Mennonite Weekly Review

ELKHART, Ind. — Mennonite Mission Network will cut 10 members of its staff as part of meeting its goal of $1.3 million in permanent budget cuts.

The cuts — which amount to 10 percent of MMN’s annual budget — will be phased in over two years to preserve $9 million of ongoing ministry, leaders said.

Implementing reductions over two years allows MMN to increase severance benefits to staff whose positions are eliminated, to reorganize departments, to implement new ways of working and to take advantage of natural transitions by staff and workers.

MMN will also renegotiate commitments to partners across the globe. International ministries will be reduced largely through staff and worker retirements, completion of assignments and reduction of grants to partners and ministries. These measures were informed by a five-year ministry review process completed in March.

U.S. ministries in areas such as church planting will also be reduced. That is part of ongoing conversations with Mennonite Church USA congregations and area conferences to look at ministry vision in the United States. Cost savings will enable the process of reconfiguring relationships within MC USA.

Some staff members are being reassigned, and 10 part- or full-time people had their positions eliminated as of May 5. Staff who are cut will receive extended benefits in addition to a typical severance package. More staff cuts may be yet to come.

Stanley Green, executive director, expressed regret for the effect of these cuts on staff who are devoted to the ministries they serve.

“I invite your prayers and empathy for all who are directly impacted,” he said. “May God grace each of us with the Spirit’s peace and the reassurance of the surrounding care and presence of Jesus on the road ahead.”

Temporary cuts to lower costs by $500,000 enabled MMN to review ministries and make reductions in a measured and strategic way, preserving programs that fit into MMN’s priorities of leadership development, forming long-term relationships and building new communities of faith.

To make the cuts, MMN leaders looked for organizational inefficiencies, welcomed innovative ideas, determined that all areas of the organization would share in the reductions and were guided by a statement on organizational priorities.