Global Church Partnerships
Global Chuch Partnership Handbook
“You are no longer strangers or foreigners, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of the household of God.“
Ephesians 2:19
Mission happens best in relationships with international partner churches and organizations when we walk together as companions in faith. These relationships offer mutual support, shared growth in knowledge and faith, and an opportunity to experience the richness of God’s global family. As Ephesians 2:19 reminds us, “You are no longer strangers or foreigners, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of the household of God.”
Global partnerships are a crucial and significant pathway for us as North American churches to foster an awareness of wider global contexts and thus enable us to follow Christ with appropriate understanding and adequate resolve. Engaging with Christians and people of other faiths around the world deepens our faith, life, and witness as the Church.
Key Principles of Partnership
The quality of partnerships makes a difference in the values that serve as their foundation and in the values our shared efforts uphold. At the heart of every healthy global partnership are certain values that guide the way we engage with partners:
- Trust and understanding
- Respect and humility
- Mutual faith and shared purpose
- Listening and honesty
- Solidarity
Upholding these values requires paying attention to the ways partners interact. Especially for our North American churches, we need to be conscious of how our geo-political status continues to assert power and privilege in the world. While we are accountable for our own behavior in these relationships, partnerships based on trust also allow us to hold each other to the same commitments of care, mutual respect, and solidarity. Our intentional efforts to remove or counteract persistent patterns of domination and privilege, and to rethink theologies that validate them, are why Global Ministries has identified de-colonization as an ongoing and fundamental priority for our work.
Who Are Our Partners?
Disciples and UCC partners, nurtured by Global Ministries, include denominations and church bodies, ecumenical councils, human rights organizations, development and disaster-response agencies, and diaconal organizations like schools and hospitals. Some partnerships are long-standing; others are more recent, formed through shared advocacy or theological vision. They are mostly – but not exclusively – Christian, as we also engage with partners of other faith communities.
Global Ministries supports your global partnership interests and will facilitate your connections with the worldwide church so your conference, region, association, and local congregation can fulfill the call to unity in the one body of Christ.
To get started, download the Global Chuch Partnership Handbook.