God’s love will ignite the church’s future
When you live on the west side of the Rocky Mountains and sometimes feel isolated from the rest of the country, what does it mean to be part of our nationwide family of faith? This summer’s nationwide gathering in Abbotsford promises to bring that connection closer to home for us here in B.C. As Mennonite…
What to expect at MC Canada’s annual general meeting?
Q. What is the purpose of the delegate session at Gathering 2019? A. Delegates will review and ratify Joint Council actions; receive and review reports from our programs—International Witness, Indigenous-Settler Relations and CommonWord—as well as the regional churches; and act on any recommendations coming from Joint Council or regional churches. They will also review and assess progress…
MC Canada primer
If you care about connecting with the wider Mennonite community but have trouble keeping up with all the conference restructuring and acronyms—so many M’s and C’s—this article is for you. If you form part of the small remnant of church nerds who love organizational charts, you may want to pull out your copy of Martyrs…
Gathering 2019 events
Workshops on Saturday, June 29 • Being Jesus in Today’s World For many, the current post-Christendom reality is bad news, but for followers of Jesus this reality presents exciting opportunities for kingdom work. During this workshop, Colin and Judith McCartney of Connect City Ministries in Toronto will discuss opportunities to do effective and innovative ministry…
Gathering 2019 is for the whole family
I have many fond memories of attending our annual national events over my lifetime, beginning in my youth at Great Treks and then as a young adult at assemblies. I remember creative and inspiring worship; animated, even heated, business meetings; and, most significantly, making personal connections with my faith community from across the country. Now we…
Test your Mennonite IQ
In the coming weeks, we will present simple profiles of Mennonite organizations for those people who want to be connected to the larger Mennonite community but get lost in the acronyms and restructuring. Here is a quiz to pique your interest. Answers below. 1. Who is the current executive minister of Mennonite Church Canada? A:…
Meet the speaker for Gathering 2019
Gathering 2019 guest speaker Elaine Heath says the greatest challenge for the western church today is to “regain a gospel-centric imagination.” “For the church in the post-Christendom West, this means intentionally and persistently moving away from notions and practices of church as a consumer or a colonizing activity,” she says in an email, “in order…
The future is now
I posed one question to the 186 Mennonite Church Canada congregations for which my search engine found email addresses. My question: “What changes has your congregation experienced as a result of the Future Directions decisions of October 2017?” The most succinct reply was one word: “None.” End of email. That was also the best summation of…
Prepare for something new and yet familiar
Over the past three months, in my role as communications officer for Mennonite Church Canada, I have been busy preparing for Gathering 2019, the first event of the “new” nationwide church. This work is challenging because, much like trying to envision summer in the dead of winter (Regina is under an extreme cold warning as…
Come and let your imagination be ignited
“Igniting the imagination of the church.” That’s the theme of Mennonite Church Canada’s Gathering 2019, to be held from June 28 to July 1 in Abbotsford, B.C. Powerful words, those! What might they mean for us as congregations comprising five regional churches and the nationwide church? In the latest edition of Anabaptist Witness, César García,…
