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Control issues
What is more countercultural than submission? In a time of unalienable rights and unfettered individuality, voluntary abdication of power, rights or personal expression is relatively unthinkable. These norms seep into church despite the fact that submitting, yielding and weakness are Gospel bedrock. The central image of our faith is our Saviour, not with a fist…
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Tending congregation-pastor relations
For many years, the model of ministry within Mennonite Church Canada congregations featured a solo pastor working full-time for a congregation of 100 to 150 members. MC Canada accordingly designed tools and support systems to facilitate such a relationship between pastor and congregation. Three notable examples include our pension plan, benefit plan and annual pastoral…
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Readers Write: April 2025
MCC statement rings hollow for long-time MCCer I am one of the 50-plus people who have come forward with an account of serious mistreatment by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). After 17 years with MCC, their handling of a staff conflict shattered me. This happened in recent years. For the sake of my personal well-being, I…
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Church worker overboard
A few years back, I invited a new acquaintance to help with a hayloft restoration project. He was handy and between jobs. As we worked with old wood, we talked about our experiences of church. He had done church work for most of two decades. At one point, a light began to dawn. I stopped…
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Does the Carver model suit Mennonites?
A retired veteran of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) management put it bluntly (off-record): “MCC is not a priesthood of all believers.” I don’t know if any Mennonite organizations are. Most, like this magazine, are hierarchies, and many use some version of the Carver model of governance. While such matters may be boring for many readers,…
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Readers Write: March 2025
Solar story missed the markI was looking forward to reading the story in the December issue about Rockway Mennonite Collegiate’s solar array. But after reading the story, something didn’t feel right.Although the article was entitled “Rockway solar project generates imperfect hope,” I think it would have more appropriately been titled, “Solar project generates hope for…
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Secondary identities
The first identity of a follower of Jesus is “a follower of Jesus.” The church is an alternative city within the city, a new way of being human and being part of a people centred on Jesus. Any other cultural or personal markers may be important, but they must be secondary. If we believe there…
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A second helping of grace
I recently visited a church on communion Sunday and watched with delight as a child approached the table not once but twice. He was hungry, it seemed, and the table was open for folks to help themselves. Grinning, he returned to his pew with a second helping of grace. The scene brought me back seven…
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From Inertia to Momentum: Restoring Institutional Integrity to MCC
First and foremost, I deeply acknowledge that Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) represents a global heritage for all Anabaptist and Mennonite communities worldwide. Despite our diverse contexts, MCC continues to serve as the humanitarian arm of the Anabaptist tradition. As someone deeply committed to both truth and organizational stability, I found myself wrestling with multiple perspectives.…
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Beyond inspiration
I have a budding conviction about preaching. My conviction is that the goal of preaching is not inspiration; the role of the sermon is not to inspire those listening. (There’s a chance people from my congregation may think, “That explains a lot.”) In our current cultural climate, inspiration seems to have become a vocational cliché.…
