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Evidence of C&MA DNA
Posted by
Ruthie Hankins
,
25 June 2013
·
1088 views
For the past couple of years, we in the Alliance have been talking about C&MA DNA. I like that term because it implies something living, organic, passed on from one generation to the next. It is also something that identifies the origin of an organism as well as its current composition. There you have it--Future, Past, and Present.
A key element of C&MA DNA is the calling, desire, commitment to share the Good News--with those who are like us in our neighborhoods, with those who are unlike us but live nearby, and with those who are far away and will have to hear from someone who deliberately goes to tell them.
After serving with the C&MA for 20 years in Ecuador, I get questions about why C&MA workers are being transitioned out of many parts of Latin America. I am happy to answer that strong national churches have grown up in these countries where our missionaries were first sent over 100 years ago. These national organizations are not just willing and able to reach out to their own people, but they also have the same calling as we in the U.S. have to reach across cultural and geographic barriers.
A few months ago I was part of a Vision Trip to Spain where we connected with Alliance workers and pastors. As we visited various churches and were introduced to pastors, one conversation kept repeating itself. The pastors noted my last name and then asked if my husband was Frank. When I said “yes” they replied, “Frank was my professor! I learned so much from him!” You see, Frank taught for several years in the graduate studies program for Latin America (FATELA). Several of his former students have been sent by the Alliance churches of Peru or Colombia to plant churches in Spain. These sending churches obviously have C&MA DNA! And the churches they are planting in Spain have it, too. It was wonderful to meet a couple who will soon be sent from their church in Madrid to plant a new church in . . . . London!
It’s one thing to plant churches in other countries. It’s another thing to plant churches that realize they have the same calling as the “mother church”—to reach the ends of the earth with the Good News. Dr. Ralph Winter, missionary statesman and former president of the U.S. Center for World Missions, had this to say about The Alliance: “In the United States in the last half-century, no one denominational mission board has a better record in starting mission-minded overseas churches than The Christian and Missionary Alliance.”
How is your church showing evidence of its DNA?
A key element of C&MA DNA is the calling, desire, commitment to share the Good News--with those who are like us in our neighborhoods, with those who are unlike us but live nearby, and with those who are far away and will have to hear from someone who deliberately goes to tell them.
After serving with the C&MA for 20 years in Ecuador, I get questions about why C&MA workers are being transitioned out of many parts of Latin America. I am happy to answer that strong national churches have grown up in these countries where our missionaries were first sent over 100 years ago. These national organizations are not just willing and able to reach out to their own people, but they also have the same calling as we in the U.S. have to reach across cultural and geographic barriers.
A few months ago I was part of a Vision Trip to Spain where we connected with Alliance workers and pastors. As we visited various churches and were introduced to pastors, one conversation kept repeating itself. The pastors noted my last name and then asked if my husband was Frank. When I said “yes” they replied, “Frank was my professor! I learned so much from him!” You see, Frank taught for several years in the graduate studies program for Latin America (FATELA). Several of his former students have been sent by the Alliance churches of Peru or Colombia to plant churches in Spain. These sending churches obviously have C&MA DNA! And the churches they are planting in Spain have it, too. It was wonderful to meet a couple who will soon be sent from their church in Madrid to plant a new church in . . . . London!
It’s one thing to plant churches in other countries. It’s another thing to plant churches that realize they have the same calling as the “mother church”—to reach the ends of the earth with the Good News. Dr. Ralph Winter, missionary statesman and former president of the U.S. Center for World Missions, had this to say about The Alliance: “In the United States in the last half-century, no one denominational mission board has a better record in starting mission-minded overseas churches than The Christian and Missionary Alliance.”
How is your church showing evidence of its DNA?
- Don Sappington, Sarah Baker and The Asian School of Change like this
