The church as landlord

In an age when many Mennonite churches worry about losing young people, David Epp has a solution: the church should become their landlord. At Rosthern Mennonite Church’s semi-annual meeting late last summer, he proposed that the congregation purchase a house in Saskatoon to provide a community living space with affordable rent for Mennonite students in the city.

“I mean, these are people, young people who are at a crossroads, and this is a period of time when lots of people struggle to continue going to church, for whatever reason,” he says. “So in the case of Rosthern, buying a house in Saskatoon would enable young adults who are living away from their home congregation, you know, to have points of contact with their home congregation.”

Craig Neufeld, pastor of Rosthern Mennonite where Epp is a member, was intrigued by the proposal. Although no formal steps have been taken, Neufeld knows there is some support in the congregation. “The benefit I see, at least, is a continued fostering of spiritual life and a way for them to remain connected with the larger Mennonite church,” he says.

Another benefit, according to Epp, is that providing a home with affordable rent is a way the church can affirm the gifts and choices of Mennonite students who do not attend one the Mennonite-affiliated colleges or universities, since young adults who choose non-Mennonite schools often aren’t eligible for church scholarships or bursaries.

Epp, 22, is graduating from Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) in Winnipeg this spring, and has received regular financial support from his congregation. However, his two brothers who are studying engineering and pharmacy, disciplines he says that can be of service to the church, are not eligible for the same scholarships. “If we’re blessed with different gifts and the church is made up of different parts of a body, in my mind at least, it didn’t make a kind of sense for my brothers to not necessarily receive the same amount of support from a congregation,” he says.

Although new to his congregation, Epp’s idea isn’t without precedent. In New York, Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship runs Menno House, which provides affordable community-style housing for young Anabaptists. In Vancouver, the Pacific Centre for Discipleship Association operates Menno Simons Centre, a residence for Mennonite students attending the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Regent College.

Based in a former convent, the Vancouver centre houses 22 students each year; students can stay for a two-year term. The board tries to select students from a variety of locations and disciplines, although the majority come from Christian backgrounds. Aside from providing an affordable place to live, the centre is an important way for students to make new friends and feel part of a community.

“The consistent message we get from the alumni is they don’t care that they have a small room, they don’t care that the building is old, they just are most interested in having that community-living aspect where they get to know their roommates and form new friendships and learn from each other,” says Kevin Hiebert, the centre’s vice-president.

Of course, living in community can come with its own challenges, as people have different communication styles and understandings of how clean a communal space should be.

But for Sam Dueckman, who lived at Menno Simons for a year while studying geography at UBC, the centre provided a Mennonite alternative to his academic community. “My university experience was not explicitly anti-Christian, but it was definitely secular, and it was refreshing to have a living environment where faith was discussed and reinforced,” he says via e-mail.

He also found that living in community with people his own age with similar beliefs made it easier to build friendships. “The single best thing about living at Menno was definitely the fun we could have as a group on short notice,” Dueckman says. “We started a swim club that went and jumped in the ocean almost every Monday night of my first semester there, into December,” he says. “Because everybody was just down the hall from each other, you could almost always find something to do.”

While the idea is only in the discussion phase in Rosthern, Epp hopes that it will become a reality, so that students at non-Mennonite schools can experience the community he had while studying at Rosthern Junior College (RJC) and CMU. “You know people who have gone to [Canadian Mennonite Bible College], CMU, RJC, [Mennonite Collegiate Institute] will recognize that probably the apex of our experience is living with our friends and living with another, and learning what it means to live as disciples amidst a community.”