their elected representatives urging them to support the United States government’s fulfillment of its commitment to funding international development aid at 0.7% of US-GNP. 9

So what’s this all about?

So what’s this all about, these official resolutions and pronouncements? Why all the bother? Can anything good come from the United Nations? And, do resolutions, even from the Church, ever take on much meaning anyway?

James honored Jesus’ teachings when he wrote that if a brother or sister lack daily food, and all we say to them is “Go in peace,” but fail to supply their bodily needs, what – he asked pointedly – is the good of that?

Scripture reminds us, again and again, that we are to live into relationship with all of the children of God, and that we have a responsibility, in the name of Christ, to respond to those in need. James, in 2:15-16, might well ask (as we asked at the beginning of this section), what is the good of the Millennium Development Goals and church resolutions, if they

but remain on paper? But if we take those goals as a calling, and those resolutions as a mandate, then it becomes very clear “what the good of that” is.

0.7%

You will have noticed in the diocesan resolution (it appeared in the General Convention one too) that the Church not only called for diocesan and congregational financial contributions in support of the Millennium Development Goals, it got specific: 0.7% of our budgets. Where did 0.7% come from?

The figure of 0.7 per cent originally referred to the gross national product of donor nations – those countries that provide development aid to poorer nations – as an appropriate level of assistance. It was a negotiated figure; no particular significance should be attached to it, as opposed to, say, 0.8% or 0.6%. (If you really want to know more about how the figure came to be, we’ve put some details in a foot-note. It’s probably more than you want to know!)10

A lot of differing groups, sessions, and declarations led to the 0.7% figure. The point for us is that there have been ongoing discussions for nearly 40 years about the need to confront poverty and human need in much of the world, and about the responsibility of wealthy nations to contribute. It was natural that 0.7% would be revived as the focus turned to the Millennium Development Goals, with its specific targets and strategies to accomplish a grand vision.

9 Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, Journal of the 188th Annual Convention (Raleigh: Diocese of North Carolina, 2004), p. 113. Also available on-line at episdionc.org/schoolofministry/MDG%20resolution.htm.10 In 1967, with most of the world now independent of colonial rule, the World Bank suggested that a commission be formed to study the previous 20 years of development assistance. L. B. Pearson, the former Prime Minister of Canada, accepted an invitation from then World Bank president Robert McNamara to undertake such a study.

In 1969 the resulting Commission of International Development issued its report, “Partners in Development.” They found that there was “a special need” for official development assistance comprised of grants or loans on “soft” terms, such as generous interest rates. And, they determined that aid should be raised to 0.7 percent of donor GNP by 1975 and by no later than 1980. In 1968 aid was at an average level of 0.39%.

The World Bank wasn’t the only one in on the act. In 1970, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations met to discuss a draft International Development Strategy for the Second UN Development Decade. The text of the International Development Strategy called for the same 0.7% of GNP mark by 1975. Members of the Security Council, however, qualified 0.7% through a variety of formal statements, explanations of positions, reservations, observations, and interpretations. The United States saw the setting of such targets as impractical and felt it would be unable to accept the time-limits or the target dates of the official aid, nor would it be able to ensure that the target aid number would be met.

The UN General Assembly adopted without vote the text of the International Development Strategy (resolution 2626). The resolution is not legally binding upon member nations.

Meanwhile, in the 1960s the Global South (see fn. 11) had become increasingly frustrated with their prospects for economic growth. With the success of the oil-producing countries of OPEC during the energy crisis of 1973, developing countries found it opportune to call for a New International Economic Order (NIEO). They also drew attention to the 0.7% vision of development assistance.

In response, in 1974 the General Assembly adopted the “Declaration and Program of Action of the New International Order.” Later that year, they also approved the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States. Here, again, they called for the “attainment of official development assistance” of the target of 0.7% of donor nations’ GNP.

As a result, in 1975, the Seventh Special Session of the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 3362, a very similar document to that of the NIEO. It included the 0.7% provision. The United States and other donor nations attached detailed reservations to the resolution.

In general, donor nations have emphasized that the 0.7% strategy is not a legal commitment, while – at least during the formative periods of this vision – developing countries have felt that treating 0.7% as a binding commitment was essential to success.

Since the figure was already “out there,” it made it into church conversations, and the Episcopal Church, among others, has formally endorsed the goal:

for U.S. official development aid to the Global South11 (as 0.7% of our gross national product, not our federal budget – what we actually provide is currently less than 0.2%), and

for national church, diocesan and parish contributions in support of assistance to fulfill the MDGs (as 0.7% of our budgets).

Putting it all together

There are three elements that we have brought into relationship. Two come from the secular world, from international diplomatic initiatives:

The Millennium Development Goals, which the Church has seen first as a vision of human dignity and just relationships in the world. For us it may be seen as articulating the biblical message that we are all children of God, created in God’s image, and the gospel message of neighbor.

The Church has seen in the MDGs, second, a practical agenda to address human need and injustice. The sweeping eight goals may look like nothing but nice thoughts: “Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger” can easily lead to the dismissive comment, “Yeah, right.” But these goals have 18 numerical targets, such as “Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day” by the year 2015. Still rather sweeping, but at least we know the general measurement as to whether we are achieving the goal, when and how much. And, these targets have some 40 quantifiable indicators. On hunger, for example, we’ll know if there is progress from UNICEF’s data on the “prevalence of underweight children under five years of age.” That will lead us to country data, so that in 2003 we know that 28.7% of children under five in Nigeria are underweight. Countries then work out plans – government and non-governmental organizations, including churches – to address their particular situations. Still ambitious, but it’s worth noting that the MDGs are more than just wishful thinking.

0.7%, which the Church has seen as a testimony to good stewardship as well as a call to respond to our neighbors’ needs, as the passage from 2 Corinthians below suggests.

I do not mean that there should be relief for others and

pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair

balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance

may be for your need, in order that there may be a

fair balance.”2 Corinthians 8:13-14

The third element comes from within our faith:

God’s mission and our call to ministry, which we speak of, affirm, testify to, and struggle with all the time. What the Church has done is to embrace a multinational initiative that has become a global movement, not because we are granting the institutions any special standing, certainly no theological status, but because the MDGs honor our faith understanding of God’s mission and our call to further the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. We will speak of these goals through the eyes of faith. Others will not. But at this moment, there is a global agenda that resonates with Christ’s message, and it is both practical and faithful for us to affirm it.

It’s important to assert that God’s message to us is not to make us feel guilty. While we may be disturbed, even depressed, that 95 of every 1,000 children in Ghana die before the age of five (2003), our calling is to proclaim the Good News

(continued on page 11)

11 There are a variety of terms that in general are interchangeable: Global South, Third World, two-thirds world, developing countries, less-developed countries, and others. While some people have decided preferences, most of these terms are still seen as acceptable.

ever again,” the inscription below the sculpture reads, “should a people starve in a world of plenty.” I noticed this dramatic statue a few years ago, where

after lunch at Christ Church in Cambridge, I had walked across the street to the Cambridge Common. The statue was a memorial to the suffering and death of so many during the Irish famine of the 1840s. “Never again….” A poignant reminder of our group’s intentions that weekend in May.

“N

A dozen or so of us were engaged in discussions – the group evolved into Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation – about how our Church could be engaged more deeply and challenged more fully to affirm the Millennium Development Goals. The first goal is this: To halve the proportion of people living on less than $1.00 a day and of those who suffer from hunger. The target: 2015… one hundred and seventy years after the beginning of the Great Irish Famine. “Never again should a people starve in a world of plenty,” the statue reminded me from the past, and we’re still talking about it, and people are still starving.

Well, talk does help, and there was a lot of it during the 1990s at various international conferences and world summits. Out of it all folk began to name “development goals” to address the poverty, marginalization and injustice that most of the world faces every day. By 2000, world leaders had distilled these goals and targets into something called the Millennium Declaration. With that as their foundation, the UN Development Programme and other international agencies worked the agenda down to eight goals, 18 numerical targets and some 40 quantifiable indicators to assess progress. It is this agenda, approved by the UN General Assembly, that we call the Millennium Development Goals.

There’s a vision here, in these goals, that ought to resonate with people of faith. I know they do with me. It’s not a utopian vision in the naïve sense of that term; in fact, with its targets and indicators and all that, it’s remarkably pragmatic. Sure, given our political realities, whether it’s attainable or not is open to debate. But it is a vision, of what it means to be human, and for us as people of faith, what it means to be in right relationship with children of God… with Jesus’ universal neighbor.

Like so many biblical stories of compassion and community, these goals take us back to hunger and poverty. That’s where it starts. It starts with an estimated 1.2 billion people who have to struggle to survive on less than a dollar a day, every day. In sub-Saharan Africa, 32% of their children were underweight in 1990; not much progress to be at 30% now. And for their whole population, still a third is below the minimum level of food energy consumption. These are people, billions of people, and they are hungry, and they may (or may not) earn a dollar today. “Never again….”12

12 This reflection was originally written as part of a series of daily reflections at General Convention 2003, when the MDG resolution was presented, by the author through his work at the Washington Office on Africa.

The Millennium Development Goals

1. Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty

Specifically, the aim is, by 2015, to cut in half the proportion of people (starting at the 1990 proportion) whose income amounts to less than a dollar a day, and who suffer from hunger. About 1.2 billion people had less than $1 to spend today, and 815 million people were hungry.

2. Achieve universal primary education

The aim: that all girls and boys complete primary school. Today 115 million school-aged children are not in school. The biggest number of these children live in South Asia – India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In Africa, only half of the school-aged children finish primary school. So far we are not making progress fast enough to achieve this goal of primary education by 2015.

3. Promote gender equality and empower women

How? Many ways – like making sure that as many girls and young women have the chance to go to grade school, high school, and college education as boys.

4. Reduce child mortality

The goal is to decrease by two-thirds the number of children who die before their 5th birthday.

5. Improve maternal health

The target is to reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters. Some 500,000 mothers die in childbirth a year.

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

The goal: To reverse the spread of these dread diseases by 2015. Approximately 40 million people are now living with HIV/AIDS. Of these, 26.6 million were living in Sub-Saharan Africa, and there, 3.2 million were newly infected in 2003. One in five people in Africa are infected.

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

Make drinking water safer and improve the lives of 100 million slum dwellers, while reversing the loss of environmental resources.

8. Develop a global partnership for development

Enable donors, governments, corporations, faith based groups, non-governmental organizations, and individuals to work together to achieve these goals.13

13 From the Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation website, www.e4gr.org.

(continued from page 8)

of Jesus Christ, as he did in Nazareth when he told those in the synagogue that “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). The MDGs do draw our attention to some grim realities around our world, but the Church’s engagement with the MDGs is grounded in hope, not guilt.

Return, now, to pages 9 and 10 and read the reflection, “Never again,” and the goals themselves. Reflect on them for a moment, then consider the questions below.

Questions for reflection and conversation

What do the MDGs have to do with God’s mission and our calling to ministry?

What if anything bothers you about making such a connection?

What among the first seven Millennium Development Goals resonates with you? Why?

With which of the “Marks of Mission” (found on p. 5) do you identity strongly?

Do the MDGoal that resonates with you, and the Mark of Mission that resonates with you, “connect”? If so, how? If not, what might that say to you?

Look again at the passage from James at the beginning of this session, and from Corinthians on page 8. What seems to you to be the essential message? How does it relate to the MDGs?

How do Paul’s and James’ teachings, in these passages, relate to your own understanding of stewardship? How does 0.7%?

Consider the diocesan resolution. What picture of the church does it seem to reveal to you?

That’s a lot of questions, and you don’t have to get to them all. But it might be useful to recognize that in our discussions we often are addressing different types of questions, all equally valid. Sometimes without naming them, we may be considering one, or more, of these (all of which would normally be preceded by “the study of…”):

Christology: The person and nature of Christ Ecclesiology: The nature of the Church Eschatology: The “last things,” humanity’s

destiny from a faith perspective Soteriology: The doctrine of salvation Anthropology: The human condition as seen, in

our theological use of the word, through the eyes of faith

Missiology: God’s mission and our ministry14

There are others we might name. The point here is not that we need to know these terms; rather it is to affirm that we often hear issues, sermons, reflections, scripture itself, in differing ways, and it is good to honor those insights by identifying the particular theological focus we are taking.

Among the questions on this page, there are certainly missiological ones – what do the MDGs have to do with God’s mission is an obvious case in point. Considering the question about what picture of the church the diocesan resolution reveals to you is considering a question about ecclesiology (though the resolution can certainly be seen in other ways). An MDG that resonates with you may be an anthropological answer to that question, a faith comment about the human condition. And so on.

Again, we mention this now because we hope you will appreciate that various contributions from you and your group can enrich the conversation. It may prove useful to be able to name the type of faith question being asked or answered as the conversation deepens our understanding of the nature of Christ, of mission, of the church, of the world.

Session 3 The Millennium Development Goals

Readings: Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?

And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 14 The Rev. Mike McCoy, Corresponding Secretary of ANITEPAM, the African Anglican theological education network, outlined questions in this way in The ANITEPAM Bulletin (No. 49, Feb. 2006), p. 12.

And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them,

‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

Matthew 25:37-40

omeone once said,” Bishop Michael Curry wrote in the fall of 2005, “that the mission of the Church is to go where the Spirit of God

already is at work in the world. I continue to be struck,” he added, “by the fact that the Risen Christ in all of the resurrection stories always seems to be way out ahead of the disciples. The angel says this to the confused disciples on that

“S

day of resurrection: ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed is going ahead of you to Galilee’ (Matthew 28:7). In John’s Gospel the Holy Spirit ‘will lead you into all truth’ (John 16:13).

“It may well be that in the Millennium Development Goals the Holy Spirit has gone on ahead of us…. Maybe in the Millennium Development Goals and movement we are seeing the Spirit of God already at work.”15

The summary of the MDGs from Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation (on p. 8), reminds us that about 1.2 billion people had less than $1 to spend today, and 815 million people were hungry. Some 500,000 mothers die in childbirth a year. Approximately 40 million people are now living with HIV/AIDS. Of these, 26.6 million are living in sub-Saharan Africa. And as the Millennium Campaign adds, “one billion of the world's poorest people do not have access to regular energy supplies, forcing them to clear trees for firewood or burn heavy-polluting fuels like kerosene that harm human health.” 16

In a campaign against such realities, are we – as Bishop Curry suggests – seeing the Spirit of God

already at work?

A meditation

Numbers can be numbing, we know. And they sometimes serve to mask the stories, the humanity, behind the figures. Read, then, the reflection on the next page. Consider for a moment the obstacles facing families with meager incomes as they address both the educational needs of children and the family’s needs for the household. Consider the obstacles facing churches, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governments in the Global South as they attempt to provide education. And, consider the obstacles facing Western churches, NGOs, and governments as they attempt to be

helpful. In the meantime, Kimaru’s niece remains as a “hewer of wood and drawer of water” (Joshua 9), and the years are passing.

It’s not easy, is it? The point of the “consider this” above, however, is not to overwhelm us. Rather it is but to suggest that as Kimaru goes about his ministry his niece’s situation is part of a large global fabric, and our calling is to find our rightful and faithful

(continued on page 14)

“Kimaru is the new vicar of St. Bartholomew’s,” I wrote in a journal I kept during my years as an Episcopal Church mission appointee in Kenya. “He has been anxious to see me for

15 Draft for article in the North Carolina Disciple, September 6, 2005.16 See www.millenniumcampaign.org.

Eradicate global poverty

Improve child education

Promote gender equality

Reduce child mortality

Improve maternal health

Combat HIV/AIDS

Protect the environment

Create global partnerships

some time, and so today I drive over to the vicarage, following the dirt track from the church to the corrugated iron house. Inside, I shake his hand and that of his three-year-old daughter. ‘We’re very contagious,’ he finally says. ‘You may want to wash your hands.’

“Apparently there are some eye problems that have spread through the Mary Leakey primary school nearby. His eyes are inflamed, and there seems to be some kind of salve all around his daughter’s. It occurs to me that he might have told me before I shook hands, and I suggest that we might postpone our meeting, but we go ahead anyway. Kimaru has been plunged into an awkward situation at his new parish, and we talk about it for awhile. I begin to imagine that my eyes are burning. Maybe, I say to myself, it’s time for me to go, and I make a respectable exit.

“As I drive out of the compound, I see a young woman, probably a niece of his who will forego schooling to serve her clergy uncle, filling plastic canisters of water at the church to carry over to the house. She’ll probably spend the afternoon gathering firewood somewhere for cooking tonight. Kimaru needs to be thinking about her future, I say to myself, as well as about his parish situation.”

The second Millennium Development Goal is uncompromising: Ensure that all boys and girls complete primary school. Full stop. The target date: 2015.

There are a lot of reasons why it is so difficult to achieve universal primary education, and Kimaru’s desire for help around the vicarage is only one explanation. There are school fees – modest by our standards, overwhelming if you are living on less than a dollar a day. There is the enormous youthful population in so many countries, an insufficient supply of qualified teachers, inadequate school facilities… the list goes on and on.

But it’s not as if the passion for education isn’t there. I never ceased to be touched by the sacrifices and the resourcefulness of Kenyan friends to get their children into school, and to keep them there. And nations can turn things around, too. Uganda directed much of its savings through debt cancellation (the Jubilee 2000 agenda) into universal primary education, and numbers in schools soared throughout the country.

But they don’t do it alone, and I’m not just referring to donor nations’ development assistance programs. It’s quite wonderful, really, the Church’s historic gift of education to so much of the world. Of course it wasn’t neutral; education is never marked by objectivity, no matter how much some may wish to see purity in the experience. Still, for all of the baggage, the Church understood that knowledge – even primary education – opened up a world to pupils everywhere… offering an ever-deepening understanding of God’s creation and of our human search for meaning. Still does.17

(continued from page 12)

place in it. Certainly answers are to be found. As Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation categorizes them, they fall under the rubrics

Learn

Pray Act Give

17 This reflection was originally written as part of a series of daily reflections at General Convention 2003, when the MDG resolution was presented, by the author through his work at the Washington Office on Africa.

Let’s turn to “Learn.” We’ll return to the others in later sessions.

Toward knowledge and understanding

This study is not designed to take us in detail through the eight Millennium Development Goals.18 We do emphasize, as we noted a moment ago in regard to Kimaru and his niece, that there is a global fabric, and each of the goals is intimately connected to the others. The Kimaru reflection may as easily address gender issues and the health of the niece’s mother (where is she?) as it does primary education, or address environmental sustainability (the wood and the water) as poverty (Kimaru’s) and children’s health (his daughter’s). The goals are of one fabric.

That said, what we would like for you to do is investigate a goal that – as we asked about in the previous session – resonates with you or with the group. If your group has decided on one or several goals, we encourage you to examine that or those.

Our intent is for you to do the following, mainly through the internet:

Gain a clear understanding of the goal, indicators and targets;

Get a good sense of the data that reveals the extent of the need;

Hear some stories related to that goal; Reflect on the goal through our eyes of faith.

Goals, indicators and targets

Our intention here is for you to gain a sense of the indicators and targets that give meaning to the goals. We don’t expect memorization; there’s no test at the end! Still, if we’re putting energy into the MDGs as part of our understanding of mission and ministry, it’s a good idea to grasp what they’re all about.

The point is that the goals involve far more than eight brief phrases. The targets and indicators render the implementation of these goals far more detailed and measurable than may at first appear. (Note also that countries will then set their own more specific targets and indicators based upon their own situations.) To access the MDGs targets and indicators, click on the world map on the bottom left of the United

Nations web pages on the MDGs (www.un.org/millenniumgoals/), where it says indicators. That takes you to a page where Millennium Indicators Database appears on the left. Choose the subsection, Goals, targets and indicators for the full list. (The web page is http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mi/mi_goals.asp).

The data

Our intention here is for you simply to gain some impressions of the hard evidence that reveals the extent of the need and the progress in addressing that need.

Examining the evidence as people of faith requires a caveat. It is valuable to know, for example, that “half a million women die in childbirth every year.  In North America, the chance of that happening is 1-in-3,500. In Sub-Saharan Africa, it’s 1-in-16.”19 The Church certainly should not bask in ignorance as we engage in issues of justice and human need. But, that does not mean that we must transform ourselves into “experts” in order to enter into action and advocacy. After all, Jesus never said, “Leave it to the experts.”

The Church is sometime drawn into detailed technical debates about one issue or another, when our real contribution is to live into the Christian love and compassion that Jesus called us to display. For us to have a sense of the degree of a problem and the alternatives to address it is valuable. For us to conclude that we must become masters of the data before we can engage in faithful reflection and action is a dubious proposition. You’ll discover what is essential to know as you go along.

With that view, we thus encourage you to look around, get a sense of what the situation is and what progress is being made on a goal or goals of interest to you, and note those things that made a particular impression upon you.

The United Nations web pages, mentioned above (www.un.org/millenniumgoals/), provide extensive information about the MDGs. While these web pages may look a bit intimidating, they do permit you a great deal of flexibility. If your parish has close ties with Haiti, for example, you can secure data on each of the goals from that country. If you’re interested in

18 Suggestions of ways to expand this study to cover the goals individually have been made in the facilitators edition of this resource. Participants may also want to consult the National Council of the Churches of Christ’s Eradicating Global Poverty: A Christian Study Guide on the Millennium Development Goals, cited on p. 1, which takes that approach.19 Cited in the Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation’s weekly update, “What One Can Do,” May 10, 2006.

Latin America or sub-Saharan Africa, you can secure regional data. Note the “2005 progress chart.”20 This website also reports on civil society21 initiatives.

The World Bank also maintains web pages on the MDGs (www.developmentgoals.org is the easiest way to get there). The site is heavily analytical regarding progress on the goals – but helpfully so. The left panel lets you choose the goal(s) of interest to you or the region of the world. The section Achieving the Goals under Home may be of special interest.

The Millennium Campaign is an initiative of the United Nations. It seeks to encourages people’s involvement and action for the realization of the Millennium Development Goals. Its website, www.millenniumcampaign.org/, has a Did you know? section (click on any of the goals on the upper left) that provides good information in readable form.

We keep mentioning Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation, and for good reason. This movement within the Church is key to our engagement with the MDGs. For thoughtful basics about the data, go to www.e4gr.org/ and click on Learn and understand on the left column.

There are a number of reports available on the internet that provide good information on the MDGs.

Be sure to take a look at the goals of special interest to you in the Millennium Development Goals Report 2005 (a pdf file) that appears at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mi/mi.asp.

Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals, is a report of the UN Millennium Project, headed by Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist who spoke at our General Convention in 2003. It is available at

www.unmillenniumproject.org/reports/index.htm. Health in the Millennium Development Goals is

a 2005 publication of the World Health Organisation, and is available at www.who.int/mdg/publications/mdg_report/en/index.html.

Human Development Report 2003: Millennium Development Goals: A compact among nations

to end human poverty is a publication of the UN Development Programme, and is available at http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2003/.

Stories

Our intention here is to help you make the connection between the MDGs themselves, the data indicating the realities of the issue or need, and the human face of poverty, hunger, health, education.

One of the interesting features of the Millennium Campaign website, mentioned above (www.millenniumcampaign.org/), is that it provides links to all sorts of civil society groups (that’s us!) who are addressing one goal or another. When, for example, I last looked at the 6th goal, dealing with HIV/AIDS and other diseases, the Did you know? section said simply, “In Zambia, 12% of the children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS.” It then named the source, ChristianAid in Britain, with a link.

And there we read: “In Lubumbashi [the Congo] Yumba Kamwanya’s husband died of an HIV-related illness, and her family abandoned her when they found out the cause of his death. She is HIV-positive….”

These stories abound. It just takes your rummaging around, looking at sites named under one goal or another at Millennium Campaign.

You may wish, at least for the duration of this study (we hope for longer!), to subscribe to the weekly e-mail, “What One Can Do,” from Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation. (The sign-up appears at the upper right of their website, www.e4gr.org/.) They usually begin with a story.

And don’t forget your own. You and others in your group are likely to have experiences, stories, to share.

Root causes

So what do we do with all of this? At this point you have a working understanding of the MDGs and some knowledge about one or more goals. You’ve

20 This is being written in the spring of 2006, so our references to the latest data are 2005 or earlier. Whenever this resource is used, naturally seek the most recent data, but keep in mind that countries have differing timetables for reporting. Even now, in 2006, the latest available data is often 2004, 2003, or earlier.21 The phrase civil society is not used here in the U.S. as much as it is elsewhere in the world. We speak of “the public” or, when the public is organized, of “non-profits” (a tax classification). Civil society embraces non-governmental organizations (the term the rest of the world uses for what we call non-profit organizations), faith communities, and various civic movements – anything non-governmental or non-business.

had a glimpse of the stories, the realities of the lives of many in our world. What now?

Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator and philosopher, wrote a still influential book (especially in the Global South) called Pedagogy of the Oppressed.22 Much of what he advocated has to do with what some call informal or popular education, a participatory approach to adult education. Freire sought, through dialogue, to advance the understanding of their world among those marginalized and living in poverty, and to act.

Sally Timmel and Anne Hope23 took his ideas and applied them in Africa, with a good dose of Christian theology thrown in. One of the things they would do, as they worked with small groups in rural Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe, is provide a simple drawing of some situation and ask people to talk about it. These drawings were not illustrations in the sense we often have of that term, for their intention was not to demonstrate a “truth.” Rather they were presented as an avenue to reflect upon root causes.

Most if not all of us in your group are not poor, marginalized, or oppressed, but this model for developing critical awareness of one of the MDGs can work for us too.

On page 18 is a drawing.24 It does not declare that “this is the way things are;” instead, it challenges us to see more clearly and enter into dialogue more deeply. While it is most effective as a group activity, you can give it some thought now on your own.

The sign above the small shop (the slab of wood with nails on each end) is blank. If the goals you or your group have chosen as of special interest relate to health, write Clinic into the blank sign; if it is education, write School supplies; if it is hunger, write Groceries. (If its

environmental sustainability, this picture doesn’t work as well, though the setting may

still stimulate a good reflection or conversation.)

Consider for a moment what this picture depicts. Note the people, the nature of the shop, the setting.

Now begin to ask yourself what reality this drawing

reveals to you, and with each answer you give, ask yourself why questions.

Here’s what we mean: We don’t want to prejudge what you do in your reflection; besides, there are many directions to take. Still, it may be useful to offer some help in getting you started. You might, for example, ask why the woman, with the child on her back, has come to, say, the clinic. You don’t know, of course, but create an answer. Is she successful in her quest: Doubtful. Why? The shelves are empty. And then the important why questions kick in. Why are the shelves empty? With each answer you give, you are moving toward identifying root causes. And that is the goal.

Here is an example not from the MDGs but from within the United States as a way to illustrate further what we mean. If there were a drawing of a homeless man on a street corner in any of our North Carolina cities, we would ask why he was there. If

we speculated that the reason was that he had no job, a series of why questions could lead us deeper and deeper into economic realities; if, on the other hand, we said he was mentally ill, the why questions could lead us deeper into issues of mental health care. And so on, toward root causes.

Discernment of root causes results from our moving from a sense of a real life situation to our identification of problems that explain that situation, until we finally examine what is at its root, what is behind, that problem. The answers may lead us to multiple root causes; in fact, it would be rare if that were not the case.

22 Originally published in Portuguese in 1968, it was to Seabury Press’ credit that they published an English edition in 1970. 23 Training for Transformation (Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1984).24 By Karen Spencer.

What the Millennium Development Goals are about is addressing root causes.

Root causes are the most basic explanations of a problem. When they are eliminated, the problem is unlikely to recur.

The point is that where we choose to intervene in any issue is directly related to how, and if, we help to bring about change. If someone who is hungry is at our church door, our feeding her is a good and right thing to do. But, it is important to recognize that by doing so we have not addressed the root causes of the hungry among us at all. What the Millennium Development Goals is about is addressing root causes. It is confronting societal

structures and systems that by their failures ensure ill-health and poor education and continued poverty.

Please, therefore, keep this ongoing task of discernment before you, for actions you may contemplate – in partnership – take on meaning within the MDGs the closer they come to confronting root causes.

Note here any thoughts you may have as you reflect on the drawing

Session 4 A vision of partnership

Readings: Then Jesus said to him,“What do you want me to do for you?”

Mark 10:51

espite the efforts of Jesus’ disciples to silence the blind beggar, Bartimaeus persisted. Finally Jesus told his disciples, “Call him here,” and Bartimaeus came. What Jesus did

next was to ask Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” Now think about this for a moment. Jesus had a reputation for healing, and here was a blind man. A busy man, with an agenda, might quickly heal Bartimaeus, and get back to business. But Jesus took the time not

Dmerely to have a little conversation, as if making a pastoral gesture; instead he allowed Bartimaeus to define his own needs, his own hopes.

Who is at the table remains a critical issue for the Church and the world, and this is especially true as we engage in ministry through the Millennium Development Goals. People who live in poverty need to be part of decisions about their lives. People living with AIDS need to be where power lies, where decisions are made as the world seeks, haltingly, to confront this pandemic. And partners in churches overseas with whom we seek to be engaged on matters regarding the MDGs – and we cannot be truly involved in the MDGs unless we are in relationship with partners overseas – must be at the table with us as we discern our calling and ministry together.

Jesus’ teachings call us into relationship, and because of that we in the Church are better-placed to speak of partnership in addressing the MDGs. We should be, need to be, prepared to ask partners in and out of the Church, “What do you want me to do with you?”

From paternalism to partnership

The basic, essential premise is this: If we seek to address the MDGs, as our Church has called us to do, we can only do this effectively as partners.

Moreover, if partnership is to be genuine and authentic, power does not devolve to either partner. Instead, both search for discernment grounded in our listening but also in our own convictions and our own context. This is the true expression of partnership.

What this means is that there is integrity to your own thinking and there is integrity to others’. It’s not either/or. There’s a history to all this. Let me explain what I’m talking about:

The nineteenth century was the great missionary century. European dominance in the world coincided with an evangelical fervor that sent missionaries into the colonial empires. Results varied, of course, but whether in China, India, or sub-Saharan Africa (Latin America had a longer and quite distinctive history), “younger churches” emerged, largely under the leadership if not control of European and North American missionaries.

Much has been written about Christian missions and missionaries, much of it critical. It’s one of life’s ironies that criticism has so often come from the West, while African church leaders will speak with great affection about the early missionaries and their deep, even if flawed, commitment to sharing the

Gospel in a foreign land.25 Certainly there were many failings deserving comment, but the point of this session is not to critique the missionary movement. Instead it is to understand more fully where we are in our journey toward genuine partnership, and how we got there.

What characterized the missionary movement, which stretches from the nineteenth century to the

second world war, was the combination of a colonial mentality with a missionary paternalism. This usually meant that a cultural view of European superiority merged with a mission view that missionaries were the ones with the knowledge of the faith, the control of the resources, and the status of leaders. They defined the agenda for the younger churches.

(continued on page 21)

The first book missionaries in Africa translated, aside from portions of the Bible, was John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. It was important to them because it encouraged the individual to find the strength to separate from the traditional community and take a stand for his or her faith. It may have served a useful purpose then, but this theme of the last two centuries – the individualization of our faith – has been, in many ways, a tragedy. It’s been used, in our time, to so affirm individual initiative and accomplishment as its own end that it relegates a sense of the common good to a peripheral ‘nice thought.’ And it undermines the message of community that dominates the gospels.

We talked a fair amount about the Millennium Development Goals at our recent diocesan convention [Diocese of North Carolina, January 2006]. I’ve been thinking since about the last goal: Create a global partnership for development. Progress on debt cancellation and fair trade and development assistance forms much of the agenda. But behind it all, for us, is a theology of partnership. It’s ironic, really, that this particular Millennium Development Goal talks about a ‘global partnership.’ The secular world didn’t discover the idea. We’ve known about it for 2,000 years. It’s just sometimes we haven’t spoken of, or lived out, partnership very well. It’s time.

John Mbiti, the African philosopher, remarked years ago that an African would never say, ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Instead he or she would say, ‘I am related, therefore I am.’ To me the answer to the question of engagement by people of faith in the issues raised by the Millennium Development Goals is not that the Global South is so needy but that we are simply related. Full stop. If we are all children of God, and for many, brothers and sisters in Christ – another one of those occasional ‘nice thoughts’ – then we seek to be engaged as related people.

Struggling with what such engagement means can take us in all sorts of directions. But I pray that in the process we allow ourselves to be needy too, to see in these goals a message to us. It may mean that, contrary to dominant American impulses, we are just quiet for awhile, we listen, we don’t organize anything or do anything for ‘them.’ We are

25 No doubt from other regions of the world; I simply have ties with Africa.

just present. I truly hope we will act as well. All I’m suggesting is that discernment – intentional reflection about God’s mission and our calling – is a critical part of the picture, and that a rush to a project often avoids thoughtful discernment of the place of an action in the context of our theology. When we take the time to be present, my suspicion is that God will be present too, and maybe nod and say that there is still some hope for us all.26

26 This reflection appeared in the School of Ministry’s bi-monthly series, Doing Theology, No. 11, February 2006.

(continued from page 19)

That wasn’t the original idea. The Church Missionary Society (now the Church Mission Society, still CMS), was founded within the evangelical wing of the Church of England in 1799 and articulated a “three-self strategy:” The role of the missionary was to help to establish a local church which was self-propagating, self-supporting, and self-governing.

This idea that the missionary was to “plant the seeds” and then get out of the way didn’t quite happen, and while we Anglicans began to move toward a self-governing indigenous church a bit earlier than many other churches, that movement did not gain firm traction until after World War II. It largely paralleled the movements for independence from colonial rule. If for no other reason than being part of a newly independent nation, the younger churches could not continue under the control of Western mission societies. It was simply untenable.

But there were other reasons. The vision of true partnership was not a new one; it’s just that the time was ripe for a deeper exploration of what it meant to be, faithfully, in relationship, across race, culture, nation, continent. In 1955 Max Warren, who then headed the CMS, called for “a fresh consideration of the meaning of partnership,” and the Anglican Congress, meeting in Toronto in 1963, articulated that critical “partnership phrase,” namely mutual responsibility and interdependence… a phrase that continues to be valued in Anglican circles.27

What one actually did varied immensely. A few took heed of Canon Burgess Carr’s appeal for a moratorium on missionaries. Essentially the Liberian Anglican, general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches in the late 1960s, asked missionaries to “get out of the way” as the African churches sought to work out their own identity. Others were convinced that it was wisest for missionaries to remain but under the authority of the African churches. A third course, intermixed with the other two, was to talk about the meaning of relationship and partnership. These folk were recognizing that power realities (the comparative wealth of Western churches, for example) made it essential that initiatives affirm true partnership.

Unlike the mission societies in England, the Episcopal Church USA largely got out of the missionary business. Numbers dropped

dramatically. And, from the 1960s we tended to enter a phase – as did much of the West – that whatever our African partners defined as a priority was what we were to support. Not always, certainly. But, it was an indication of our growing awareness of our historic paternalism toward the Global South that now, working so hard to hear our partners, we accepted much without questioning, much without accountability. In many ways this was a good and helpful instinct, but it was not authentic partnership, did not embody mutual responsibility and interdependence.

In subsequent decades the growth of companion relationships between US-American dioceses and dioceses in the Global South – both the richness of the experience and the stewardship and partnership issues it raised – deepened our engagement. We began to learn that relationship is more than having a project and more than our providing funds for a worthwhile endeavor. We began to learn that it was okay to talk about accountability as a testimony to our theology of stewardship. And while we generally have yet to grapple with defining our own needs and hopes in cross-cultural relationships – certainly a measure of true partnership – we have begun to claim our own integrity through shared decisions.

What I mean by that last phrase – claiming our own integrity through shared decisions – is that partnership entails both partners considering any proposed shared activity from the standpoint of their own priorities, a sense of what they are about, of what they are called to do. If a Global South partner tells us what their priorities are, our answer is not that they are wrong, but the initiative they seek may still not be one that is consistent with our calling. Working out the way forward together is the mark of authentic partnership. When I see the phrase the CMS’ Canon Tim Dakin used in a sermon, that partnership “aimed at re-envisioning new patterns of gospel relationships,”28 this is what I think he means.

Struggling with a theology of partnership, and how we live into that faith understanding, is a crucial part of our engagement with the Millennium Development Goals. What is your theology of partnership? What Scripture would you cite as important to you when you talk of faithful relatedness in our world? Look at the “Ten Principles of Partnership in the Anglican

27 From a sermon by Canon Tim Dakin, General Secretary of the CMS, in 2004. www.cms-uk.org/docs/RamsdenSermon2004.doc28 Ibid.

Communion” on the next page. Keep them before you as you discern your ministry.

Ten Principles of Partnership in the Anglican Communion 29

Local Initiatives – The responsibility for mission in any place belongs primarily to the church in that place

Mutuality – We have a deep sense of open and joint accountability. Mutuality means sharing power

Responsible Stewardship – Our resources are jointly owned and held in trust by each member for the common good

Inter-dependence – There are no absolute donors or absolute recipients. We need each other and our partnership cannot be overtaken by a parochial, cultural or racial homogeneity

Cross-fertilization – We are willing and eager to learn from one another

Integrity – In recognizing that all partners are essentially equal, we are committed to being real and honest

Transparency – We are open and honest with one another

Solidarity – We are part of each other, committed to one another in Christ's body

Meeting Together – We will always find a forum for evaluation and sharing of ideas

Acting Ecumenically – Our mission relationships as Anglicans must be seen as part of the wider mission relationships of all Christians

Session 529 From the Episcopal Church’s Mission Issues and Strategy Advisory Group II (MISAG II), Towards Dynamic Mission: Renewing the Church for Mission, 1993.

What shall we do?

Readings: Do not be conformed to this world,but be transformed by the renewing of your minds,so that you may discern what is the will of God….

Romans 12:2

hat do we do? That’s the focus of this session. Earlier we noted the four rubrics from Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation: Learn, Pray, Act, and Give. Much from the

previous sessions can be attributed to the first, learn. In this final session, we want to consider the other three, all of which are types of actions. Our goal is to encourage discernment in which Wpeople throughout the Church may identify and proceed to carry out various actions appropriate to you and your congregation.

Action is the essence of the resolution we passed in diocesan convention in 2004. In addition to its general endorsement of the MDGs, it set a goal to give 0.7% of the annual diocesan budget to fund international development programs, and it urged all congregations to do the same. It encouraged us to use our bonds within the Anglican Communion to build relationships with people and communities in the developing world. It asked us to engage in advocacy for the U.S. to fulfill its commitment to 0.7%.

The focus seemed largely upon money, but note the relational, the partnership, aspect affirmed in the resolution’s reference to our bonds within the Communion. This was a tangible, concrete call into global community.

That’s the thrust of the eighth Millennium Development Goal: To develop a global partnership for development. If the first seven refer to needs within the Global South, the last goal is oriented toward us in the “developed” world. We are the ones who need to enter more fully into partnership.

Give

There is so much in scripture that calls us to be good stewards – and so many thoughtful resources on stewardship – that here we shall not belabor the point that our sharing of our comparative wealth, of seeking, as Paul writes to the people in Corinth, “a fair balance between [our] present abundance and their need” (2 Corinthians 8:13-14), is both part and parcel to our ministry and a logical outcome of reflection upon the Millennium Development Goals.Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation has launched a “70 in 7” campaign. The goal is for 70%

of all Episcopalians and Episcopal congregations to donate 0.7% of their income over the next seven years, to make the MDGs a reality. It’s an ambitious vision. It’s also a faithful one.

As critical as funding is to reach the MDGs, it should be clear from the theme and tone of this resource that we are anxious that you and your congregation do far more than just write a check. Which is why we relate giving to, and consider it a part of, a broader action.

Act

In one way or another we’ve

talked a lot about discernment in these sessions: Discernment…

about our sense of mission, ministry and calling; about those among the MDGs that take on

special meaning for us; about the root causes of the situations which

that goal or those goals address; and about mutual responsibility, interdependence,

and partnership as we seek to act.

There is yet one more act of discernment. The excellent What Can One Person Do? (mentioned on p. 1) names four criteria for our decisions about where to give, our preferences influencing our action. These are:

“70 in 7”

70% of all Episcopalians and

Episcopal congregations to donate 0.7% of

their income over the next seven

years to make the MDGs a reality.

I want to help bring about systemic change: “I want to reduce the most poverty with my gift.”

I am issue-focused: “I want to give my money and energy to advancing work on a certain issue.”

I want my involvement to be relationship-based: “I want to feel connected. I want to be able to picture the community to which I give….”

I want to volunteer or engage in professional work abroad: “I’d like to learn how to volunteer, or to work, or spend part of my vacations overseas…; I have skills I think could be useful directly….”30

So much to consider! Still, we now are faced, hopefully, with some decisions: What to do, how to do what we want to do in relationship, how to wed our relational actions with faithful stewardship of our resources.

Where do we get ideas of what to do?

First of all, we can get them from ourselves! Don’t neglect your own insights, contacts, and relationships.

Contact our diocesan coordinator on the MDGs or members of our companion dioceses and global missions groups to examine possibilities for partnership activities. Our website, www.episdionc.com/, can lead you to them.

What Can One Person Do? contains a delightfully creative section, “Action 8: What Can One Person Do? A Shower of Suggestions.”31

Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation has a helpful “what you can do” page, divided into you, your congregation, your diocese, and your church. Go to www.e4gr.org and you’ll find the heading on the right. In addition, your subscribing to their weekly e-mail, “What One Can Do,” will provide further ideas.

Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) has given serious attention to the MDGs. Their website (www.er-d.org – “Our Programs” in the center leads you to the MDG material) includes descriptions of what ERD is doing, which may both give you ideas and provide avenues for your engagement with ERD’s important work.

The United Nations’ MDGs website has a “what you can do” section. Go to www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ and click on that

title in the lower right corner. You’ll find references and links to a variety of civil society, including faith-based, initiatives.

The ONE Campaign seeks to engage Americans “to fight the global AIDS emergency and end extreme poverty.” Founded by, among others, Bread for the World, CARE, Oxfam America, Save the Children US, and World Vision, the ONE Campaign links directly to the international effort to achieve the MDGs. Episcopal Relief and Development is a member of the campaign. At General Convention 2006, the Episcopal Church launched a grassroots partnership with The ONE Campaign, called ONE Episcopalian. It seeks to equip dioceses, parishes, and individuals to be more effective advocates. Go to www.one.org for further information.

The Micah Challenge is an initiative of the World Evangelical Alliance and the Micah Net-work, the latter made up of 260 Christian-based community development agencies, predominant-ly from the Global South. The campaign “aims to deepen Christian engagement with the poor and to influence leaders of rich and poor nations to fulfill their public promise to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and so halve absolute global poverty by 2015.” Go to www.micahchallenge.org for further information.

Advocacy as action

In a very real sense advocacy – seeking particular actions and policy from our government in the interest of others – and programs – supporting or initiating “outreach” activities that directly address an immediate need – are of the same fabric. Sometimes we have placed one in competition with the other.

Outreach vs. advocacy reflects the historic and continuing quandary, that we are called to feed the hungry person at our door, but that act of feeding rarely challenges the systemic reasons – the root causes – of why he is at the door in the first place. Telling someone who is hungry now that we are at work on the systemic reasons for his hunger isn’t going to solve his problem, nor is feeding the hungry now going to reduce hunger in global and domestic society for the long term.

30 Sabina Alkire and Edmund Newell, What Can One Person Do? Faith to Heal a Broken World (New York: Church Publishing, 2005), pp. 82-83. This was adapted from the EGR booklet, Preach the Gospel at All Times. We commend the entire section, “Action 3: Give 0.7 Percent,” pp. 76-85, as you reflect on your stewardship.31 Ibid., pp. 184-191.

“Outreach,” as generally understood, meets the immediate relational need, and that is good; advocacy meets the need for fundamental change, and that is good too. Both are critical to our witness.

The targets for the eighth MDG, A global partnership for development, raise important advocacy issues. They focus especially upon three aspects of international relations: Trade, aid and debt.

Trade: The general target here is to address the special needs of poorer nations in the Global South by providing them with access for their goods to markets in the developed world. While this target includes such phrases as “open trading” and “tariff- and quota-free access” to our markets – phrases often associated with an economic structure called “free trade” – civil society and faith-based advocacy have focused more on the term and concept of “fair trade.” A good example of this issue has to do with the great difficulty Global South countries have in getting their agricultural products into the United States and into Europe. This is neither free trade nor fair trade.

The trade target also calls for global partnerships that lead to our providing access to affordable essential drugs in developing

countries. While some progress has been made, this remains a major challenge. The United States in particular has fought against countries in the Global South that have sought to use World Trade Organisation rules that permit countries essentially to waive intellectual property rights (patents) that protect pharmaceutical corporations. This has had a tragic impact upon access to treatment for HIV/AIDS.

Aid: The target here is simply to seek more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction. The

figure for assistance from donor nations such as the United States has grown from just over $50 billion a year to $79 billion in 2004. This is a significant increase, but it is still only a fourth of a percent of the wealth of donor countries. The U.S. percentage of GNP is still within the 0.1% to 0.2% range.

Debt: The target here is for the international community to deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt problems through national and international measures. The aim is to make debt sustainable in the long term. This includes enhanced debt relief for heavily- indebted poor countries and the cancellation of official bilateral debt.

This debt target will sound familiar to some of us, as churches and civil society embraced the Jubilee 2000 campaign, seeking debt cancellation, during the last decade. The need for further reductions, to free funds for poverty alleviation, remains. The total external debt of African countries still hovers at $1 trillion.32

Aspects of national and international economic policy may seem intimidating, and the whole thing is, or can be, complex. But look again at the several paragraphs under “The data” heading on p. 14. We do not have to be experts on international economics. For example, we do not have to master

what is called TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights) to know that demanding hundreds of dollars for anti-retroviral drugs to treat HIV/AIDS from people earning less than a dollar a day is a death sentence. We can still say that we do not want our government to create obstacles for people living in poverty and seeking life-saving medicines.

We also don’t have to do this alone. One of the great values in having people of faith in church-based advocacy offices in Washington is that they can keep us well-informed and provide guidance

32 UN Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs, “Progress on Goal 8,” DPI/2363/Rev.2, September 2005.

May the work of the Millennium Development Goals become a work of disciples of Jesus making a difference in the world for the

cause of the kingdom of God.The Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, Bishop of North Carolina

about advocacy on issues which we, as a church, have named as important to us. Which leads us to…

The Episcopal Public Policy Network, coordinated by the Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations and involving more than 13,000 Episcopalians across the country. The network engages in advocacy regarding international peace and justice, including the MDGs.

Anyone can register to be part of the network at their website (www.episcopalchurch.org/eppn/). What you will then begin to receive by e-mail are “policy alerts” that will provide you with the background to a particular issue; what is happening in Washington, usually in legislation before Congress; and what action they recommend. You are not being told what to think! Nor are actions taken in your name. Rather you are being informed and given the opportunity to contact your representative or senators (easily on-line). You may use a draft message they have prepared, you may edit it, or replace it with one of your own.

There are many other groups, including faith-based ones, that can be helpful. Here are several on the themes of the eighth MDG:33

On trade justice: The U.S. Interfaith Trade Justice Campaign (www.tradejusticeusa.org/), in partnership with religious institutions, seeks to mobilize and facilitate an active engagement of faith communities in educational activities, policy advocacy and fair trade efforts, so that global trade and investment policies promote economic and social justice, human development and ecological sustainability.

On access to medicines: The Global AIDS Alliance (www.globalaidsalliance.org/) seeks, with Episcopal Church support, to mobilize the political will and financial resources needed to slow, and ultimately stop, the global AIDS crisis in the poor countries hardest hit by the pandemic. Its website includes possible advocacy actions.

On aid: InterAction is an alliance of U.S.-based international development and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations, including Episcopal Relief and Development. With more

than 160 members operating in every developing country, they work to overcome poverty, exclusion and suffering by advancing social justice and basic dignity for all. While their advocacy is not specifically for the increase of U.S. development assistance, they are a valuable source of information about issues in U.S. foreign aid, and their website (www.interaction.org/) provides advice about “appropriate giving.”

On debt: Jubilee USA (www.jubileeusa.org/) is an alliance of 75 faith communities, human rights, environmental, labor, and community groups, including the Episcopal Church, working for the definitive cancellation of crushing debts to fight poverty and injustice in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Their website has advocacy “actions of the month” as well as information about “Jubilee Congregations.”

A final word about advocacy: Offices and networks such as the ones just mentioned are not a substitute for action by members of our congregations. In fact, a good letter from a constituent has considerable influence upon a member of Congress, often far more than a message from an advocacy organization.

But, it’s our knowing when to write or visit, and what specifically to ask for, that propels members of Congress toward actions that we want them to take. Telling your member that you are concerned about the AIDS pandemic in Africa will elicit a courteous reply that she or he is too. Asking that your member support an amendment to an appropriations bill next week that will help make HIV/AIDS drugs available to citizens in the Global South is a meaningful action requiring a concrete response. That’s where offices such as our Episcopal Church Office of Government Relations come in, monitoring legislation and informing us… another good example of partnership.

However you discern your calling, whatever you choose to do, our prayer is that you will undertake more than a good study. Our “Parting thoughts” on the next page may be helpful. As Bishop Curry has written, “May the work of the Millennium Development Goals become a work of disciples of Jesus making a difference in the world for the cause of the kingdom of God.”34

33 Contact the School of Ministry for other suggestions of sources that may meet your particular needs and interests.34 Draft for article in the North Carolina Disciple, September 6, 2005.

Pray Church outreach and advocacy folk have sometimes neglected prayer. Don’t. The need may be pressing,

the way forward may even be clear, but bringing our hopes and our concerns before our God grounds our ministry firmly in our faith.

There are many sources for appropriate prayers. The “Prayer for the Human Family” in the Book of Common Prayer35 is an excellent place to start. As your own actions become clear, you might wish to write your own collect. The School of Ministry provides guidance as to how.36

35 No. 3, p. 815.36 See www.episdionc.org/schoolofministry/collects.htm.

Parting thoughts

You can’t do everything. Don’t try.

Build on relationships you may have, or engage in our companion relationships.

Discern which of the MDGs touch you most.

Try to see how the second and third points above relate.

Talk with your international partners. And if your agenda differs from theirs, you’ve got something to really talk about. Respect the integrity of your partners to set their agenda and priorities, but this doesn’t mean you have to do something you don’t want to do. Discernment, remember? Together.

Pray.

And finally, enjoy. Living into this call to place the MDGs within the context of our faith isn’t meant to be a burden. It can be a gift, to others, and to ourselves.

A BIDDING PRAYER FOR AN END TO GLOBAL POVERTY AND INSTABILITYBased on the UN Millennium Development Goals 38

  Brothers and sisters in Christ: Before he was crucified, our Savior Jesus Christ promised to draw to himself all things whether in heaven or on earth. Let us pray, therefore, that the peace accomplished through the Cross of Christ may be realized in our own world and our own relationships. Let us pray for the Church and the world God so loves, for peace among all nations, and for the reconciliation of all people and all things in the Name of Christ. Silence Almighty God, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ was lifted high upon the cross that he might draw the whole world to himself: Mercifully grant that we, who glory in the mystery of our redemption, may have the grace to take up our cross and follow him in pursuit of your work of reconciliation in the world. 

38 From the Episcopal Church website at www.episcopalchurch.org/3654_64549_ENG_HTM.htm. Used by permission. They also provide an “Episcopal Litany for Social Justice” and a “Stations of the Cross for Global Justice and Reconciliation. See www.episcopalchurch.org/3654_68236_ENG_HTM.htm.

God of love, in your mercy,Hear our prayer. Let us pray for the poor, hungry, and neglected all over the world, that their cries for daily bread may inspire works of compassion and mercy among those to whom much has been given Silence Almighty and most merciful God, you command us to offer food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted: Grant that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart; that, following in the steps of your blessed Son, we may give of ourselves in the service of others until poverty and hunger cease in all the world, and all things are reconciled in the reign of Christ. God of love, in your mercy,Hear our prayer. Let us pray for schools and centers of learning throughout the world, for those who lack access to basic education, and for the light of knowledge to blossom and shine in the lives of all God’s people. Silence Eternal God, the author and source of all knowledge and Truth: bless all who seek to learn and those who teach them, and inspire us to break down barriers that withhold education from your children; that, enlightened with the bright beams of Wisdom, all may be equipped to seek the blessings of liberty, justice, and peace. God of love, in your mercy,Hear our prayer.Let us pray for an end to the divisions and inequalities that scar God’s creation, particularly the barriers to freedom faced by God’s children throughout the world because of gender; that all who have been formed in God’s image might have equality in pursuit of the blessings of creation. Silence O God, in whom there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free: Unite the wills of all people, that the walls which divide us and limit equality among your children may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; so that all may live together in justice, harmony, and peace. God of love, in your mercy,Hear our prayer. Let us pray for the health of women, children and families around the world, especially for an end to maternal and child mortality, that in building healthy families, all God’s people may be empowered to strengthen their communities and repair the breaches which divide nations and peoples. Silence Almighty and ever-living God, giver of life and love, and Sanctifier of all families: Protect the health and safety of all women in childbirth and the children whom they bear, and inspire your people to work for an end to the deadly conditions which fuel maternal and child mortality throughout the world; that, in

building strong and healthy families and communities, all may be strengthened to do your will on earth until the day when you gather us into one heavenly family. God of love, in your mercy,Hear our prayer. Let us pray for an end to pandemic disease throughout the world, particularly the scourges of HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis; that plagues of death may no longer fuel poverty, destabilize nations, and inhibit reconciliation and restoration throughout the world. Silence O God, the strength of the weak and the comfort of all who suffer: Grant your saving health to all who are afflicted by disease throughout the world. Bless the labors of all who minister to the sick, and unite the wills of nations and peoples in seeking an end to the pandemics of our age; that sickness may be turned to health, sorrow turned to joy, and mourning turned to praise of your Holy Name. God of love, in your mercy,Hear our prayer. Let us pray for an end to the waste and desecration of God’s creation, for access to the fruits of creation to be shared equally among all people, and for communities and nations to find sustenance in the fruits of the earth and the water God has given us. Silence

 Almighty God, you created the world and gave it into our care so that, in obedience to you, we might serve all people: Inspire us to use the riches of creation with wisdom, and to ensure that their blessings are shared by all; that, trusting in your bounty, all people may be empowered to seek freedom from poverty, famine, and oppression.  God of love, in your mercy,Hear our prayer.  Let us pray for all nations and people who already enjoy the abundance of creation and the blessings of prosperity, that their hearts may be lifted up to the needs of the poor and afflicted, and partnerships between rich and poor for the reconciliation of the world may flourish and grow. Silence  Merciful God, you have bestowed upon us gifts beyond our imagining and have reminded us that all that we have belongs to you alone and is merely held in trust by human hands: we give you thanks for those moments of reconciliation and grace we see in our world, of wrongs that are made right, knowing that in your love all things are possible. Inspire in our nation, its leaders and people a spirit of greater sacrifice and devotion in the use of our treasures for the reconciliation of your world; that, in forsaking wealth and giving up ourselves to walk in the way of the Cross, we may find it to be none other than the way of life and peace. 

God of love, in your mercy,Hear our prayer. Let us pray for the departed, particularly those who have died as a result of poverty, hunger, disease, violence, or hardness of the human heart. Silence Almighty God, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ rose from the tomb and destroyed forever the bondage of sin and death: We commend to your mercy all your departed servants, particularly those who have died as a result of the brokenness of our world; and we pray that we, too, may share with [the Blessed Virgin Mary, ______ and] all the saints in the joy of your heavenly reign. God of love, in your mercy,Hear our prayer. The Celebrant adds a concluding Collect: Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered together and reconciled under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and forever. Amen.