In the light of Martin Lee’s introduction to this newsletter, concerning increased competitiveness in mission, Nova’s aims of ‘resource sharing’ in order to ‘bring together our knowledge’, ‘learn from each other’ and ‘use the collective knowledge’ may seem naïve aspirations. However, I believe we are seeing them realised despite still being a ‘partnership in progress’.
Extract from the press release for the launch of the Nova Research Centre:
"Nova Research Centre is a joint initiative between Redcliffe College, Church Mission Society, European Christian Mission, Operation Mobilisation and the Panahpur Trust. Nova will facilitate research, networking and resource sharing on behalf of mission agencies and church organisations and offer a consultancy service to those working in the continent.
Revd Darrell Jackson, Director of Nova Research Centre said: “Europe is one of the most exciting and challenging mission fields today. Nova represents a unique opportunity to bring together our existing knowledge about mission in Europe and find out more about what is actually going on in practice. This will enable us to learn from each other and use the collective knowledge to further innovate mission in Europe.”
Here I want to share a few lessons learnt and illustrate some of the principles involved. Why partner? Rather than making a case for partnering, I would say that if you do not need to partner to achieve something, don’t. Partnership takes time, effort and energy and it involves compromising on individual aspirations to find sufficient common ground to work together. Redcliffe was faced with a situation that seemed to require partnership, as traditionally it had prepared people for work mainly in Asia, Africa and Latin America, rather than Europe.
I invited a number of missionaries and mission leaders engaged in mission in mainland Europe to Redcliffe to share with our faculty some of the issues they were facing. It was a fascinating day (and led to the creation of our short course in European Studies), but everyone who took part had more questions than answers, with no one having a clear understanding of the European context.
We were facing a complex reality that required further research. The vision of a centre for research on Europe began to emerge. We could have developed that centre at Redcliffe in isolation - it would certainly have been quicker to get it set up! However, I was concerned that if we did, we would only bring our resources, our knowledge, our connections, our funding and our aims to it. Involving more people would bring more input to the table.
Redcliffe is situated in one corner of Europe, but by partnering with others who were working across mainland Europe, we can collectively ‘share resources’ - missionaries in the partner agencies feeding in information from their local context. Those same missionaries come and learn research skills, meaning we have an increasingly trained research presence across the continent. This, in turn, creates and encourages missionaries to be ‘reflective practitioners’ who act in mission, reflect on its effect, refine their approach and act again. This benefits all the partners.
The increasing emphasis on research and the numbers of trained people on the ground across the continent, in turn multiplies the effectiveness of the research centre - it also improves the quality of mission preparation at Redcliffe.
We ‘learn from each other’ by understanding how we each work, as well as sharing what we have found works, or did not work. ‘Using our collective knowledge’ is an ongoing experience; the longer we partner, the more we realise that we each possess knowledge that actually is what another partner needs. We often talk of a vicious circle that compounds problems, but we are experiencing an enlightening circle that multiplies opportunities and effectiveness.
That said, it is not always an easy process. Here are a few lessons and reflections from our journey so far:
A partnership can only work and develop around a sufficiently shared need! We invite potential partners to attend a partners meeting to help them to get a flavour and us to get to know them. Recently, we had a representative join us but, as we both reflected afterwards, their interest in Europe was not sufficient to warrant them making the investment of time, energy and resources that would be required.
We have seen the partnership develop as it has been given time. It needs to have some quick wins - some aims that are manageable and achievable. These often seem small wins at first - sometimes less than you would have been able to achieve as an individual organisation, but because they have been achieved in a partnership, and taken more time, you have been learning to work together.
In the development of Nova, I have observed these five stages thus far:
1. Assent to the concept
2. Investment in the concept
3. Glimmers of reality
4. Bits of benefit
5. Beginning to belong
Assent to the concept happens when we paint a vision. It is easy to paint a vision that can gain assent from one organisation; the challenge is to gain assent from multiple organisations. For NOVA, that meant refining a core vision and encouraging compromise between partners in areas of difference by demonstrating that, whilst one aspect is not core for one partner, it may be core for another and vice versa.
Investment in the concept - believing in a concept is one thing, being willing to invest time, money and energy into it is often another. Part of this for Nova was easier as partners compared the cost effectiveness of investing into a shared research initiative. However, a key lesson here was to be up front and clear. I said that, beyond the financial cost, we wanted a commitment from mission agencies to make their people available as the eyes and ears on the ground. We also wanted a senior leader to be the representative on the Partners Board and laid out clearly the time commitment. It has paid off - no one has missed a meeting in two years.
Glimmers of reality - after getting the partnership meeting and setting up some of the structure, we soon saw glimmers of the reality we had all hoped for. We saw some synergy between partners and discovered that together we could complete a few more pieces of the jigsaw.
Bits of benefit - we are not near delivering the full vision for Nova yet, but we are seeing benefit. Research suggested by one partner, when reported on, shows itself to be useful to another. Research commissioned for a third party gives insight to Nova, the partners and the wider community, rather than just the commissioning organisation.
Beginning to belong - it is early days to measure this yet, but I have been encouraged to find partners referring to Nova as they would have done to an in-house resource - they all share a vision that Nova has a much wider role than just serving the partners.
It seems that the glimmers of reality brought hope that the vision was possible, the bits of benefit developed trust and beginning to belong seems to be bringing a fluidity that will make the partnership function with a freedom and speed that we long and pray for.
3 key lessons or warnings in summary
1.Only partner if you cannot do it well on your own.
2.Do not fudge costs and agreements. Spell them out clearly, document them, agree them, sign on them and file them – only then will be you probably never need to consult those documents again.
3.Be clear about expectations and talk through worst case scenarios. If everyone is still willing to partner when you have explored these, you are off to a good start because everything else is an improvement.
