Key to MDG Success: Go Micro

The Chair of the Diocese of Minnesota's Millennium Development Goals Task Force says the MDGs offer a once-in-a-life time opportunity to mobilize the church, but we need to do things differently this time around

Since the 2006 General Convention, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have created quite a buzz in the Episcopal Church. In many ways the MDG movement has electrified our church. They come at a critical time in the life of the Anglican Communion, offering a rare opportunity for tangible expressions of reconciliation and partnership in mission across tense theological and cultural divides. In the MDGs, the church has been offered a clear roadmap for living the Gospel call to justice and compassion for the poor, or as economist Paul Collier calls them, “the bottom billion.” The MDGs represent nothing less than a once in a lifetime opportunity to mobilize the church to rededicate its heart, mind, and resources to mission. And in that process to save lives, reconcile with our brothers and sisters in Christ, build a more just global village, and in so doing, open ourselves to spiritual transformation and renewal. It’s all there.

Yet despite the hopefulness and possibility of the MDG movement, it is vulnerable to failure. Our church doesn’t have such a great track record when it comes to successfully pulling off “big initiatives.” Think of the initiatives endorsed by the Episcopal Church and its many dioceses in the past decade: the 20/20 movement; Decade of Evangelism; Year of the Girl-Child; Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation. Each of these initiatives was brilliant in its own rite: desperately needed, collaboratively authored, firmly rooted in gospel imperatives, prayed into existence. Each one enjoyed visibility and buzz at the national and diocesan levels. Large conferences were held, people traveled across the country to give speeches and listen to speeches, books were written, sermons delivered, newsletter articles penned. But in each case, its shelf-life was tragically short. In its own time, each initiative faded into relative obscurity, now just part of our history.

Why did this happen? Maybe the reason is that in each circumstance, very little if any attention was paid to the most micro-level of our church: the individuals in the pews. I think we are all vulnerable to the assumption that if an initiative is prophetic enough, if it is clearly “the right thing to do,” it will take hold on its own and automatically take off in the congregations. But time and again we witness that that assumption is not true. It is possible that the quality and faithfulness of any initiative is largely irrelevant to its ultimate success.

What seems most important is the extent to which any initiative is rooted in the life and spirituality of the individual Episcopalian. Here in Minnesota we have looked our past reality in the face and decided to try something different. If the MDG movement is to take deep root and not go the way of initiatives past, if it is to develop and grow and change people’s lives, if it is to have a lifetime that outlasts our lifetime, all of our attention needs to be focused on equipping individuals—ordinary folks like you and me—with the tools, skills, and on-going coaching they need to roll up their sleeves, respond to God’s call, and get going.

Making the MDG movement successful and reaching its goal to eradicate extreme global poverty by the year 2015 will require raising up, training and supporting leaders one person at a time. When leaders are created and carefully supported they, in turn, mobilize their communities. They create other leaders. They convert people. They invest their lives in a certain way of doing and being and call people out to do the same, in community. A focus on leadership development, if successful, will result in the creation of a new community of missionaries—people called to reach out beyond their circumstances to share God’s justice and peace and abundance across the global community. Missionaries create mission initiatives—not the other way around!

The MDG movement was initiated in 2000 by the United Nations. Over 191 countries, including the United States, signed the Millennium Declaration. As of July 7, 2007 the MDGs reached its half-way mark and yet we are terribly behind in meeting the goals. We don’t have a minute to waste. People all over the world, and in particular our Anglican brothers and sisters in desolate and dire circumstances, are calling for us to join them in mission and reconciliation right now. What are we waiting for? In Minnesota we are soon to launch a project that will assist congregations in identifying and training leadership teams that will then mobilize individuals within their congregation around the 0.7% giving for MDGs. The mobilized resources and personal, individual investment will then equip the congregation to discern and launch a mission focus and project.

No one has all the answers. In Minnesota we are guilty of “building the airplane as we fly it.” But we feel God’s call to respond to the suffering of the world’s poor through the MDGs so profoundly, so clearly, that we are willing to take the risk to try something different—to learn from the successes and failures of past efforts and strike out into new ways of being the church.