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Chapter 2: Partnership, Participation and Hospitality

Summary

This chapter describes the emergence of partnership as a concept in mission discourse and critiques its use. It highlights the relationship between partnership and missio dei and argues that partnership needs development and refreshing if it is to provide a mission theology for today. Participation and hospitality are suggested as conceptual developments that enhance partnership.

Introduction

2.1 The governing principle for the Church of England concerning world mission relationships since the mid-1960s has been partnership. While this concept has opened up possibilities for new shapes of relationships in the immediate post-colonial social climate, it has also proved to be difficult to grasp and implement as relationships have progressed. This chapter will explore the theology of partnership and how partnership has been exercised in and through the Mission Agencies and the Diocesan Companion Links. It will assess the benefits of this approach as well as outlining its enduring challenges. It will argue that partnership needs further articulation and the adoption of a deeper level of understanding and practice through concepts such as participation and hospitality. While not rejecting partnership, it will be argued that this was essentially a language of the post-colonial era and a new language for new times is needed. The language of mission today is often expressed in terms of ‘community’, ‘relationship’ and ‘encounter’. These represent a wider understanding of mission beyond the more formal understandings of partnership.

2.2 Partnership is a multi-faceted concept that is difficult to define with any accuracy. The Oxford English Dictionary definition of partner is

‘a person who takes on an undertaking with another or others especially in a business or firm with shared risks and profits’.27

Partnership holds notions both of difference and shared concerns. It implies a coming together of people of difference in a shared enterprise. One of the most common uses of the word is with business relationships involving financial arrangements. For example, a partner in a firm of solicitors or accountants has reached a level of seniority that involves a substantial level of ownership. Likewise a product may be produced ‘in partnership with’. The term ‘partner’ also works in modern usage to denote a relationship of intimacy and depth that does not have the legally binding nature of marriage. Partnership is a word or concept denoting a closeness of working together that entails some element of commitment even if this is only aspirational. Another example would be the use of the word to describe the need for greater joint working between the National Health Service and Social Services in England. A new partnership is hailed as a deepening in working relationships that can be represented by a Memorandum of Understanding or working agreement. To summarize: one prominent missiologist has described the word ‘partnership’ as

‘this deceptively simple term masks a complex reality’.28

2.3 Partnership in the context of the Christian faith is a deeper expression of relationship involving relationship with the Trinitarian God and each other. It also reflects the nature of God as Three in One. The biblical word used to denote partnership is koinonia translated partnership or communion. Another term closely related to partnership is companion. Dioceses have ‘Companion Links’ not partnership links. This has a strong sense of those who eat bread together, which includes encounter, friendship and mutuality rooted in a eucharistic relationship.

History of partnership in the Anglican Communion and the Church of England

2.4 The history of the concept of partnership in theological and ecclesial use can be traced back to the Edinburgh 1910 World Mission Conference. It was the young Anglican priest from India, the Revd V. S. Azariah who stated in an impassioned speech,

‘The exceeding riches of the glory of Christ can be fully realized not by the Englishman, the American and the Continental alone, nor by the Japanese, the Chinese and the Indians by themselves – but by all working together, worshipping together and learning together the Perfect Image of our Lord and Christ, it is only “with all the Saints” that we can “comprehend the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that we might be filled with all the fullness of God … We ought to be willing to learn from one another and to help one another.

Through all the ages to come the Indian church will rise up in gratitude to attest the heroism and self-denying labours of the missionary body. You have given your goods to feed the poor. You have given your bodies to be burned. We also ask for love. Give us friends!’29

This extensive quotation summarizes the essence of partnership in the Christian sense – being together under the Lordship of Christ – even though the word was not used at this time. It highlights one of the essential characteristics of equal partnership – friendship.

2.5 The word partnership can be identified first in ecumenical discussions on world mission before it emerged in Anglican discourse. The term ‘partnership’ emerged into the foreground of mission thinking as ‘partners in obedience’ at the 1947 Conference of the International Missionary Conference at Whitby, Ontario, Canada. While the issue of mission relationships had long been on the agenda of previous mission conferences of the International Missionary Council in Jerusalem and Tambaram it was at Whitby that the concept of partnership began to take shape. Some of the key issues concerned the relationship of the younger and older churches and how and when autonomy in governance could be given to the younger churches. This was heightened by the early independence movements particularly in India. Canon Max Warren, then General Secretary of the Church Missionary Society, attended the Whitby meeting where he led the worship and where it is likely that discussions contributed to his thinking about partnership which found expression in his 1955 book entitled Partnership. This short but important book has had greater effect on partnership thinking than any official church report and is widely acknowledged as a formative text. Attention will be given to it in the theological section of this chapter.

2.6 In Anglican thinking partnership emerged at the 1963 Third Congress of the Anglican Communion held in Toronto. This Congress adopted the highly significant report ‘Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence’ (MRI) which led to the establishment of the early Companion Links across the Communion. The Missio document Patterns of International Mission Structures in the Anglican Communion describes this process,

‘Since 1963 the Anglican Communion has initiated two Communion-wide programmes to encourage mutual participation and support in the mission of the church – Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence (MRI) and Partners in Mission (PIM).

The Communion as a whole began its journey from paternalism to partnership in its mission relations in the 1960s. In 1963, just prior to the Anglican Congress in Toronto, the Primates and Metropolitans of the Communion issued a ‘manifesto’ entitled Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ – MRI. Their proposal was essentially to look at needs (for people, finance, skills and infrastructure) across the Communion and to gather and distribute resources to meet those needs. It was a challenge to break out of the donor/recipient mindset of the colonial era and move into new relationships of equality and mutuality, not just in financial sharing but in personnel and other aspects of Christian discipleship. A call was made for a fund of five million pounds to assist the new provinces. A priority was theological education to encourage self-reliance in leadership. MRI increased awareness of the Communion, the need for partnership, and the principles on which it should be based. The final part of the manifesto reads as follows:

We are aware that such a programme as we propose, if it is seen in its true size and accepted, will mean the death of much that is familiar about our churches now. It will mean radical change in our priorities – even leading us to share with others as much as we spend on ourselves. It means the death of old isolations and inherited attitudes. It means a willingness to forgo many desirable things, in every church.

In substance what we are really asking is the rebirth of the Anglican Communion, which means the death of many old things but – infinitely more – the birth of entirely new relationships. We regard this as the essential task before the churches of the Anglican Communion now.30

2.7 The movement from ‘paternalism to partnership’ is indicative of the contemporary political situation where the rejection of colonial government and structures gave rise to new forms of indigenous government. The Anglican Communion had spread with the presence of British influence in its various forms and had been part of British exports abroad. In the light of this new ways of understanding relationships between churches needed to be explored.’

2.8 Apart from the development of the Companion Links, the Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence document gave rise to the Communion-wide process Partners in Mission. The purpose of PIM was to engage the churches of the Communion in a process of setting its mission priorities in which process they would be accompanied by partner churches selected by the host church. The Church of England took part in this process in 1981. The effect of the PIM Consultation upon the Church of England was marginal. The process included a debate in General Synod where Standing Orders were suspended and while many appreciative comments were made on the contributions of the external partners, there was no real process established for the integration of the ideas generated to become part of the lifeblood of the Church of England. The General Synod debate reveals that, at times, the process was difficult and painful for those from the Church of England31 and the central message of the external partners was that it lacked a vitality of vision for the gospel. Salient points were also raised about the lack of partnership working between the voluntary agencies and the central structures of the Church of England and about the number of voluntary agencies working in world mission though the newly established Partnership for World Mission was applauded by the external partners as a necessary and welcome development. Reading the General Synod debate 29 years later showed its prophetic nature. Many of the things regarding the need for mission to form the life of the Church of England have, or are being, fulfilled. However, there seems to be little evidence of a process to assess and receive what was brought to the Church of England from its external partners. As Philip Groves concludes on the PIM process as a whole,

‘there was as clear a distinction between giving and receiving churches at the end of the process as at the beginning. The giving churches were offered the chance to receive but were unable or unwilling to do so. The churches regarded as receiving had little opportunity to offer themselves to the younger churches and the giving church did not value their resources.’32

2.9 In effect the PIM process did not impact the Church of England to any significant degree and an opportunity was missed. The Revd Canon Humphrey Taylor, then General Secretary of USPG, described the process at the 1986 Mission Agencies Conference,

‘The Church of England still has no formal mechanism whereby General Synod members who have represented it at PIM Consultations elsewhere can report back to it, let alone allowing external partners to contribute to its own deliberations … After the external partners, politely heard or even treated like oracles, have departed, the Church carries on its business much as it did before.’33

2.10 Since 1986 mechanisms have been put in place for a stronger relationship between the Mission Agencies and the central structures of the Church of England. Just prior to the PIM process in 1981 came the establishment of Partnership for World Mission (PWM) in 1978 which provided such a loose structure established in line with the Partners in Mission process. The Working Party which recommended the establishment of PWM said,

‘For the first time in the area of world mission, which includes the church in England as much as the church in other lands, there would exist a specific co-ordinating organ for mission to which all the parties involve can relate in a way which visibly demonstrates the Church of England’s determination to play her share in the world task.’34

2.11 Such a body as PWM was designed to bridge the gap between the central structures and the Mission Agencies and, it was hoped, would bring world mission closer to the central decision-making structures. It was hoped that through PWM there would be a strengthening of relationships and partnership between the synodical structure including the House of Bishops, the Mission Agencies and the dioceses. Such partnership was necessary at home as well as between partner churches in the world church.

2.12 Partnership in World Mission has continued to exercise these functions under four secretaries and now under the World Mission Policy Adviser as it faces another period of transition and development. One of the most significant events of its life was the signing of the Covenant for Common Mission and Co-operation by all the General Secretaries of the Mission Agencies in 2003. The governing body of PWM is now the World Mission and Anglican Communion Panel which brings together representatives of the Mission Agencies, the Companion Links, representatives of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Anglican Consultative Council, the network of Diocesan Development Advisers and the General Synod under an Episcopal Chair appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. The Panel takes responsibility through the Secretary of PWM for the Annual World Mission Conference. Beginning its life as a Diocesan Companion Links Conference, it is now emerging as the central point at which all the various components of the Church of England’s relationships in world mission come together. An essential part of that process is hearing and receiving from our partners from the global church.

2.13 Apart from Partners in Mission the other Communion-wide initiative was the Decade of Evangelism called for by the 1998 Lambeth Conference following an initiative of His Holiness John Paul II. While the Decade had many detractors, what it did was to focus the Anglican Communion on the essential nature of evangelism in God’s Kingdom. For many of the churches in the global north, including the Church of England, it was a call to recover the energy, life and vitality of the gospel that was all too evident in the churches of the South. Though its outcomes were limited it raised questions in the Church of England about its lack of zeal for evangelism and at parish level it encouraged many Christians to engage with and explore their faith through courses such as Alpha, Emmaus and others. The hallmark of the Decade in the Church of England became ‘from maintenance to mission’. The Anglican Communion joined together at the Kanuga Conference in 1995 to mark the Mid-term of the Decade of Evangelism where it affirmed the distinctive contribution of Anglicans to evangelism as respectful listening and proclamation within the context of incarnational presence and pastoral care.35

2.14 In 2006 the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Mission and Evangelism published its report entitled Communion in Mission.36 In reviewing current trends and developments in Anglican world mission it picks up a number of themes raised in the 1999 report of Missio37 notably questions surrounding the use of the word ‘partnership’. This had been brought into sharp focus by the vastly changed situation where the growing churches in the Communion are in the global South, and were showing a life and vitality quite alien to the churches in the North. It was also recognized that it was all too easy for partnership to fall quickly into old patterns of the colonial mindset. Missio suggests the movement from the use of the word ‘partnership’ to ‘companionship’ as they had noticed a

‘significant narrowing of the meaning of the term partnership in the 1990s. The word is increasingly used to describe specific programmes or collaborative activity between agencies or diocese’.38

Companionship, they advocate, better describes a broader relationship of trust, listening and learning.

2.15 The 2006 report calls the churches of the Communion to deepen their understanding of partnership and to adopt a new or alternative word for the relationships that go across cultural boundaries. The report also suggests ‘companion’ as well as ‘Brother-Sister’ and ‘friend’. There is also the word ‘hospitality’.

2.16 This brief historical summary has focused on the development of the idea of partnership in the Ecumenical Councils and the Anglican Communion and how that impacted the Church of England. This part of the story reveals how a movement or weaving of ideas across Councils and Communion has brought the idea of partnership into the workings of the Church of England and how such bodies can assist the churches as a whole to critique and develop their common life as the worldwide Body of Christ. There is interconnectedness as the churches search for unity in their common mission in the world expressed with different emphases but each needing the other. It raises the question ‘whither partnership?’ What is the future for this idea that Warren described as

‘an idea whose time has not yet fully come’?39

Is the Church of England now called to look at partnership in a different way? Can she move from being predominantly the giver to become the receiver as the changing shape of the Anglican Communion shows growth and vitality in the continents of Africa, Asia and Latin America rather than the North and West? How the Church of England receives the gifts of the world church has been a common focus of discussion in mission discourse for many years. Does there need to be an assessment of current practices in world mission concerning the giving of money? When large amounts of money pass from the Church of England to our partners in other parts of the global church whose needs are being met? How do we build relationships of equal partnership or, to use a well-used phrase, ‘mutual responsibility and interdependence’? Does there need to be a change in the way we use language to describe world mission? Or will this merely mask the subtle but significant changes in attitude that need to occur at a deeper level? These, and other questions, will form the basis of this discussion for the development of world mission in the Church of England. The overall aim is to ask how we can deepen our understanding and practice of partnership for the sake of God’s Kingdom in God’s world today.

Theology of partnership

Partnership and the missio dei

2.17 The most significant development in mission theology in the second half of the twentieth century was the emergence of the concept of the missio dei, the mission of God. The missio dei emphasizes that the origin of mission is found in the God the Holy Trinity. This was a significant movement away from the understanding of mission as the task of the church. God the Trinity is the one who sends the church (John 20.21). Mission is the expression of God’s unfolding purposes as they reveal God’s nature and purpose. God’s church is sent following in the way of Christ and as sign and foretaste of the Kingdom. The role of the church is to discern where God is at work and to follow in obedience. Hartenstein as one of the earliest commentators on the missio dei said,

‘mission is not just the conversion of the individual, not just obedience to the world of the Lord, nor just the obligation to gather the church. It is the taking part in the sending of the Son, the missio dei, with the holistic aim of establishing Christ’s rule over all redeemed creation.’40

2.18 The phrase missio dei was first adopted at the 1952 International Missionary Council Conference in Willingen, Germany. With this re-orientation of mission as a movement from God to the world came a re-orientation of the place of the church and the Kingdom of God. The church-centred mission that focused its main strategy on church planting and social provision of education and medicine became a limited understanding. Once the Triune God became the origin, source and primary actor in mission then the world took on a different perspective. The Kingdom of God came to be understood as bigger and beyond the church but which involved the church as sign, instrument and foretaste of the Kingdom.

2.19 What of the relationship between missio dei and partnership? The emergence of the two concepts so closely together at the 1947 Whitby Conference and at the 1952 Willingen Conference show a convergence of ideas at something of a kairos41 moment in mission history. Wider political changes taking place in the 1950s necessitated the re-thinking of old patterns of working in mission and the articulation of new theory and practice. The expulsion of the missionaries from China, which had been one of the largest of the mission fields, had occurred between 1949 and 1951 and this sent shock waves through the Mission Agencies, the churches and conciliar ecumenism. While partnership was the new articulation of the relationships between sending and receiving churches and other forms of missionary engagement, so missio dei was the articulation of a new theological understanding of the church in mission in relationship with the Trinitarian God and the God’s Kingdom.

2.20 Theologically the two concepts interweave and interrelate. Ross argues that, ‘partnership is an idea essential to the very nature of God … we see partnership in the Godhead … God is a community of three divine persons. God is also one God’.42 God is not self-contained but has, by God’s nature and love, to express personally and reach beyond itself. Mission is the self-expression of God for God’s creation or, as Bosch describes the Trinity,

‘a fountain of sending love’.43

2.21 John V. Taylor states, ‘Partnership between Churches in mission means also an apostolic concern from one to the other to help one another to present the likeness of Christ more clearly; being in travail for one another until we all are formed in the shape of Christ.’44