National Mission Symposium Challenges U.S. Church to
Be About 'Kingdom Business' Not 'Church Business'
288 Attend 'God's Missionary People' in Louisville

Divine Word Father John Fuellenbach delivered the keynote address at the Glenmary-sponsored mission symposium ("God's Missionary People: A New Way of Being Church") in Louisville, Ky., Oct. 3, 2004.

CINCINNATI (Oct.12, 2004)—"'Kingdom of God' is mentioned 162 times in the New Testament--and 92 times on Jesus' lips; 'church' is only mentioned twice," pointed out theologian Father John Fuellenbach, SVD, as he addressed the 288 participants gathered for a national mission symposium in Louisville, Ky., Oct. 3-6. His keynote address, "The Church as Mission," challenged the Church to be more concerned about "kingdom business" than "church business" and to concentrate on "sniffing out--and celebrating--the kingdom" which is already present in our world. The call of the Church, he said, is to witness to God's kingdom "where every person is a brother and a sister and every person is God's beloved child." Father Fuellenbach teaches theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

"God's Missionary People: A New Way of Being Church" was sponsored by Glenmary Home Missioners in cooperation with the United States Catholic Mission Association.

Glenmary president Father Dan Dorsey opened the symposium with a question posed by Glenmary's founder Father William Howard Bishop over 60 years ago: "Is it not the usual attitude to feel that the work of the Church is accomplished when the needs of Catholics are cared for?" But the mission of the Church does not end at the church door, Father Dorsey said. "The Church by its very nature is missionary, reaching out especially to those who are forgotten and neglected."

Symposium workshops focused on the many ways the Church today is called to engage our culture and proclaim the kingdom in the midst of the messiness of our world--by embracing the challenges of globalization, ecology, fundamentalisms, multiculturalism and much more. Sister Barbara Moore, a member of the congregational leadership team of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet with extensive experience in health care, defined "the context for mission." She identified "the inability to deal with pluralism" as the most pressing problem of our time.

A 22-year-old woman, volunteering for a year with the Sisters of St. Joseph, drove this point home as she expressed her struggle to "solidify her faith" and at the same time remain open to all the pluralistic influences around her.

How would a local church have to be different to be truly missionary?

For one thing, said Father Fuellenbach, members would have to see their baptism "not as a passport to privilege but a call to mission." And that mission is to proclaim and witness the Kingdom as Jesus did. He says the church, rather than a centripetal force drawing people in, must be a centrifugal force constantly sending people out to serve the world.

Christians have mostly understood mission as being about other cultures, said Presbyterian minister George Hunsberger, the professor of congregational mission at Western

Theological Seminary. But we must have a missionary encounter between the gospel and our own culture , he insists. "The real question," he said, "is: 'Are we letting the gospel in to transform how we live?' We must be a community for the kingdom and from the kingdom." He also reminded participants that the kingdom is not all about success, that the "cross is right in the middle of the story."

Rabbi Herman Schaalman of Chicago, one of the presenters asked to offer an interfaith perspective on   Church as mission, provided a sobering moment for participants when he said, with great emotion: "For the first time I have heard the mission of the Church not as self-contained privileged membership exclusive of others but as an outreach to every human being as sister and brother to penetrate more deeply the mystery of who we are as human beings." Rabbi Schaalman has spent many of his 89 years involved in interfaith activities.

Another pivotal moment came when Islamic scholar Aminah McCloud, herself a Muslim,   joined the conference by phone from Chicago, where she teaches at DePaul University, the nation's largest Catholic university. She asked, "What about your mission to youth?"--and reported on the number of Catholics who take her classes and know nothing about their Catholic faith. She said a large number of those who embrace Islam in the United States are cradle Catholics.

During a final session that brought all presenters and participants together for a facilitated conversation, a question from Franciscan Father Mel Brady provoked a lively exchange on just what this "new way of being church" was all about.

Fellow Franciscan Gilberto Cavazos-Gonzales, of Chicago's Catholic Theological Union, said a new way of being Church would certainly focus on being the "church of the Holy Spirit." Mennonite minister Lois Barrett agreed that a new way of being church must focus on discerning God's spirit at work in our midst. And, she added, we must get rid of "the split between the internal life of the parish and the mission of the church. The life of a parish itself is about mission. It is a witness to the kingdom."

Sister Dianne Bergant, CSA, professor of bliblical studies at CTU, concluded by saying: "For us to tell you 'the new way" would be 'the old way' of being church. We have to come up with the new way together!"

And this symposium--in its collaborative style, its emphasis on dialogue with a variety of points of view, its attempt to engage the many aspects of today's areopagus--is a taste of what this new way of being church is all about, said symposium organizer Glenmary Father Wil Steinbacher.

To download texts of conference talks
To order audio or video tapes of presenters

Video tapes are available of major presentations and audio tapes are available for most workshops. Visit www.uscatholicmission.org (the Web site of the U.S. Mission Association) for details, or call 202-832-3112.

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