A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

with the emergence of ninety-four new nations. Mis- sionary operations in Africa, Asia and Latin America were forced to change accordingly. The 1947 Guiding Principles and Field Policies for the Mennonite Brethren Board of Foreign Missions described the missionary's relationship to the national church as ongoing. Missionaries remained on the field even long after national churches were established. "The need for fathers in Christ among the national believers always remains and the mission- 262 MISSIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF CHANGE ary is seen in the role indefinitely. "5 Ten years later, the 1957 conference adopted a document which called for strategic changes in this relationship.6 This document modified the missionary-centered programs and called instead for a new kind of missionary who would help establish indigenous churches that could assume the responsi- bility for evangelizing their own constituencies. The docu- ment also called for structural changes in methods and rela- tionships, projecting a larger role for the home board and ad- ministrative office in planning and evaluation. The change was not easy. The churches had developed a very personal relation to specific missionaries and programs. The missionaries promoted their own specific assignments. They were autonomous with no direct accountability to the home constituencies. This sense of local church accountabili- ty weakened the overall common responsibility of the Menno- nite Brethren Church at large. Mission needed a new focus to share the responsibility of the global assignment to "go into all the world." The conference responded with a strong affir- mation for change. For the missionaries who had been in In- dia and Africa for many years, these changes were not easy. The implications of the 1957 document were sharpened in the I960 and 1961 Guiding Principles and Policies. (1) The church is God's instrument of evangelism. (2) The planting and upbuilding of the national church is the primary assign- ment of mission. (3) The training of national leadership to as- sume responsibility is the central objective in national church development. (4) The mission program is subject to periodic evaluations on the basis of accepted standards established for a specific area to govern the development of the national church. The new structure conceived of the missionary as only the initial agent in a church-planting program. The assignment was to evangelize, gather a group of believers, and plant a church.7 This radically redefined the role of the missionary from the understanding that it was a lifetime