Heading Back to Saskatoon

The Mennonite Church Canada Fall Leadership Assembly was in Saskatoon this year (November 10-12, 2010). I go there because as Executive Minister in MCBC, that makes me an Area Church Minister in one of the five regions of Mennonite Church Canada.

Of course, this also gives opportunity to see the parents. I took an extra day and drove to Rosthern to spend a day ahead of the business meetings with my parents. I was able to help Dad get his minivan ready for selling - cleaning it out and doing a few other things. You see, Dad is almost 93, and he decided to let the insurance expire on his vehicle in October. He did take it for one last drive the day before expiration. Mom and Dad are doing fine - both at the Rosthern Mennonite Nursing Home, with Mom in nursing care, and Dad in assisted living.

I stayed with Diane's parents for the days of the assembly in Saskatoon. It was really good catching up.

It is always good to be about the business of the church - both the challenging and frustrating stuff, as well as the inspiring stuff. This assembly is the body that discerns what the most important conversations on theology and church life are these days, and then figures out the time and place for the larger church to engage these. The theme that has caught our attention is, "Delighting in the Word of God" (both the Written Word and the Living Word). As we delight, we then also discern - what the Word is saying to us in our day. We were deciding what topics would be good to spend some time on in discernment at our annual MC Canada Assemblies. Last year the topic of discernment was "peace". We are still figuring out what we will do in 2011 and 2012, but it will probably be in the area of human sexuality. It's because there are so many sexual distractions right at our fingertips, that they are destroying our society.

These meetings have the strange rhythm of always being over Remembrance Day. So, on Wednesday I was caught in a nasty traffic jam on my way to the meetings, then on Thursday there was nothing. I commented to my passenger, and he said, "It's a holiday." Oh yeah, we have our meetings on a holiday. Anyway, we made the most of it. The local churches have a "Remembering for Peace" service at the Rotary Peace Park along the South Saskatchewan River. We surround the Peace Plaza Monument, which had a flame burning at the top, and had a beautiful service of prayer, remembering and committing ourselves to work for peace.




Since I had a block of extra time after my last session and before the flight home, I headed down the the Rider Store in the Centre at Circle and 8th. It's a new store for this year. I stood in the middle and wanted to phone somebody (but everyone was at work). It was like being a kid in the mall at Christmas.