Mission lessons for Illinois come from Argentina
by Ryan Miller

A church sanctuary in northern Argentina.

Early Anabaptists in Argentina started new churches with a mere handful of believers worshiping together, and the gospel spread. Now that same approach may help Mennonites spread the same gospel all the way to Illinois.

Juan Sieber of Iglesia Evangélica Menonita Argentina (Argentina Evangelical Mennonite Church) is in the midst of spending one year evangelizing around Hopedale, Ill., as part of the Patagonia Mission Partnership between the Argentina Church, Iglesia Menonitas de la Patagonia (Argentina Mennonite Churches, southern zone), Mennonite Mission Network and Arm in Arm, a group of Illinois congregations.

“The way we always have seen mission is as a one-way road from the United States to the world. ...We wanted a two-way relationship. We wanted a partnership,” Sieber said. “We feel the mother church has something to learn from her daughters.”

For most of its existence, the church-planting relationship has centered on supporting new churches in the Patagonia region. With Sieber’s arrival at Hopedale Mennonite Church, the focus shifted to central Illinois, according to Eldon Dean Nafziger, one of the original partnership members from Illinois Mennonite Conference.

The partnership plans to plant four new churches within 30 miles of Hopedale in the next five years, and eight churches across southern Illinois within a decade, by beginning house churches in outlying communities — the same way the Argentine church has grown. According to the plan, if each community of believers reaches out beyond their church neighborhood, the gospel spreads.

Laverne Nafziger, who has worked with her husband, Eldon Dean Nafziger, to promote the partnership, said the process takes time. “You don’t change people quickly,” she said. “We as a culture up here don’t always put church first. ... We let other things come in.”

Sieber, now, will help them focus on putting the church first, accompanying the Arm-in-Arm churches as they carry out their church-planting vision. Sieber said outreach in Argentina is, in some ways, simpler than in the United States; the prosperity found throughout the North American church hinders mission activities.

“Instead of using [our wealth] to go out, we have used it to go in. Now we can get into our cars and go 30 miles to a centralized church,” he said. “Instead of drawing in, we should use that same fuel to go out and start anew.”

“The Patagonia churches divide churches into zones geographically and then get together for worship,” said Eldon Dean Nafziger. “Hopedale is a fairly large congregation (geographically), but nobody wants to split up because they don’t want to miss their friends.”

But the planters believe that church members can concentrate on outreach without sacrificing existing faith communities. On Sunday mornings, believers can worship in their own communities; on Sunday evenings they gather as a larger body. In this way, church members retain relationships while enlarging the circle of believers.

“When [Hopedale Mennonite Church] celebrates its 200 years of life, it will be with its daughters and granddaughters coming from all around like a great family,” partnership members wrote in their vision for the Hopedale Missionary Project. “It will no longer be only one great tree of blessing, but a forest of fruitfulness for the glory of God our Father.”

According to Sieber, “Jesus said we would be witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, to the ends of the world. That’s our own city, our own region, our own country and the ends of the world.”

The partnership, formalized in 1998 after several years of interaction, will not ignore Argentina. The agreement between Arm-in-Arm churches and the Argentine churches includes annual exchanges between church members in both countries — exchanges of people instead of cash. During odd-numbered years, Argentines visit Illinois; on even-numbered years, the Argentine congregations host Arm-in-Arm delegations. Every visit includes local mission projects.

“We need to focus on the exchange program,” Sieber said. “To share economic resources, you just deposit a check. It’s simple. To share a vision, you need a relationship.”
You also need action instead of talk, Sieber continued, and true guidance from the Holy Spirit to spread God’s kingdom in a way that is radical but vital.

“We come from a radical background, from radical Christians. I know in much of the Mennonite Church there is a radical spirit trying to find a way to express itself,” said Sieber. “If we don’t have persecution, mission is the only way to bring out that spirit ... of love and obedience to Jesus that our ancestors had.

“We have no hope in the possibility that local mission can be done without this dimension of life in the Spirit. It’s not just strategy and plans and organization, it has to do with learning to wait in God, to be in his presence, to be led by the Spirit,” he continued. “The radicals are in America. We just have to give them a chance.”