href="#ulink_59233405-927c-5071-8461-4c652bdeabc7">11 A concept developed by Andrew Walls which is based on the cultural context of the Epistle to the Ephesians which describes the short time in the first century when the two Christian cultures, Jewish and Hellenistic, came together. See n. 4 above.
12 Warren, Building Missionary Congregations, Church House Publishing, 1994.
13 Mission-shaped Church, Church House Publishing, 2004, p. x.
14 Winter and Hawthorne (eds), The Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission, Paternoster Press, 1999, pp. 220–9.
15 Extensive work has been done in this area by Dr George Lings of the Church Army.
16 Genesis 1.28.
17 Sharing God’s Planet, Church House Publishing, 2005, GS 1558, p. 21.
18 Ephesians 1.10.
19 Sharing God’s Planet, p. vii.
20 June 2010.
21 Living Thankfully, House of Bishops, 2010, p. 23.
22 Anne Richards with the Mission Theology Advisory Group, CTBI, 2011.
23 The Five Marks of Mission originated from the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC 6), 1984, Bonds of Affection, p. 49.
24 For a discussion of mission and worship see Presence and Prophecy, Chapter 10, p. 133.
25 The Micah Declaration on Integral Mission, www.micahnetwork.org.
26 The Commitment agreed at the Cape Town 2010 Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization Conference, October 2010.
Chapter 2: Partnership, Participation and Hospitality
Summary
This chapter describes the emergence of partnership as a concept in mission discourse and critiques its use. It highlights the relationship between partnership and missio dei and argues that partnership needs development and refreshing if it is to provide a mission theology for today. Participation and hospitality are suggested as conceptual developments that enhance partnership.
Introduction
2.1 The governing principle for the Church of England concerning world mission relationships since the mid-1960s has been partnership. While this concept has opened up possibilities for new shapes of relationships in the immediate post-colonial social climate, it has also proved to be difficult to grasp and implement as relationships have progressed. This chapter will explore the theology of partnership and how partnership has been exercised in and through the Mission Agencies and the Diocesan Companion Links. It will assess the benefits of this approach as well as outlining its enduring challenges. It will argue that partnership needs further articulation and the adoption of a deeper level of understanding and practice through concepts such as participation and hospitality. While not rejecting partnership, it will be argued that this was essentially a language of the post-colonial era and a new language for new times is needed. The language of mission today is often expressed in terms of ‘community’, ‘relationship’ and ‘encounter’. These represent a wider understanding of mission beyond the more formal understandings of partnership.
2.2 Partnership is a multi-faceted concept that is difficult to define with any accuracy. The Oxford English Dictionary definition of partner is
‘a person who takes on an undertaking with another or others especially in a business or firm with shared risks and profits’.27
Partnership holds notions both of difference and shared concerns. It implies a coming together of people of difference in a shared enterprise. One of the most common uses of the word is with business relationships involving financial arrangements. For example, a partner in a firm of solicitors or accountants has reached a level of seniority that involves a substantial level of ownership. Likewise a product may be produced ‘in partnership with’. The term ‘partner’ also works in modern usage to denote a relationship of intimacy and depth that does not have the legally binding nature of marriage. Partnership is a word or concept denoting a closeness of working together that entails some element of commitment even if this is only aspirational. Another example would be the use of the word to describe the need for greater joint working between the National Health Service and Social Services in England. A new partnership is hailed as a deepening in working relationships that can be represented by a Memorandum of Understanding or working agreement. To summarize: one prominent missiologist has described the word ‘partnership’ as
‘this deceptively simple term masks a complex reality’.28
2.3 Partnership in the context of the Christian faith is a deeper expression of relationship involving relationship with the Trinitarian God and each other. It also reflects the nature of God as Three in One. The biblical word used to denote partnership is koinonia translated partnership or communion. Another term closely related to partnership is companion. Dioceses have ‘Companion Links’ not partnership links. This has a strong sense of those who eat bread together, which includes encounter, friendship and mutuality rooted in a eucharistic relationship.
History of partnership in the Anglican Communion and the Church of England
2.4 The history of the concept of partnership in theological and ecclesial use can be traced back to the Edinburgh 1910 World Mission Conference. It was the young Anglican priest from India, the Revd V. S. Azariah who stated in an impassioned speech,
‘The exceeding riches of the glory of Christ can be fully realized not by the Englishman, the American and the Continental alone, nor by the Japanese, the Chinese and the Indians by themselves – but by all working together, worshipping together and learning together the Perfect Image of our Lord and Christ, it is only “with all the Saints” that we can “comprehend the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that we might be filled with all the fullness of God … We ought to be willing to learn from one another and to help one another.
Through all the ages to come the Indian church will rise up in gratitude to attest the heroism and self-denying labours of the missionary body. You have given your goods to feed the poor. You have given your bodies to be burned. We also ask for love. Give us friends!’29
This extensive quotation summarizes the essence of partnership in the Christian sense – being together under the Lordship of Christ – even though the word was not used at this time. It highlights one of the essential characteristics of equal partnership – friendship.
2.5 The word partnership can be identified first in ecumenical discussions on world mission before it emerged in Anglican discourse. The term ‘partnership’ emerged into the foreground of mission thinking as ‘partners in obedience’ at the 1947 Conference of the International Missionary Conference at Whitby, Ontario, Canada. While the issue of mission relationships had long been on the agenda of previous mission conferences of the International Missionary