Mennonite Church Canada

Prayer and praise

Please pray for:

• The processing of visas for attendees of IMPaCT (International Mennonite Pastors Coming Together), which hopes to bring together six international Anabaptist pastors and pair them with six Manitoba pastors. Two pastors from Cuba have recently been denied their visas by the Canadian embassy in Havana. The MC Canada/MC Manitoba/CMU-sponsored event, which also includes pastors from Chile, Paraguay, Brazil and Spain, is a two-week period of reflection on pastoral ministry, learning together, sharing, prayer, worship and getting to know the broader Anabaptist global family. Please pray that this time may be one of fruitful sharing and learning as the pastors come together in June.

• Witness workers Jake and Dorothy Unrau, as they returned to their work in Germany on Feb. 19 after a six-week North American ministry. Pray for their smooth transition as they catch up with congregational visits and correspondence, and as they begin their evangelization services. Also pray for the wellbeing of their congregation in Niedergöersdorf, as several members suffer from poor health.

• Give thanks for the early March release of evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach, the sixth Vietnamese church leader who had been imprisoned since 2004. (See photo.) Please pray for continued healing and restoration for the church leader, his family, and for the congregation involved.

—Compiled by Hinke Loewen-Rudgers

Mennonite Church British Columbia

Songs of the past to benefit seniors

First United Mennonite Church of Vancouver will host “Songs My Grandmother Loved,” a fundraising concert on April 23 to benefit the Aging in Place program of Mennonite Central Committee Supportive Care Services. The concert begins at 2 p.m. Solos, duets and musical numbers are planned that, according to organizers, “will bring back memories of when you were young.” Following the concert there will be a time of tea and dessert around tables in the church basement, served by church youths.

Aging in Place is a program that gives seniors the support they need to remain in their homes.

For more information, call 604-321-2131.

Youth pastor change at West Abbotsford

Joel Defries, youth pastor at West Abbotsford Mennonite, is completing his service there as of March 31, to take on the youth ministry at an Alliance church in White Rock. The church planned a farewell faspa for him and his family on March 26.

Taking over West Abbotsford youth responsibilities for the next five months is Erik Olson, a Columbia Bible College student who has been working with Defries for the past year.

A search committee has now been formed to discern a candidate for the position of associate pastor at West Abbotsford.

Joint Good Friday services announced

Mennonite Church B.C. congregations are planning joint services in both Vancouver and Abbotsford for Good Friday, April 14.

Sherbrooke Mennonite and First United Mennonite, along with Culloden and Vancouver Mennonite Brethren churches, will hold services at John Oliver High School auditorium beginning at 10:30 a.m. The service will feature choir music and some drama.

In Abbotsford, the rotating service this year for English congregations will be held at Emmanuel Mennonite, also beginning at 10:30 a.m. Other participating churches include West Abbotsford, Eben-Ezer, Wellspring, Olivet, East Abbotsford Community and Abbotsford Mennonite Fellowship.

Mennonite Church Alberta

Tofield church to build new sanctuary

Tofield Mennonite Church is building a new sanctuary. They have reached their fundraising goal to begin, and a building committee has already spent much time with sound technicians, architectural drawings and other plans. The congregation currently meets in the multi-purpose room of its facility. A sod turning ceremony is being planned for the end of April, details to be announced.

Mennonite Church Saskatchewan

RJC hires new principal

Rosthern Junior College has announced that Gail Schellenberg has been hired to replace Erwin Tiessen as principal of the Grade 10 to 12 Mennonite school.

Schellenberg, who has worked as an educator in Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta, will begin at the college in August. She has been principal of Westgate Mennonite Collegiate in Winnipeg for the last five years. This will be her first foray into working in a residential school setting.

Mennonite Church Manitoba

Delegate session results in two motions

At the February annual delegate sessions, held Feb. 24 to 25 in Gretna, delegates passed two motions:

• Given the policy of the present federal government to increased military activity, given the commitment of this government to significant increases in budgetary spending on defence, and given the interest in the aggressive recruiting of more military personnel, much of it impacting our young people, be it resolved that MC Manitoba work with other Mennonite churches and Christian agencies to address this issue with the government and the churches.

• Whereas we are united in a desire to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, inviting people to lives of faith and Christian discipleship; we are united in a conviction that the gospel is incompatible with war and other forms of violence; we are committed to good relations with people of other religious convictions; we live in the tension of faithfully abiding with our convictions and also supporting the upcoming Franklin Graham Festival; and since we have experienced in our midst the value of honest and humble dialogue, we resolve that: we will share our convictions and struggles with our local ecumenical partners in the festival organizing committee, inviting them or groups among them to join us in discussing these matters, and we will continue efforts to engage in dialogue (either on our own behalf or together with other festival sponsors) with Franklin Graham and with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and give witness to our concerns regarding statements made by Franklin Graham advocating unrestrained violence and denigrating Islam and its adherents; and we will hold our leaders in prayer on these matters.

Mennonite Church Eastern Canada

Youths invited to be ‘represented’

MC Eastern Canada is inviting youths to “Represent,” a special youth event being held in conjunction with the conference delegate assembly on April 28, 9.30 p.m., at Vineland United Mennonite Church. The evening will feature games and socializing. After a “night lunch,” there will be a sleepover at the church, followed by breakfast before the delegate sessions.

Youths don’t need adults to talk at them, they don’t even always need adults to talk to them, and especially not to speak for them. This year, they are encouraged to be at the assembly to “represent” themselves. They will represent who they are as individuals. They will represent who they are from all regions of the conference. And they will represent that they, too, are people of faith and an integral part of the church.

This event is planned by Mennonite Youth Council of Eastern Canada, an eager group of young people working with Tara Gingerich Hiebert to plan conference-wide events. Represent is for youths, youth groups, youth sponsors and pastors. The purpose is to learn together about the work of the church, and to represent the younger voices around such issues as Christian formation and Christian witness.

Also featured at the assembly will be youth Bible quizzing on the book of Joshua. From the higher-than-usual 13 teams entered in the preliminary round at Breslau on April 22, six finalists will do a round robin quiz-off at the St. Catharines Laotian church on the morning of April 29, to establish the two finalists. The final match will be held at St. Catharines United Mennonite Church at 12.50 p.m., so delegates can see this exciting completion of weeks of diligent study and good fun over lunch.

From Our Leaders

—Pam Peters-Pries

Being ‘God’s people now’

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” I Peter 2:9-10 NRSV

As I write this column, Jack Suderman, Mennonite Church Canada’s general secretary, has just begun the God’s People Now! listening tour. By the time this magazine arrives in your home, he will have visited every congregation in Mennonite Church Saskatchewan and many of the congregations in Mennonite Church Alberta. By late fall, he will have visited every one of MC Canada’s 225 congregations, to listen to the joys and challenges of being God’s people in their communities.

This ambitious tour shares its theme with the upcoming MC Canada assembly in Edmonton, July 4 to 7. In Edmonton, we will worship, discern and share together around the theme, “God’s People Now!” based on I Peter 2:9-10.

Why is being God’s people now so important?

The Bible emphasizes the creation of a “people” as central to God’s purpose in our world. I Peter 2:9-10 captures this “peoplehood” idea vividly and concisely. We are a people chosen by God, but that is not the end of the story. We are chosen to proclaim the mighty acts of the one who makes light out of darkness. God has made us a people by reconciling us to him and to each other, and God has made us a people so that we may engage others with the reconciling gospel of Jesus Christ. Being a people of God is both the goal of God’s design for the world and the strategy to get us there. Being a people of God is so central to our purpose as a church that we can hardly over-emphasize it or dedicate too much energy to it.

Please pray with me that the Holy Spirit will guide the listening, discerning, and relationship-building that will take place during Jack Suderman’s tour to each of our congregations and during our gathering as a church at Edmonton 2006, so that we may grow as God’s people now.

Pam Peters-Pries is MC Canada Support Services executive secretary.

Unless otherwise credited, the articles in TheChurches pages were written by Canadian Mennonite’s regional correspondents.