New expressions of partnership in mission

On Wednesday, the Along the Road podcast released a new episode in its “Encounter” series focused on mission and partnership. Listen to the 40-minute broadcast here. The guests were the Rev. Jihyun Oh, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly and Executive Director of the Interim Unified Agency, and the Rev. Mienda Uriarte,  Interim Deputy Executive Director of the IUA who formerly served as the director of World Mission, now known as Global Ecumenical Partnerships.

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Hosts valerie izumi, a ruling elder who serves as manager of General Assembly Nominations and Representation for the IUA, and the Rev. Manuel Silva-Esterrich, manager of Call Process Support in the IUA, spoke with Oh and Uriarte about a 2003 policy statement by the 215th General Assembly called “Presbyterians Do Mission in Partnership.”

Discussion on the podcast began with recognition of both the confessional nature of the policy statement — that it rooted itself in a sense of the church’s core identity — and an appreciation for how relevant the statement remains 22 years later. Reflecting on what stood out to her as she revisited the document, Uriarte lifted up the idea of “belonging to each other” and how the statement addresses the idea of belonging on both individual and community levels.

For her part, Oh described how reading the policy statement reminded her of the work of translating the Book of Order into Korean. She explained that the team doing the work focused in on how best to capture the expansiveness of God’s mission —  theologically and biblically. While they considered understandings of mission as "sending" or "missionaries," ultimately they chose to translate the phrase as "the work God does." Oh went on to explain how that idea extends beyond just sharing the good news of Jesus to the whole work of God in the world, and how we are able to engage in that work only through partnership.

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“Partnership is theologically and biblically based on the fundamental belief that God's love for the world is greater than any one church can possibly comprehend or realize,” Oh said.

This understanding, Oh said, calls us not only to ecumenical partnership, but also to partnership with people of other faiths.

izumi pointed out how the document refers to partnership as a discipline — something that must be worked on and maintained through commitment, consistency and effort. Later, Silva-Esterrich lifted up the guiding principles described in the policy study that inform the PC(USA)’s engagement in partnership and mission. He listed these five principles: shared grace and thanksgiving, mutuality and  interdependence, recognition and respect, open dialogue and transparency, and the sharing of resources. The ongoing importance and relevance of each of these concepts was explored throughout the episode.

Oh and Uriarte discussed how pivotal it is that partnership be rooted in context. Congregations and even presbyteries are called to consider who their neighbors are — individuals, communities, businesses and otherwise — and to explore what it means to partner with these neighbors from a perspective of mutual benefit and service. Uriarte particularly challenged churches to consider the opportunities for partnership they may have dismissed over overlooked.

The risk of these kinds of community engagement, Silva-Esterrich emphasized, is a propensity for a dependent or co-dependent dynamic to develop, particularly where disparities in power, privilege and wealth are involved. Uriarte agreed, pointing out that the 2003 document specifically highlights the ideas of mutuality and interdependence. It’s crucial for all partners to have a sense of self-reliance and to be guided by self-determination, Uriarte said, adding that this has sometimes been a struggle for those in the PC(USA) to recognize and confront.

“Because of who we are as PC(USA), with the wealth that the denomination has, it can be easy to lose sight that we've gotten lost in our dominance, or we've overstepped, not necessarily intentionally, and … invaded the partners’ space for that self-reliance and self-determination,” Uriarte said. “It can be a struggle for us to say, OK, then, we need to back off.”

Oh pointed out that part of cultivating mutuality in partnership is in sharing resources and, along with that, recognizing all the different ways that resources exist beyond simply financial. She referenced the Co-Moderators of the 224th General Assembly (2020), Ruling Elder Elona Street-Stewart and the Rev. Gregory Bentley, who talked about the particular resources that Indigenous communities and Black communities have to offer the denomination in terms of “resilience and restoration and critique that can also be a resource for us in our in our seeking to be faithful to God.”

Where mutuality is truly present, faith transformation happens together, Oh said. izumi quoted the “Presbyterians Do Mission in Partnership” document itself in reference to this idea: “Guided by Christ's humility, we work to empty ourselves of all pride, power, sin and privilege so that God may be glorified (Philippians 2:5-11). Within and beyond our connectional community, doing mission in such true partnership opens us to opportunities for mutual encouragement, mutual transformation, mutual service and mutual renewal.”

Silva-Esterrich offered an illustration of this idea by recounting a visit to the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. There one can see how an instrument that began with ancestors in Africa evolved into different forms in different parts of the world, according to the communities that encountered it and made it their own.

“Mission is like that,” Silva-Esterrich explained. “When we give the tools, when we know the tools, it will be transformed with the community within. I believe in that part: the transformation of the tools into what the community will need.”

izumi asked both Uriarte and Oh to reflect on where they find hope for our current moment in revisiting this 2003 document. Uriarte pointed to how much the policy statement emphasizes new expressions and new dynamics. The statement provides grounding and foundation, she said, even as it encourages the church to seek “renewed opportunities for new expression.”

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“I think [this idea of new expressions] has a lot to do with where my hope is as we think about the church, global engagement, our calling, our faithfulness,” Uriarte said. “I have a lot of hope for new expressions and what that might look like, sound like, how we might experience that.”

Oh said that partnership is a discipline that guides the whole connectional church, from the individual and beyond.

“I think partnership takes a different sort of orientation in the world. It can't be purely individualistic. We have to believe that we are whole together. We can't just be whole individually,” Oh said. “We have to also work towards the right sort of personal wholeness and healing and restoration. But there isn't individual wholeness without also communal wholeness.”

With this understanding of how the church engages in partnership, Oh said she finds hope in how it can be powerfully recontextualized for this current moment.

“I think [the world] probably does need to see a community and look at it and be able to say, ‘See how they love one another? See how they are mutually connected to one another? See how they are trying to hold together and working towards the wholeness, not just of themselves, but of the communities around them?’” Oh said. “I think there is a beautiful witness that we can offer to the world through this sense of partnership that exhibits the unity of Christ's body in the world.”

Along the Road is a weekly podcast produced by members of the Interim Unified Agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). It consists of two alternating styles of episodes. "Nourish" episodes are shorter and geared toward ruling elders and deacons, while "Encounter" episodes are longer interviews primarily geared toward mid council and church leaders. New episodes are typically released on Wednesdays and are available on all major podcast platforms.