Mission

All the informants regard their organizations as faith-based, but most do not use the term themselves when describing their organization. There are, however, differences between the organizations. The informants from the mission organizations seem to distance themselves from the term somewhat more clearly that what is the case with NCA and Y Global. The mission organizations view mission as an umbrella-term.

NMS is faith-based, but we don’t use the concept very much, as we are a mission organisation (Informant 5).

The informant points to the fact that the term faith-based is somewhat obvious. It is a term that the informants recognize and can identify with, but the informants understand it

as a collective term, not capturing the organization’s identity. The mission organizations already have a set term (mission) that their self-identity is built around.

How do the informants understand the concept of mission? The NLM informant explains that: “mission is aid or development/social work and evangelizing. Those things together is mission the way we see it” (Informant 1). The informant from NMS has a similar understanding:

NMS is a holistic organisation. The three programs; Evangelism and church work,

Diakonia and Development, and Management and Organisation – all together are mission. The three programs are all equal (Informant 5).

As mentioned in chapter 5, a holistic approach implies different things at different times. Here, the focus is on how the mission organizations view their efforts in a broader picture. The different aspects of their work form a holistic whole. The NMA informant also share this view:

It is always a discussion: what is the large term and what is the small. For me, mission is the large term. Which is the expression of the holistic calling that we have as an

organization and as people – the mission. It includes both diakonia and evangelization. That’s how I see it... Some have a more narrow understanding of mission. I think we have a broad understanding of mission (Informant 3).

These quotes help us understand how the mission organizations identify themselves and how they view mission not as only evangelizing, but also as a heading for their

development work. Mission is the big concept – a concept that includes both the activities of the organization that deal with evangelizing, and the activities that have a development focus and which are, to a large extent, funded by Norad. The informants from the mission organizations are open about the fact that both evangelization and development is on their agenda and very much linked together. What calls them to evangelize seems to be the same source that calls them to be good development actors.

The NCA and Y Global do not consider themselves mission organizations and therefore seem to understand themselves somewhat differently. When asked about the term “faith- based” the informant from NCA explains:

It is a term we identify with, but when it comes to identity we say we are a Norwegian organization, a diaconal organization for global justice. And we see our identity in three concentric circles. First we are church-based, and then we will say we are faith-based, and in the third circle we see ourselves as a civil society organization (Informant 2)

In this quote the informant makes it clear that NCA belongs to several domains that all influence their identity. The informant from Y Global accepts “faith-based” as the correct category, but as we have seen from the basic documents, Y Global presents themselves as a “Christian, ecumenical organization for international diakonia” (Y Global 2012). The informant from Y Global elaborates:

The most important thing is that we are a part of the worldwide YMCA-YWCA alliance that is comprised of old faith-based organizations... Though it will vary a bit from country to country what that means today. Traditionally it is organizations with a Christian, but ecumenical point of origin. One is not affiliated with specific churches. That is a bit special in Norway, that one actually is, but around the world one does not have formal ties to churches (Informant 4).

The informant emphasizes that Y Global’s identity as a faith-based organization is mainly linked to its relationship to the international network of YMCAs and YWCAs. Y

Global’s partners are all organizations within the YMCA/YWCA alliance. Y Global stands out as the only one of the five faith-based organizations that is not directly cooperating with churches.

The contexts in which the organizations place their development efforts vary. For the three mission organizations, mission is the large term that includes both evangelizing and the development projects. Despite the weighting of the two are different within each organization, the development projects of the organizations are still placed within a bigger picture where other type of work is also present. This feature distinguishes the mission organizations somewhat from the NCA and Y Global that focus only on development, and do not consider themselves mission organizations. Still, the development efforts of the latter two still operate in a context. The NCA informant

has several references to what this implies. For Y Global, the most important aspect of their faith-base is their connection to the YMCA-YWCA.