Created for Community

While the Trinity might be hard to explain, I love the image of community found in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God has created us for community, yet one of Satan’s most persistent lies is that we are alone. Scripture confronts this lie directly. God is with us—always. The psalmist declares that there is no place, no depth, no distance where God’s presence fails:

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

If I make my bed in the depths, you are there…

~ Psalm 139:7–12

This promise anchors our faith. We are never abandoned by God. And we are not meant to live out our faith alone. We are created for community.

Together as a Way of Discipleship

Within the Anabaptist tradition and within the Mennonite Brethren family is the conviction that discipleship is communal. Following Jesus is not an individual project; it is a shared journey. The word “together” is more than a tagline for us. It is a theological conviction and a goal to aspire to. 

We walk together as disciples of Jesus in our local churches. We walk together across conferences and nations. Multiply serves alongside U.S. and Canadian MB churches, and together we walk with our global MB family in God’s mission. 

When Words Fall Short—Relationships Speak

Several years ago, leaders from our church gathered in Panama with national leaders and missionaries, celebrating eighteen years of shared ministry partnership. We praised God for what He had done and discerned what our relationship might look like in the years ahead. During those conversations, we made a surprising discovery: there is no Spanish word that fully captures what we meant by partnership.

That realization caused us to pause. For nearly two decades, we had been using a word that did not translate across our cultural divide. It reminded us that words matter—and so do cultural and linguistic differences. Yet our shared history tells the story. In Panama, the way we had lived and served together embodied what we meant by partnership. 

Partnering in Mutuality

This experience reinforces one of our deeply held values: wherever we serve, we seek to partner in mutuality. But what does that mean?

At its heart, partnering in mutuality recognizes that God has gifted the global Church broadly and beautifully. No church, culture, or region holds all the wisdom, resources, or initiative needed for God’s mission. We all come as both givers and receivers, but committed to one another.

The story of Ruth and Naomi offers a powerful picture of this posture. Ruth’s commitment—“Where you go, I will go… your people will be my people, and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16–18)—is not transactional; it is covenantal, relational, and rooted in shared belonging and family. Mutuality grows from this kind of faithfulness and commitment to one another.

The apostle Paul echoes this vision in Romans 12. He urges believers not to think too highly or lowly of themselves, but to honestly discern the gifts God has given by grace and use them for the good of the Body. This is mutuality in practice: knowing humbly the gifts that you have, appreciating the gifts in others you don’t have, and sharing and receiving together for the sake of the Church and God’s mission.

Learning to Release and Receive

Across the regions where we serve, we are witnessing increasing maturity, capacity, and fruitfulness within the global Church. This growth also reveals the limitations of mission approaches shaped primarily from North American perspectives. Multiply has long recognized the need to release more strategy, vision, and resourcing authority to regional teams and local church leadership. 

We are intentionally moving toward peer-to-peer relationships within a global network, where each region participates as both contributor and beneficiary, with NA missionaries and national leaders working side by side. This posture emphasizes collaboration, shared discernment, and mutual learning, and nurtures deeper unity in the global Body of Christ.

A Biblical Pattern of Partnership

The New Testament offers models for this kind of relationship. The apostle Paul’s partnerships with churches were long-term and reciprocal. Churches offered financial and material support; Paul offered teaching, encouragement, and leadership development. He returned often, invested deeply in leaders, and strengthened congregations for long-term health and multiplication.

This mutual exchange fostered sustainability and resilience in the early Church. Mission was not something Paul imposed upon churches, but something he pursued with them.

Walking Forward Together

This is the posture of partnering in mutuality that we want to grow into together, working with and through local churches wherever possible. Partnership can be challenging. Cultural differences, language barriers, and differing expectations require patience and humility. But these challenges are worth it.

Healthy partnership calls us to listen well, learn from one another, and honor local vision and expertise. God has blessed the Mennonite Brethren family with gifted and faithful national leaders around the world, and it is a privilege for the North American Church to walk alongside them to give, to serve, to learn, and to receive. We need to train and send more NA workers who can serve in this way and be bridges between NA and other regions of the world. 

Ultimately, we believe the Great Commission is fulfilled best through global collaboration. God’s mission belongs to the whole Church. As a global family, we desire to love one another and work together in humility and sincerity—for the glory of God— together, that the world may know Jesus.