April 2, 2012 issue
As churches grow, Canadian MBs seek unity, identity
By Tim Huber Mennonite World ReviewMennonite Brethren congregations in Canada are growing, leading the denomination to reconsider organizational structures that have not kept pace.
Willingdon Church in the Vancouver, B.C., metropolitan area is one of the largest Mennonite Brethren churches in Canada, with about 5,000 attenders weekly — a dramatic increase from the 116 German speakers who gathered for the first congregational meeting in 1961. Sermons are translated into 10 languages, and seven services meet in five time slots each weekend. — Photo by Kevin Lee
In recent decades, the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches has shifted from what was historically a homogenous group of immigrants from Ukraine in small, rural churches to an ethnically diverse and increasingly suburban landscape.
“All of a sudden the Mennonite Brethren here are having large churches,” CCMBC moderator Paul Loewen said. “Some of Canada’s largest churches are Mennonite Brethren.”
The result has been a disconnect, both vertically between congregations and the denomination as well as horizontally among congregations and provincial conferences.
In conjunction with hiring executive director Willy Reimer in early 2011, the CCMBC executive board commissioned consultant Terry Mochar to interview national staff, provincial representatives and pastors as part of the National Ministry Effectiveness Project. At its Jan. 27-28 meeting in Abbotsford, B.C., the board approved the study’s findings and recommendations.
Mochar’s report offered nine recommendations to align the denomination to a common set of goals and strategies for sharing Christ with others, including:
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Cast a clear vision and mission about what MBs can do together as churches to transform Canada with the good news of Jesus;
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Provide support to develop pastors, first as disciples and then as effective leaders, so they can live balanced lives and lead healthy churches;
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Lead the way in 21st-century communication strategies that enable MBs to reach the broadest constituent base possible.
Comments
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Where the Mennonite Brethren Church is today is a by-product of events that happened yesterday. Your numbers are astounding, and those numbers are a reflection that are echoing even now from the walls of Mennonite oppression in Europe, World War II, and the progress you have made over the years for your beliefs and endurance.
Some of your problems have arisen because leaders failed to keep pace with one another. Some leaders have opted to rely on local initiatives for leading the church bypassing the need for greater consultation to be found in the conference level. There needs to be a system of checks and balances to correct misjudgments, oversights, and other things within a congregation, and that system would be at the conference level. Conferences would then be accountable to the greater Mennonite Brethren Church.
You have new leadership with new visions and aspirations which is good and at the same time not so good!
It is good to review organizational structures. Mochar’s report offered nine recommendations to align the denomination to a common set of goals and strategies for sharing Christ with others, including: (I only saw 3 recommendations in the article). Mennonite Brethren Historical Commission executive secretary Andrew Dyck said developing a national vision is difficult in Canada’s fragmented society. Don’t overplay your fragmented society as your membership may be smarter than you give them credit for being.
The new leadership wants to jump ship and invent the wheel all over again because they want to control the destiny of the “Church” in the name of constituents who know very little of the Mennonite name, what it is, what is has done, and what it is doing! What is not mentioned in the article is about changing the name of the MB Church, however, that is what I am getting out of the article. It seems as though some of your current leadership is advocating a change in the name, ie, probably removing “Mennonite” to something more eye appealing at the moment and to give credence to themselves and their viewpoints. Some may think that Mennonites are out of step with prevailing moods of the time!
In essence the identity “Mennonite” should remain in place to continue defining the denomination and what it stands for as people recognize the Mennonites for their stance on peace and their daily living for Christ with transformed lives. Individual churches should also maintain Mennonite in their name instead of something more appealing.
The virus “to change” will infect and eventually destroy the Mennonites as we know them. Already it is eating like cancer upon Mennonites in the United States!
Go with what you have, improve upon it, and let the at large membership decide issues without being coerced.
Bill Moreland
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