George Bernard Shaw, reflecting on the gift of families, said, “A happy family is but an earlier heaven.” The heart of God’s purposes for the restoration of creation and the redemption of humanity involves creating a new family that supersedes the divisions of culture, language and ethnicity. Paul, the apostle, puts it this way: “You are no longer strangers or foreigners, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).
In Ephesians, Paul frequently uses the “adoption” motif in order to make the point that God’s unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. Indeed, the entire Bible is really the story of God building a family that is restored, along with the entire cosmos, to God’s intent for wholeness. Rick Warren reminds us that “church is not a place you go to; church is a family you belong to.” Into this family we are called and equipped by the Holy Spirit. We are invited to participate in God’s mission of reconciliation, advancing healing and hope and breaking down the barriers that fuel alienation, fear and conflict. In that work, we are privileged to walk with sisters and brothers in more than 50 countries around the world where Mennonite Mission Network is engaged with our partners in God’s mission.
We also have the advantage of being a part of a larger expression of God’s family through the Mennonite World Conference. We recently experienced first-hand the joy of being a part of this global communion.
We gratefully receive encouragement from sisters and brothers whose faith, hospitality, resilience and zeal inspire us and energize us for our own witness. In response, we share our gifts and resources, and assist in the formation of women and men to bear effective witness to the good news of Jesus Christ in their contexts. Walking, praying, discerning, and working together with our global partners, we are mutually strengthened as gifts are shared and we accompany each other in our common journey of responding to God’s call in mission.
On that journey we engage each other with values of interdependence and mutuality. We strive to share God’s love among us and beyond by mutually sharing our gifts and hope. In this spirit, we engage the world with the good news of God’s love, healing and wholeness in Jesus Christ. Our commitment is to build relationships that span the boundaries that alienate and divide, addressing imbalances of power so that the contributions of all may be honored and received.
Persuaded that we can do more together, Mennonite Mission Network stewards an international web of relationships between congregations, conferences, and global partners. As a part of the Mission Network family, you already walk with sisters and brothers in God’s global family. In the pages that follow you will find examples of how we serve together as members of God’s family, and will learn more about how we accompany sisters and brothers around the world in a global engagement in God’s mission.
