The following news article caught our attention this week. Around the world, churches of all traditions find themselves working simultaneously to put down deeper roots in their own cultural locales while maintaining global ties. Here we learn of Mennonites in Congo drawing on Catholic experiences struggling to become more responsive to the needs of the poor in their midst.
Mennonite World Conference
News Service
December 18, 2008
Congo Inter-Mennonite gathering: “The church is you and me”
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo – These simple words became a key refrain of the second annual forum of the Congolese Inter-Mennonite Forum for Conversation (CIFC), held here from 13 to 16 November 2008.
The forum has just completed the second year of a three-year process in which Mennonites from three Congo conferences are reflecting on the kinds of relationships they as churches would like to have with other Mennonites. There are about 225,000 Congolese Mennonites.
The dominant theme of the gathering was how the church can be self-reliant and responsible for its own health and well being. The initial day of the forum was a joint conference together with members of the Congo Partnership Council, a roundtable which brings together the Congo churches and other Anabaptist-related churches and agencies engaged in Congo.
Daniel Geiser of the European committee of the Anabaptist Francophone Network (CERF) presented an opening meditation, which was followed by an address from the keynote speaker, Nicodème Kalonji, a Catholic lay worker. Kalonji spoke on “The Experience of the Congolese Catholic Church toward Self-Reliance.” He has been involved in developing self-support in the Catholic Church in Kinshasa through the base community movement.
Kalonji noted that in working toward self-reliance through basic Christian communities, the first necessary step was to convince people that they were suffering. “People get used to their conditions and begin to think it is normal. This is a big problem in the Congo.” Once people understand that their situation is not normal, “then it is possible to mobilize for change.”
Kalonji gave a number of examples of Catholic groups who were empowered to take responsibility for their own churches. “It’s not just a matter of people taking care of their church,” Kalonji added. “It’s also about members taking responsibility for the mission of the church in the community and in the world.” Activities of basic Christian communities “have significantly reduced the number of poor, sick, widows and the aged who used to ask the priests for help.”
The presentations led to lively exchanges about who is responsible for the church and what should be the relationship between leaders and faithful, clergy and laypersons. While participants affirmed on one hand that there should be inter-dependence and sharing of gifts among churches of different parts of the global family, there was also a consensus that such relationships need to be based on self-reliant and self-supporting churches, congregations, and individual believers.
The CIFC process involves 10 reflection groups located in areas of Mennonite concentration throughout the country. Each group is made up of 15 men and women, lay and clergy, and meets quarterly to discuss new models of relationship for the churches. Once each year representatives from the groups gather in Kinshasa with church leaders for several days of review, evaluation, and future planning.
Following the November forum, reflection groups will be focusing on how the themes of the CIFC will be consolidated after the MWC-administered program concludes at the end of 2009.
– Tim Lind, MWC Church-to-Church Relations Coordinator
Mennonite World Conference is a communion (Koinonia) of Anabaptist-related churches linked to one another in a worldwide community of faith for fellowship, worship, service, and witness. Learn more at http://www.mwc-cmm.org.