Assembly theme makes
surprise appearances
“What if...?” appears to be a question on the minds of many these days.
The theme for the Mennonite Church Canada assembly in St. Catharines this summer, this question also appeared coincidentally in a Canadian Mennonite University advertisement (Jan. 27 Canadian Mennonite) and in The Marketplace, the magazine of Mennonite Economic Development Associates. It was also a Prayer Week topic in Essex cluster of Mennonite Church Eastern Canada.
The CMU ad asks, “What if war can’t stop terror?” Communications director Kevin Heinrichs says, “The whole idea is that we want to talk about our distinctives rather than trying to appeal to everyone. What do students really talk about in the classroom? What if war can’t prevent terror? Then what do we do?”
In The Marketplace (Jan./Feb. issue), Art DeFehr poses a series of “What if...?” questions starting with “What if God was serious about creating everyone equal?” Dave Brubacher, who led Prayer Week in the Essex cluster, explored three questions: What if we lived as we prayed? What if we embraced the mystery of Christ? What if we lived to reveal Jesus?
The theme was inspired by Philippians 1:1-11. Anne Campion, MC Canada youth ministry director, presented the passage to the Y_MAD (Young Mennonite Assembly Designers) who completed the question by asking, What if love prevailed?, an overarching theme in the Philippians text.
Program committee chair Craig Friesen comments that the theme is a big one, both in theological terms and challenge. “Christendom is crumbling—the church and state are growing apart. The commitment and energy we invest in shaping the church and our call from God is perhaps more important now than at any other time in our history,” said Friesen. “What if all God’s people showed God’s love all the time?
“Asking the challenging questions can invigorate us and help put the church on God’s trajectory.”
Assembly logos were designed by Lyndon Froese (youth logo) and Lynette Schroeder Wiebe. Froese commented that “the heart represents both God’s love and the core of a human’s being.” The heart is open, it continues on like the infinity sign, communicating that God’s love is infinite. The flames symbolize both the intensity of God’s love and our hearts being re-kindled at assembly.
Schroeder Wiebe commented, “Like ripples from a pebble skipping across the water, the effects of this question are far-reaching.” Our ideas and understandings can spread out to affect our world. All God’s people “create ripples as they connect with each other and as each seeks to explore the question, ‘What if...’”
—Dan Dyck
On-line donations
a surprise
The success of on-line donations to Mennonite Church Canada via the MC Canada web site is surprising planners. Al Rempel, director of resource development, is enthusiastic about the possibilities.
“We have not heavily promoted this capability, and yet people are finding it,” he said. “It’s a low cost way of inviting people from the church and beyond to invest in God’s mission.”
Since beginning last November, the capability has facilitated over $11,000. “We do not know whether these donations came only because of the on-line method. What is important to us is that our donors have found it to be convenient and safe.”
“I’d like to invite visitors to the web site to read news stories about God’s work in the world and then consider making a donation,” said Rempel. Readers can log onto www.mennonitechurch.ca/
—Dan Dyck
Pray for
Witness workers
• Remember Anne Garber Kompaore (Burkina Faso) who joined 30 Hebrew researchers from various organizations for two weeks in England, learning how to contribute to the Keyterms of Biblical Hebrew Project. The product will be a useful resource for Bible translators all over the world. Thank God for the commitment to excellence in Bible translation.
• Pray for Nancy Frey (Benin) whose father died of cancer on January 3. On January 6, her uncle, George Weber, died in an accident in Iraq while traveling with the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) delegation. Pray for Nancy, her husband Bruce Yoder, and their children Jeremiah and Deborah as they grieve these losses. They returned to Canada for the funerals.
• Pray for Bonnie Friesen, Witness associate teaching at Zaporizhya Bible College in Ukraine. She is particularly concerned about her aging mother, who just moved into the Grunthal (Manitoba) Menno Home. “Mom has fallen three times since I left for Ukraine,” writes Bonnie. The move “is a big and difficult challenge for her.... ” She recently reported that the move went well and her mother seems “content and at peace.”
Consider partnership
in seminary program
Mennonite Church Manitoba considered a proposal regarding the Evangelical Anabaptist Seminary Program (EASP) at its delegate session February 14-15. The program offers courses in Winnipeg in conjunction with Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary (MBBS) and Canadian Mennonite University.
These schools, as well as Steinbach Bible College and five Mennonite conferences, are sponsoring this venture. Jake F. Pauls, MC Manitoba executive director, and John Klassen, director of Leadership Ministries, have been attending the meetings of the interim board.
The partnering conferences and institutions hope to create a Manitoba setting for seminary training. Since a growing number of pastoral candidates express reluctance to relocate to the USA for training and many receive their seminary education in non-Anabaptist seminaries, “it becomes our responsibility to explore the merits of making Anabaptist education more accessible to Canadians,” states the proposal. “Looking at the numerous pastoral vacancies that will need to be filled in the next 10 years also gives us good reason to seriously consider this possibility.”
Specifically, MC Manitoba is being asked to work in partnership in areas of governance, finance, faculty and students; to affirm MBBS and AMBS as the institutional partners under whose degree granting authority the program is offered; to affirm the core values and anticipated outcomes; to contribute a minimum of $1000 for 2003-2005; to review the partnership in 2005.
“This program holds great promise for the training of pastors and leaders for our congregations in keeping with our Anabaptist heritage,” said Pauls. “The interim board of EASP would like to see a more permanent commitment coming from us soon. There are many questions to be asked...but how can we say no?”
Bechtel appointed
conference minister
Ken Bechtel will be coming on staff with Mennonite Church Saskatchewan as Conference Minister, beginning in April. The appointment is an interim one and will last until 2005.
“He will work at uniting us toward a common vision,” said Allan Klassen, deputy moderator of MC Saskatchewan General Council.
Bechtel, who has worked in several interim situations, is current pastor at the Breslau Mennonite Church in Ontario.
Armin Krahn, MC Saskatchewan moderator, sees the conference minister role as having two major emphases: to connect with individual pastors and churches and to help with programming and planning for MC Saskatchewan.
First fundraiser
for camps
The Camping Commission, which manages all three conference camps in Saskatchewan, held its first fundraiser on January 25. Although the camps raise money on an individual basis, this Comedy and Dessert night was organized to help all camps under the conference umbrella.
Considering that the weather was less than cooperative, the evening was a success, said commission member John Dyck. With the temperature at minus 35 degrees, fewer people are willing to venture out but those who came were generous.
A total of $900 was donated toward the camping ministry. The money will help to relieve the financial pressures of the camps’ summer programs.
Natural Church and
Missional Church
One of the subcommittees of MC British Columbia’s Church Ministries Committee is called “Natural Church Development” (NCD). The NCD approach assesses the strengths and weaknesses within a church and offers positive ways to overcome obstacles and build on strengths.
The committee has been encouraged to see how NCD fits with the Missional Church paradigm as healthy churches seek to share the gospel “across the street and around the world.” Last year, Gerd Bartel, Mennonite Church Canada development and missions director for B.C., and the NCD committee worked together to sponsor four leaders from B.C. churches to get training for this process within their churches.
The four began with NCD training in December and will continue with Missional Church training during this year. For information on how your congregation can be involved in the NCD process, contact Henry Kliewer at the MC British Columbia office at (604) 850 6658.
Unless otherwise credited, the articles in TheChurches pages were written by: Leona Dueck Penner (Mennonite Church Canada), Maurice Martin (Eastern Canada), Evelyn Rempel Petkau (Manitoba), Karin Fehderau (Saskatchewan), Donita Wiebe-Neufeld (Alberta), Angelika Dawson (B.C.). See page 2 for contact information.
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