Canadian Mennonite
Volume 11, No. 08
April 16, 2007
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Mennonite Church Canada
Mennonite Church British Columbia
Mennonite Church Alberta
Mennonite Church Saskatchewan
Mennonite Church Manitoba
Mennonite Church Eastern Canada
From our leaders
Mennonite Church Canada
Prayer requests
Please pray for:
• Eagle’s Wings Ministry, a new downtown drop-in centre in Prince Albert, Sask., which is the vision of Cree pastor Ray Dumais. Pray for him and volunteer staff as they coordinate the centre and welcome aboriginal people from many northern communities in the name of Christ.
• The Korea Anabaptist Center’s program director, Jae-Young Lee, who will be touring schools and groups in Sichuan, China, as a guest speaker for Mennonite Partners in China. Pray that this opportunity will be meaningful for all involved as he shares about peace and language from a Korean perspective.
• The Company of 1000, an MC Canada financial aid program that gives vital support and encouragement to students preparing for ministerial leadership. Pray also for newly graduated seminary students as they and congregational search committees look to fill available pastoral positions.
Equipping helps youths read Bible
The April issue of Equipping, now available in church offices, highlights updated Youth Ministry resources at the MC Canada Resource Centre such as Read the Book by Faith & Life Resources, including “a chart for youths to make a full reading of the Bible as interesting, fun and un-bewildering as possible.”
It also includes a celebration story from Colombia by Dan Kehler, a recent MC Canada tour participant who was “overwhelmed” by the hospitality of their Colombian hosts, who offered them their beds while they slept on the floor.
Mennonite Church British Columbia
Church staffing prayer requests
A number of Mennonite Church B.C. congregations have pastoral staff openings:
• Eben-Ezer Mennonite Church, Abbotsford—half-time youth worker and full-time associate pastor.
• Peace Mennonite Church of Richmond—associate pastor for youths and young adults.
• Living Hope Christian Fellowship, Surrey—full-time associate pastor of student ministries, youths and young adults.
• Emmanuel Mennonite Church of Abbotsford—middle school youth worker.
• United Mennonite Church, Black Creek—summer youth worker.
• MC B.C.—executive minister.
Please pray for these churches and for MC B.C., that they will find the right candidates to fill the positions.
Historical Society presenting Saengerfest
Those who remember fondly the days of traditional German choir festivals will have an opportunity to participate in one in May. On May 6, the Mennonite Historical Society of B.C. presents Saengerfest Choir Festival of Praise and Worship. Performing choirs and a mass choir will celebrate the tradition of choral singing. The program will also include audience participation and a brief history of Mennonite choir festivals in Russia.
The Saengerfest will take place at Central Heights Mennonite Brethren Church in Abbotsford. Call 604-853-6177 for tickets or more information.
Mennonite Church Alberta
Pastors busy this spring
Provincial conference meetings begin early for pastors. Last month, 14 Alberta pastors and an assortment of other church leaders gathered at Lethbridge Mennonite Church for personal sharing and a discussion on pastoral leadership development. The group acknowledged the need for the encouragement, training and support of leaders, as well as noting some of the challenges of ministry that may discourage potential pastors.
MC Canada denominational minister Sven Eriksson said, “From where I sit, I see a lot of over-function among pastors, who then lose their sense of vitality.”
Jonathan Neufeld, the new admissions worker for Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), helped facilitate the leadership discussion. His role is to explore how AMBS might help develop, support and work alongside Canadian pastors and church leaders.
Pastors also heard more about plans for the upcoming IMPaCT event. From May 24 to June 6, five pastors from other countries will come to work, learn and socialize alongside their Alberta counterparts. Congregations participating in IMPaCT include Edmonton First, Holyrood, Bergthal, Foothills and Lethbridge.
The annual theological studies week, normally open to anyone, will be reserved for pastors this year. The decision was made to give pastors intense and intentional time to share and learn from each other.
Mennonite Church Saskatchewan
Hanley pastors on sabbatical
A husband-and-wife pastoral team that is completing 13 years as lead pastors is taking a year-long sabbatical. Gary and Margaret Ewen Peters, who work and farm around the small congregation of Hanley Mennonite Church, will be leaving at the end of April for a time of travel and volunteer work.
The trip will take them to Jubilee Partners, an intentional Christian community in Georgia, and then on to work as hosts of the international guest house in Washington, D.C., which is run by the Mennonite Church. The service part of the year-long adventure will conclude in the Maritimes, where they will help with the Ten Thousand Villages festival sales.
Reflecting on preparations for the trip, Ewen Peters expressed gratitude for the congregation’s support. Unexpectedly, their neighbours heard about their upcoming trip and offered to rent some of their land. All of their land is now rented out and people from the church have offered to help with livestock and household concerns as well.
Ewen Peters hopes that the trip will also give them time to ponder and pray, and that they’ll find solutions for the troubling spiritual landscape in rural Saskatchewan. “What do we do about these small rural churches that keep getting smaller,” she wondered.
Replacing the Peters for the second half of the sabbatical will be interim pastors Henry and Erna Funk.
Mennonite Church Manitoba
CwM gearing up for summer season
Camps with Meaning is gearing up for a busy summer season. On May 6, each of the three camps will be hosting open houses from 2 to 4 p.m. They will give tours and offer visitors an opportunity to get acquainted with the services and programs of the camps.
The Regional Committee of Camp Assiniboia has been tapping trees for maple syrup and will serve the syrup at pancake brunch fundraisers on April 22 and 29 at noon. The money will go towards upgrading the sports equipment at the camp.
A new homesteading retreat has been planned for May 18 to 20 by Camp Assiniboia manager Rich Boyd. It will feature old-fashioned skills and activities such as hog butchering, soap making, cane making and natural medicines. There will also be a discussion on sustainability and some campfire entertainment.
The annual Plus 55 Retreat on May 28 to 30 at Camp Moose Lake will be led by Gary Martens, pastor of Steinbach Mennonite Church. The Birding Retreat on May 25 to 27 will be led by Adolf Ens and Fran Giesbrecht.
Mennonite Church Eastern Canada
Invitation to generous living
Three leaders from each MC Eastern Canada congregation are being invited to a series of dinners in May of this year to learn more about the Generosity Project.
The dinners are based on the cluster structure, and a member of the pastoral team, the congregational chair and a member of the finance commission of each congregation are invited to share the challenges and successes which they are experiencing in creating communities of faithful generosity.
This is an opportunity for the area church to hear from the congregations, and the congregations to hear from each other. This event is strictly to glean the wisdom of congregational leaders and to have their input in framing the focus of a church-wide consultation on Oct.27.
Executive minister David Martin has begun this project as many congregations struggle each year to achieve their giving goals and are experiencing reductions in ministry capacity. The long-term health of MC Eastern Canada’s community of congregations depends on a membership that is grounded in a spirituality of generosity and is committed to the mission of Christ’s church with their time, service, prayers and money. The consultations’ purposes include: discerning the challenges and opportunities of cultivating a spirituality of generosity; developing strategic stewardship initiatives that respond to the challenges and opportunities identified by the consultation; determining what resources are needed to support pastors and congregational leaders in implementing stewardship initiatives aimed at cultivating generous congregations; and devising a series of generosity benchmarks that provide objective criteria to assist congregations to assess their giving trends.
From Our Leaders
‘Missional’ is us
Ever since the birth of Mennonite Church Canada about seven years ago, there has been a growing appreciation for the concept of the missional church. The concept has sometimes been elusive, but a picture is gradually coming into focus.
Being missional is not really a new idea, but is one that is as old as the church itself. That idea is that the church is the mission. “Missional” describes who we are. This then puts the onus back on the church, challenging us to be all we can be as the evangelizing organism in the world. It also opens the door for us to dream again about the kind of church we want to be.
With that in mind, it has been encouraging to hear of some of the new ideas beginning to take shape right here in Alberta.
For several years now, we have been hearing from fellow church members and colleagues about the missing young adult generation. One idea coming from Trinity Mennonite Church has been that of a young adult church plant in Calgary, which would have special appeal for that generation—a church fully grounded in the Anabaptist conviction yet culturally relevant to the needs and mindset of this postmodern culture we are increasingly needing to come to grips with.
Discussions have also been taking place in Coaldale regarding a distinct need among the Low German Mennonites in southern Alberta. The needs are fairly well known and God is beginning to stir a vision of hope and healing among the hearts of several individuals to imagine something new.
There is no doubt that God is setting open doors before us. He has been—and always is—stirring, fermenting and disturbing us to move with him into new areas of his mission in the world.
But it’s one thing to dream. It’s quite another to implement! Is there anything that might give us some help on this? We need look no further than to review a sermon preached at this year’s MC Alberta annual delegate sessions, “Build to last.” Building to last means:
• Affirming the foundation already laid in Jesus Christ.
• Doing it together.
• Relying not on our schemes or power, but in the power of the Holy Spirit.
• Staying connected to our source by remaining in an attitude of prayer.
• Being willing to be like a mountain stream that loses itself in the desert and is then reborn in the cycle of water that rains down again in life-giving power.
Let’s do it! Let’s go big and not go home. Let’s allow God’s imagination to thrill us. Let’s get the big picture and see God’s kingdom from his perspective.
Unless otherwise credited, the articles in TheChurches pages were written by Canadian Mennonite’s regional correspondents.