1 - 1998

Partnership from church to church

Ecumenical Trips - Ecumenical Encounters

People and Changing in the 1990s

by Wolfram Kistner

Visits often intensify partnerships with overseas parishes. Speaking for the south, the author asks how such trips can promote partnership and existing projects, who the travellers are, and what objectives can be pursued locally. The report provides helpful administrative, pastoral, and biblical-theological insights. - Until his retirement, Wolfram Kistner was head of the department "Justice and Reconciliation" of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) and since then he has been the honorary director of an ecumenical counselling office for educational group travel to South Africa.

Our counselling office’s most important general experiences with groups of this kind have been the following:

1. As a rule, groups from western countries visit our office without their South African partners. We feel that this is a disadvantage. It would be helpful for all sides if hosts and visitors share their experiences in the presence of a third party.

2. The remarkable thing about partner visits is that the visitors are very much preoccupied with observations on their relationship with their hosts and with the future development of their relationship. In this context, the question often arises how they can best help their South African hosts. They rarely mention that they need help from their South African partners for tasks facing them at home.

3. It would appear that on visits to parishes or church districts, people hardly talk about the relationship with Christians of other churches in the same settlement or the same region. This leads to the impression that the ecumenical movement plays a minor role locally or doesn’t exist in the South African partner parishes and church districts. In our opinion a major aim of such an encounter should be that the partners strengthen each other for their work in the environment and the society they live in.

4. In our meetings with ecumenical visitor groups we found that visitors and hosts hardly ever discussed the events and developments of the late 1980s that brought about such drastic changes both in the west and on the African continent. These changes also affect the status and tasks of the churches in society. We feel that German and South African partners may find it rewarding to share experiences regarding the following topics in particular:

- The issue of how to come to terms with a guilt-burdened political past and how to make a new start;

- The impact of the free market economy on people’s living conditions and the church’s responsibility for economic justice;

- Women’s position in church and society;

- Territorial issues

- Conservation and responsible handling of the environment;

- The relationship between Christian churches and other denominations.

5. Most German partner groups are from the western part of the country. Rarely have visitors from eastern Germany sought our advice. As a rule, the topics mentioned in para. 4 were mentioned if a group from the west included one or several visitors from eastern Germany.

6. It strikes us that visitor groups from Germany disregard one topic, which could well be discussed in South Africa: the relationship between German Christians and the Jewish congregation. South Africa offers the opportunity of attending services in synagogues which hardly exist in Germany anymore, because the majority of Jewish congregations and their synagogues were destroyed. One could also talk to Jews who had to leave Nazi Germany about their experiences. It would also be insightful to find out what Jews who had to leave Nazi Germany and emigrate to South Africa thought of the South African apartheid regime.

7. Triangle partnerships have turned out to be particularly rewarding. Our counselling office contributed to various meetings between German, Polish and South African Christians that generated great and lasting benefits for everyone involved.

8. In general, topical visitor groups and trade union or other professional ecumenical visitor groups were well-prepared for their visits to South Africa, thanks to the help of expert counsellors. For partner groups who visit parishes or church districts such preparations depend greatly on the individual group leader and on the group structure. As a rule, the trip will be successful, if the leader is aware of the group-dynamic processes such a visit generates and can influence them.

9. For partner visits to parishes and church districts, staying with families in the host parish or church district has proved to be an effective way for church visitors from western countries to get to know their hosts’ everyday living conditions. For understandable reasons they are normally accommodated in the homes of the more well-to-do families.

10. During some partner visits, visitors and hosts intensively shared their experiences, even extending to issues of personal spiritual life, bible interpretation and church service, and continued to do so after the visitors had returned to their home country. In other cases, the partners were unable to stay in touch. The fact that many South Africans have difficulties expressing themselves in writing has proved to be an impediment. It may help communication, if the partners send each other recorded messages on tape.

11. In some cases partner visits are linked with the promotion of development projects initiated either by a parish, a church district or the church. Sometimes it is unclear whether the individual project has been expertly planned with professional help. In South Africa, NGOs can provide professionals for such projects. We believe that people don’t take enough advantage of such opportunities. And it would appear that individual parishes or churches often initiate such development projects without contacting parishes of other churches in the same region. Often we find development projects of individual parishes and churches in one and the same region that are not coordinated with each other.

12. Partnerships with South African parishes linked with the promotion of development projects by a German partner group can easily lead to rivalry between various parishes, church districts or dioceses. A parish that has relations with a wealthy partner group may arouse envy in other parishes. Therefore church councils often reject such partnerships. So a group that has established a partnership for the promotion of a development project should definitely consult the responsible church administration.

13. Based on our experience as a counselling office we are unable to comment on reverse programmes that enable South African partner groups to visit German parishes or church districts. We have only observed that the people from such a community or parish need to be selected very carefully for such a trip. It needs to be made plain that it is not the German partner who selects the visitors but that they are taking part in the trip on behalf of the community or parish in question.

14. We have observed that some visitor groups visit a certain parish or church district and participate in its life, but hardly get the chance to learn about the economic and political development at large during their stay. They tend to judge the developments in South Africa based on their local or regional experiences. From time to time they make suggestions for solving problems in this region or for projects that cannot survive over a longer term, because they neglect important considerations on a larger scale.

15. Shouldn’t visitors on ecumenical trips use their journey to the destination to feel how the landscape breathes and how people have shaped or disfigured it over the centuries, and how it shapes the life of the people who live there, even if they don’t notice it themselves? When I visit Germany, I can feel the country and its history breathing, and I feel God breathing and keeping the country and its people and animals alive. The same goes in particular for the place where we are now standing. I remember talks long ago with Europeans, who claimed that, compared with European countries, South Africa was a country without a face. This is simply not true. With these remarks, I simply want to plead that, despite their focus on contacts and stays with locals, ecumenical visits should offer people some opportunities to get to know a bit about the history, culture and nature of the host country. One should help visitors understand local living conditions in the context of the general situation.

16. All these remarks on planning and organisational weaknesses of ecumenical encounter trips do not diminish their significance for parishes in Germany. Our visits to parishes in Germany always show just how many people find ecumenical trips and partner relations stimulating for their spiritual life and responsibility in society. We cannot generalise about the effects of such programmes on South African parishes, as we have no overall picture. But we wish to point out that, over and again, we find that ecumenical encounter trips give certain people decisive inspiration that lasts a whole lifetime. Some trips even trigger a complete reorientation with far-reaching consequences for the ecumenical movement. We could probably pinpoint this in the lives of many South Africans; and this observation presumably holds true for the lives and the impacts of some Christians in other countries, too.

Suggestions

1. At the beginning of a visit, an ecumenical visitor group should receive a general introduction to the political, economic, and social situation of the host country and its churches. At the end of the visit there should be an assessment talk with the co-operation of people or institutions not directly involved in the partnership. If possible, the host group should generally participate in the assessment talk. It is also advisable to consult experts from non-church fields, who can inform visitors on the general situation of the country and its churches.

2. Particular support should be provided to trilateral ecumenical relations that help Christians from western countries, former Eastern Bloc countries and nations of the southern hemisphere who are victims of colonial or neo-colonial politics, share their experiences and find a joint approach based on biblical-theological reflection. If possible, people from eastern Germany should participate in such trilateral meetings.

3. Partner groups from western Germany should be encouraged to take one or several visitors from a parish in eastern Germany on their journey.

4. Ecumenical travel groups should be urged to place special emphasis on sharing context-appropriate interpretations of select bible texts and to use them to encourage measures according to the gospel for individual situations.

5. One major question should be decisive for planning ecumenical visits and partnerships: How will our ecumenical encounter help us in view of our responsibility and our commitment to peace, justice and the integrity of creation in our own environment and on the level of the world community?

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to point out that, since the political revolution in 1994, our country has become an increasingly popular destination for German tourists. South Africa’s spectacular landscape and its ever-weaker currency entices many Germans to spend their holidays there. By far the largest number of foreign tourists come from Germany.

This gives German churches a special responsibility. The foreign currencies these tourists bring into the country may be welcome and important for the country’s economic development. That’s why the authorities approve of increasing tourism. But they tend to ignore the inherent dangers. Among these tourists, many believe that their purchasing power gives them the right to treat people, the environment and vital resources for human survival just how they please. In South Africa they have opportunities they don’t have in Europe. And if this leads to a loss of self-restraint and self-control, the influx of foreign visitors will have a destructive impact on South African society and the country it is responsible for.

As Christians living in Germany, you and the churches whose members you are, are responsible for ensuring that German travellers who come here are aware of their responsibility. Perhaps contacts between yourself and German travel agencies and events for tourists who want to travel to South Africa could be a way to gain influence on them.

Against such a background, it is all the more very important to plan and organise ecumenical trips to South Africa, and to other countries with great care. The purpose of such trips should be that we combat the worldwide destructive forces and help each other realise and exercise our joint responsibility for the wellbeing of humankind and the entire creation, which is the essential focus of God’s love made flesh in Christ.

The apostle Paul points out this joint responsibility of the Christians in his letter to the Romans. He tells them that all of creation yearns to realise the liberation of God’s children and to gain hope for the future from it: »For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.« (Rom. 8:19)

Extract from a report for the meeting of the Committee for Development Education and Publications, from 6 to 8 November 1996. Reprint from »der überblick«, no. 1, March 1998, slightly abridged and translated for publication in this magazine.