Church missions need support, missionaries tell men
7/18/2001 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn. NOTE: For coverage of the United Methodist Men's congress, see UMNS stories #315, #316 and #317.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (UMNS) - United Methodist missionaries brought their own message of good news to the recent UMMen Congress: Supporting mission work is something every congregation can do.
Eight missionaries from around the world, along with staff, were on hand at the 8th International UMMen Congress to promote the Advance for Christ and His Church and to stir men's interest in supporting church mission work. About 4,000 people attended the United Methodist Men's gathering July 13-15 at Purdue University.
"What most people don't understand is that for $5 a member per year, a local church can ... covenant with a missionary," said Russell Scott, executive secretary for the Advance at the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries in New York.
The United Methodist Church has more than 2,000 missionaries, and Scott said the board would like all local congregations to establish a covenant relationship with a missionary. He and the missionaries talked to as many men as they could during the event's Ministry Fair.
"There is in general a lack of awareness of the Advance," Scott said. "It's not really limited to men, but it's across the church."
People are more aware of the work that the Advance supports - missionaries, Habitat for Humanity, the Heifer Project, disaster relief - than they are of the program itself. One hundred percent of every donation to one of the Advance's ministries goes to support the ministry, and not to the Advance's overhead costs, Scott noted.
"What we'd like to do is ask men to become more involved in supporting missionaries," Scott said.
Many local church people don't understand what it means to be in mission, said the Rev. Pat Watkins of Richmond, Va., the mission interpreter in residence for the denomination's Southeastern Jurisdiction. Watkins was meeting men at the congress and trying to excite them about mission work.
During the United Methodist Men's event, a number of participants expressed interest in possibly doing mission work. Missionary Eric Torres said at least two people told him they were ready to retire and wanted to dedicate one or two months to a mission experience.
For Torres, the event presented an opportunity to learn from the men in addition to spreading the word about his work. He's originally from Peru. "We don't have these kinds of events over there, so it's also a learning experience for me," he said. "... When you're in mission, you're always learning."
Torres, who has served in Latin America, is on assignment by the board to North Carolina, where he has worked with the Wesley Heritage Foundation on distributing Methodism founder John Wesley's works in Spanish. He also is working with Shalom Zones, refugee resettlement and teaching Hispanic leaders about Wesley.
Mission work is a process of giving to and receiving from other people, Torres said. He experiences the faith of Christ and the spirit of God moving around him, he said. It's a matter of experiencing the living God and sharing love, he said.
In Peru, he has worked with kids who had been told they are "nobody," and he described the difference it makes when mission people from far away come along and tell the young people they are "somebody."
"This event has been extremely exciting for me," said Allison Blount, who serves at the Metropolitan Young Adult Training Program in New York City's East Harlem. He works primarily with minority men between the ages of 18 and 30 who are coming out of prison, foster care or homeless shelters. The program gives them a second chance and helps them get the skills they need to live independently.
He was excited by the kind of interest that had been shown by lay people and leaders in the church, he said. He had received a lot of questions about the kinds of challenges that missionaries confront, including scarcity of resources and the intractability of some problems. He also drew a lot of encouragement from men who said they couldn't do what he's doing.
"I tell them I don't blame them. I wouldn't either, if God hadn't forced me into it," Blount said with a smile. Mission work "gets in your system," he said. He left seminary because he felt the urge to be involved in ministry in a direct, tangible way, he said.
One of Blount's early mission experiences involved working with a team on repairing homes in Appalachia. "The feeling of satisfaction is really indescribable," he said.
Watkins taught auto mechanics in Nigeria for three years. The best part of that ministry was the relationship that he formed with the guys in the class, he said. Teaching mechanics was important, but the class almost seemed like an excuse to get to know the Nigerians, he said.
"Men have a hard time walking up to somebody and becoming lifelong friends," Watkins said. They find it easier to build relationships if they're doing something together, such as electrical or plumbing work or the like, he said. Working gives them an excuse to relate to each other, he said.
Mission work does not involve taking pity on people, but instead seeing them as "beautiful children of God," Watkins said. "Being able to recognize that in another human being is part of my passion."
For more information, call Scott or the Rev. William Carter, both with the Advance, at (212) 870-3790.
# # #
|
Back : News Archives 2001 Main
|
|
“We believe in God and in each other.”The people of The United Methodist Church
Still Have Questions?
If you have any questions Ask
InfoServ
Purchase a $20 buzzkill t-shirt and help save a life
Buy a t-shirt
|
Korean News