US may introduce 'mission partners'
Matthew Davies for Episcopal Life Online
| 01 Jul 2009
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For centuries, sending forth missionaries has been central to the Episcopal Church's engagement throughout the world, but a fresh look at appropriate terminology and current levels of financial support is on the cards.
General Convention will be asked to increase funding and to switch to the term "mission partner" instead of "missionary" to help to reinvigorate this work and define more accurately its emphasis on relationship building and interdependence.
More than 70 Episcopal missionaries serve in congregations and dioceses throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and South America. They usually are placed for three years and play a variety of roles, often in education, health care and local support for orphans and immigrants.
The mission personnel budget – which provides missionaries with a $500 monthly stipend and covers airfare, visa, pension-contribution and health-insurance costs – has taken a hit in recent months. This led to a temporary hiatus in deploying new adult missionaries in 2009, a situation the Standing Commission on World Mission hopes General Convention will address.
"The rising cost of mission support and the decreases in the General Convention budget call for a fresh look at the mission-funding process," the standing commission says in its report to convention, which proposes increasing the budget to support missionaries by $1 million during the next triennium.
The Young Adult Service Corps programme, which appoints missionaries aged 18-30 to serve one year, is continuing to recruit in 2009, "as this does not significantly increase our expenses," said the Rev David Copley, mission personnel director for the Episcopal Church and staff liaison to the standing commission.
The current fiscal challenges are partly due to recent increases in health-insurance premiums and pension contributions, said Copley, who spent seven years as a missionary in Liberia and Bolivia. "It's a basic issue of economics. Our budget is finite, we need to live within a balanced budget, and we have found that our budget is fully committed with currently serving missionaries."
The proposed funding increase would help maintain the current level of serving approximately 75 missionaries and ensure that each could receive adequate health insurance, participation in pension plans, outgoing orientation, in-field pastoral care and reentry briefing.
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