State of the Union Address

We are looking forward to a wonderful time of celebrating the work of God's kingdom among us as we gather on the afternoon of May 24th to worship, fellowship and eat together.  I encourage your congregation to consider closing your regular worship service and making this the one to focus on.  We are also asking each congregation to either share a few words, send a video, or photos, showing some missional activity that you are involved with.  Let's  make it a blessed time.

This is a sneak preview of the state of the union address that I will give at the Mennonite Church BC annual meeting on Saturday, February 21st.  It's kind of like when someone's speech gets leaked to the media and snippits from it end up in the newspaper before it is given.  I thought I would pre-empt all the reporters that are lurking at my office door and pre-disclose it myself.

Our theme for our leadership conference (LEAD) and for the annual sessions is "Old Coat New Cloth: Fashioning the Future for MCBC" from Matthew 9:16.  May we be the new cloth that God wants to work with, especially new cloth that is fashioned from an old coat.

First Mennonite  Church Burns Lake has signed the Covenant.  Now they are seeking to know what covenant-living is really like.  Because of some tough years in the last decade, this congregation has lost many members, but they are now a unified, smaller congregation seeking the partnership that a covenanted people should provide.  May we come alongside  of them in faithfulness.

Abbotsford Mennonite Fellowship has also signed the covenant.  Let us find meaningful partnership with them too.

We are now 31 covenanted congregations.  May it be a healthy union of congregations that are definitely not all alike, but hold together in a covenant relationship.

Karen Martens is the new Denominational Minister and Director of Leadership Development for Mennonite Church Canada.  You will get to meet her this weekend at both the LEAD Conference and the annual meetings.  She and her husband Terry co-pastored the Grace Mennonite Church in Regina, Saskatchewan for around 15 years.  She began in this position in the fall of 2008.

 

We are going to be our Identity, Purpose and Vision statements as the statement of who we are. But out of who we are comes our commitments as to what we are going to do.  Just go back to the MCBC Home Page and and click on Our Vision Statement to see all this (or come to the annual meeting on Saturday, February 21st!)

 

We are going to celebrate the beginning of Level Ground Mennonite Church, yet at the same time to give recognition to the good ministry of its predecesors - West Abbotsford Mennonite Church and Wellspring Christian Fellowship.  I think we should commission someone to write a new history of Mennonite Church BC, especially since we are newly covenanted together.  The update would be from 1990 until now.

 

Columbia Bible College is seeking the wisdom of the Mennonite Church BC and BC Mennonite Brethren churches (the two bodies that own the school) by drawing me and my MB counterpart into a Leadership Development Task Force with the president and academic dean.  This is to help the school develop students whose competencies that align what the churches are looking for.  I think we are in a great place of strengthening the role of CBC as our school for our students, whether we are training up lay people in our church ministries or people for staff positions.  

An interesting conversation that we are having with CBC is regarding bursaries.  There is a sense among the MB leaders that the subsidy given by the conference should be developed into bursaries for students rather than general giving to the school's budget.  As MCBC leaders, we are okay with continuing to give to the general budget, but think it might be a good idea for the congregations to develop their own bursaries to give to their students.  Now, one radical step further would be for MCBC congregations with a bursary who don't have students in a certain year, to make their bursary available for students from other congregations that may not have sufficient bursary funds.  I think this would be a great expression of covenanting together.

Please pray for Mennonite Japanese Christian Fellowship in Surrey and their pastor, Gerald Neufeld.  Any time I have worshiped there, I have truly experienced blessed worship, but they struggle to keep up their support for their pastor.   Pray for God's wisdom and creativity.