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A public Apology

I feel like I owe an apology to Rev. John Wesley Yohannas.  The problem is I haven’t met him yet.

I don’t remember if the district mission representative used the term “missionary” or guest or something else when she called to make arrangements for his visit.  Somehow I got “missionary” stuck in my head.

1. Rev. Yohannas is an indigenous ministry professional and as a District Superintendent he is a leader of the church in his own home country.  I don’t think that makes him a “missionary.”

2. There was a time when the Nigerian Methodist Church and many other churches around the world depended on us for leadership, support and guidance.  That time has long passed. 

• In today’s church the African churches have grown 160% in 10 years.  How has the US arm of the church done?
• The Asian and Philippine churches are growing like wild fire.  The Manila annual conference has added 270 new preaching points and 70 new churches.

3. Overseas membership in the Worldwide United Methodist Church has doubled in the last four years and now make up 30% of the denominations’ membership.

4. The US UM church would be ecstatic to break even one year!

I am terribly embarrassed to have fallen into patronizing and perhaps even imperialistic Americentric attitude with respect to our brothers and sisters in Nigeria. 

Far from coming as one of our “missionaries” to tell us about his work in Nigeria, I am beginning to think that perhaps we should be asking Rev Johannas to send a missionary to us.  How long will it be before Africa and the Philippines send missionaries to their “backward” and (spiritually) underprivileged brothers and sisters in America?

Perhaps more realistically

1. What can we learn from Rev. Johannas when he comes next week?
2. What has he noticed about the American church that might be instructive to us as we seek to reverse our denomination’s membership trends?
3. What is the key to such phenomenal growth of the church in Africa? 
4. Can we translate those characteristics to our society?

terry