Making Every Opportunity to Connect with Parents

Our trip to Saskatchewan was built around the church anniversary celebration, but with the opportunity to spend some time with our parents, me made the most of our days. We got there a couple of days early and stay an extra day afterward.

We had intentions of taking my parents up the Anglin Lake - the place where we had a cabin for 18 years and a place of many summer memories on the lake. Dad had a bad cold and decided not to come, but Diane and I took my Mom for a whole day of going to familiar places.


This is the place where we always docked our boat. Also, just out a little ways, where the point is jutting into the picture on the left, was a great spot where we sometimes stop the boat to jig for pickerel (walleye); or, we might cast off the dock for jack (northern pike).



We bought Subway sandwiches in Prince Albert, brought them up to the lake and had a picnic at a table just in front of the Anglin Lake store, and over looking the water. These experiences brought back great memories - too bad the soft ice cream machine was not working.



The next day we took my Mom and Dad out for lunch to a lovely spot in Rosthern called the Station Arts Centre (build around the old train station). Dad didn't see anything on the menu he liked, so he ordered two different pieces of pie. At 92 years of age, we're not going to make a big deal about his sweet tooth!





Diane's Mom celebrated her 78th birthday while we were there - the 8 on the cake is made from her favourite licorice candy.

My Dad is feeling much better now, so we expect all of them come to Vancouver for Mark and Lisa's wedding on August 7th. Please pray for God's grace so that all of them may be able to come.

100 Years of Church

On July 17th and 18th the Zoar Mennonite Church in Langham, Saskatchewan celebrated their 100th Anniversary. I pastored there from 1989 to 1998. There were lots of festivities all day Saturday, starting with a pancake breakfast and ending with a coffeehouse in the evening. We really didn't bring our camera out much until Sunday, but we spent the whole day hanging out with old friends and eating! The one thing that Diane did take a picture of was the horse-drawn wagon on which she took ride around town. It was probably as much fun being with friends on the wagon as seeing the town from this perspective.




On Sunday we packed the church. Having a choir made for a wonderful opportunity to fill every seat in the building. The choir and the worship was very good. I shared some stories from our years at the church for about 5 minutes, and others did the same.



Now, you need to understand that while I was pastor at Zoar, I challenged the congregation that if we ever reached 200 people on a regular Sunday morning worship service, I would eat my lunch on the roof of the church! Well, there was one time, back in the day, when we had a special celebration and filled the place with over 200 people, but I reminded them that the challenge was for a regular worship service. 12 years later there were some who still remembered this story, and they were not letting me get away with it this time. I don't know where Menno Zacharias got the ladder so quickly, but in no time he and a few others had rallied the support of the crowd, and I was up to the roof (I had finished my burger, but still had my desert in hand). Diane was not really paying attention, but when she heard the people laughing, she turned around and saw me on the roof of the church entrance, siting and eating my desert. How does the saying go, "With friends like these you don't need any enemies!"




Well, it didn't take long and the people wanted all the pastors up there who had served since my time. Abe Buhler bounded up like nobody's business - with his plate in hand. Soon to follow was Herman Wiebe. It was a great time. There was some talk among the people that an ambulance should be called to be on standby!



Since I have this feeling that one of these pictures will end up in the Canadian Mennonite, I thought I would give you the first viewing, and the true story.

There is so much to see

Some of you may know that I rode my motorcycle to Calgary for the Mennonite Church Canada Assembly. My brother, Howard, came from Saskatchewan on his motorcycle and joined our closing session of the conference. He also joined me at my billet on Friday night. Then, right after breakfast on Saturday we hit the road to the mountains to ride for 3 days. Just past Banff, we turned off the Trans-Canada Highway and headed south to Radium Hot Springs. The weather was actually a little wanting - with cold and rain - causing us to fill up with a bowl of hot soup and a good cup of coffee at Radium. Everything started to improve after that.

We ended up in Creston the first night. After taking in a local Baptist worship service, and having lunch, we embarked on the most popular motorcycle-riders stretch of road in all of BC. In the Destination Highways book, it is No. 1. This is the road from Creston to the ferry crossing Kootenay Lake. It is #1 for the twistiness of the road and the beauty of the surroundings. It was great, although there are a number of other great roads that rival it. In fact, I would probably say that both the Sunshine Coast Highway, the Sea to Sky Highway, and the Duffey Lake Road all are contenders for #1. Sunshine Coast and Sea to Sky both have the ocean views which just add a little more majesty than any of the inland waterways.

We stayed the night at a bed and breakfast called "On the Cliff". The name gives away the beauty of this location. Just a side note - if you're ever in this area, take in Ainsworth Hot Springs ... or make it your actual vacation destination. It is unique like no other hot spring in that you go right into the caves in the mountain to enjoy the water.

On our last day we headed west from Kaslo, and immediately were on another amazing road (okay Destination Highways does rate it a #5 - out of 85 roads rated in BC). To make a great story short, Howard and I wound our way to Revelstoke and parted ways there, each taking two days to head home - one to Saskatchewan and the other to Vancouver.

Back to work. But there is more to come. Two friends and I had prepared to do a two day ride through northern Washington State on July 23 & 24. Erich Krause knew the way, a friend of ours, Howard Obrand joined, then Erich added a third friend, Ted Neufeld to make a great foursome. They weather also was great. We went down the west coast to where state highway #20 heads east through the mountains. Some amazing beauty that I was seeing for the first time. The only problem was that I had to deal with these 3 Harley riders the whole way - they speak their own language! Once the heat started rising and the terrain turn to desert, we turned north and made our way to the Krause cabin at Oroville, WA. Erich had promised 2 things - a dip in the lake to cool down and a steak barbecue. He came through on both. It doesn't get much better than this.


Erich, Howard and Garry at the Janzen house at the outset of the ride (Ted joined us in South Surrey).


On Saturday we took the Canadian route back, through Princeton and Hope. But, we were not to end our time in the US without one more beautiful ride. The short run from Oroville to the Nighthawk border crossing is a desert road, but it winds alongside a river straddled by greenery, ending up at this quaint, one horse border crossing in the outback. It was great. Well, I'll leave it at that.

Calgary 2010 - Mennonite Church Canada Assembly

In my opinion, the Mennonite Church Canada Assembly was a great event. The Ambrose University College was a great facility, accommodating all of our needs well, from: the large group gatherings, to break out sessions, to workshops, to eating. Great food as well.

Thanks to Gerald Dyck Photography, I am going to post a few photos of MCBC people at the Assembly, and I will throw a brief caption under each one so that you may connect better.


The man behind the dark glasses is our fearless moderator, Dan Rempel. Yes, he was there - but in disguise.




It looks like Kristina Toews and Lee Dyck are recruiting an unsuspecting young delegate to be either an MCBC youth pastor or church planter, or on the other hand, the next youth leader for Mennonite World Conference. He looks interested.




Calm, cool and collected Lee Dyck has me all worked up about something.




Waltrude Gortzen is a very serious person, or maybe it's just that she really means business! Gotta love these action photos.




Gerald Neufeld studying the art and quilt display.



As we already noted at our MCBC Annual Meeting in April, this is a time of passing the baton for MC Canada. In April we knew that Jack Suderman was retiring; now we know that Willard Metzger will be taking the baton to the next leg of the race - as MC Canada General Secretary. As I mentioned in the most recent News 'n Notes edition, I am very convinced that Willard is the right person for the job. If you haven't read this edition, check it out at www.mcbc.ca. We are in good hands for the future.

Willard has a number of good reasons as to why it doesn't make sense for him to move to Winnipeg, so he will stay in Ontario and traverse the country from that base (being sure to stop in Winnipeg whenever he is going that direction). It's not different that our arrangements in MCBC with me being able to keep my home in Ladner, yet be fully available wherever I may be.

MC Canada has restructured as of this assembly, with Vic Thiessen becoming the new Chief Operations Officer, and Norm Dyck becoming the Executive Secretary of a new ministry called the Church Engagement Council. Vic will be the office manager, giving Willard a lot more freedom to be out in the constituency. The Church Engagement Council is just as the name suggests, therefore, we should anticipate more connection coming from MC Canada to our congregations. For more information on this year's assembly, and lots of photos, go to www.mennonitechurch.ca.

Leaders Village

I have the privilege of meeting with church leaders in similar work to mine from across BC 3 times a year. Brian Derksen (not the song writer) from Willow Creek Canada pulls us together, and he is planning on doing a similar thing in locations across Canada. It has been a great experience of discovering what we have in common - in our responsibilities and in our struggles. The group includes Conference/Executive Ministers from: the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a number of Baptist groups, the Pentecostals, Christian Reformed, the Evangelical Free Church, my counterpart from the Mennonite Brethren, and me. We are calling it the District Leaders Village. Pretty much all we do is share what's happening in each of our worlds, pray for each other and eat.

Back before the Winter Olympics, I met with a similar group, but with many different people than this one. This gathering had the More Than Gold response to the Olympics as its focus. It also had a strong concern for what lay ahead in the Truth and Reconciliation process of dealing with the residential schools issues. This group included: a number of the same as above, the Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Salvation Army, and others. It would be good to pull all of these together in ways that make sense, and in due time.

It is a good start at being the church together.

There is Great Hope for the Church

Wow, eh, there is so much going on, it's hard to find the time to sit down and write about it. On the weekend of May 28-30, Diane and I went to Vancouver Island and spent a couple of nights in Victoria. It all started with Diane finding out that Steve Bell was doing a concert in Victoria at Christ Church Cathedral. Well, when I went to Steve's website, I discovered that he was also providing music for a Brian McLaren seminar entitled "Evangelism and Transformation in a Secular Society." I have enjoyed some of McLaren's writings, especially The Secret Message of Jesus. So, I said to Diane, "Let's not just go for the concert, but for the weekend. You can relax at the hotel and enjoy downtown Victoria Friday evening and Saturday; I will take in the seminar during that time, and we'll both enjoy the concert Saturday evening." She liked the idea.

The concert was terrific - especially in that cavernous cathedral. I couldn't help but wonder how much it would cost to heat that place; I mean, to keep the people warm in the winter down at floor level when the heat would be rising to a ceiling that seemed half way to the sky.

Brian McLaren's seminar was also terrific. Some Christians feel that McLaren is going the wrong way. I like what David Csinos said in a recent edition of the Canadian Mennonite in an article called What to do with Postmodernism? - a response to McLaren's recent book A New Kind of Christianity. He says, "However, I think McLaren is on to something important. He realizes that the church must engage the cultures in which it finds itself." He also says, "This Christianity is not a new Christianity, but a revised version of Christianity we inherited and are refashioning in order to be faithful to the gospel and to Christ in the 21st century."

Here are a couple highlights from McLaren's seminar. He said that people are validated when they come into church to find out that our life out there has meaning. A central passage for the seminar was 1 Peter 3:15, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect." His emphasis from this verse is two-fold, that we should always be ready to talk about the hope that we have, and that we should always do it with gentleness and respect. This is our witness. He said to be honest, unedited, to stop the religious stuff and just be Christ-followers - that's what will convince people today of the Jesus way.

The last thing I'll say about the seminar is that McLaren encouraged us to look for the Third Track. This affirms that the Holy Spirit is at work in the world, preparing people long before we Christians show up. Then when we do show up and start to build friendships with people, they will speak into our lives and we will speak into theirs. Jesus is the Way, and his way will include all the work that God is doing - in the trained Christian and in the person we encounter out there. Both stories will inform the understandings of what God is doing, and as we align with this, a third way will form that is the Jesus way.

Much of what McLaren says has an Anabaptist ring to it. He also is quite free to recognize a strong appreciation for and influence from Anabaptist principles. Like I've been know to say, it's not that the Mennonite Church is going the emergent way, but that a lot of these postmodern theologians have become quite Anabaptist.

I have just finished reading Greg Boyd's book The Myth of the Christian Nation. Thanks to George Ediger from Kelowna First Mennonite Church for introducing me to this book. Boyd is thoroughly Anabaptist. His main point of reference is the state of the church in the United States. But, if we can see this as merely an illustration of a church that has succumbed to the temptation to embrace the powers of the kingdom of the world in order to hold power over others, we can easily apply the understandings in the book to the Canadian scene. The central theme of the book is that the Jesus way is to rather hold power under people, or to empower people, setting our needs aside for the sake of others.

Greg Boyd also does the Forward in the latest Stuart Murray book The Naked Anabaptist: the bare essentials of a radical faith. While the title is provocative, the essence of the book is powerful - that is, to strip away all the baggage that has often accompanied Mennonites, and rediscover the basic understandings of the Anabaptist way. This is my next book to read. Currently I am in the midst of Kingdom Culture: Growing the Missional Church, by Phil Wagler - a regular contributor in the Canadian Mennonite. I highly recommend Wagler's book as a tool for practical application of missional church principles.

I really see all these resources that I have recently encountered as signs of great hope for the church today.

Let's Ride Again

Riding the Duffey Lake Road was the popular consensus of the folks on the 2009 ride on the Island. Just in case you forgot what we did or what you missed, there were 6 of us who rode to Gold River one day and then up Mount Washington the next. Our home base was the United Mennonite Church in Black Creek. Check it out on my last year's blog entries.

Last summer, on a ride back from up north, I scouted out the Duffey Lake route. I had two concerns. One was that there was major bridge construction between Lillooet and Pemberton. Two was that to do the circle route back to the Lower Mainland would be a very long day.

Here are some of my thoughts from last summer. Title: MCBC Motorcycle Ride 2010 notes taken during and after scouting out the Duffey Lake Road.
1. The ride from the junction of highways 97 & 99 to Whistler took me 3:15. This included 2 stops, one to take off my chaps & kidney belt because it was too hot, the other for gas.
2. There were some amazing stretches of perfect road with nice twisties - most of the way from highway 97 to Lillooet and then again, starting about 1/2 way between Lillooet and Pemberton, most of the way to Pemberton. There were some pretty bad stretches of road, including some big construction projects - this was on the first ½ of the way from Lillooet to Pemberton, and the last stretch before Pemberton. There were a number of single lane bridges, and in many places the speed limit was down to 60. The possibility of getting behind a slow-moving vehicle for a period of time is real, and there were no places where a group could pass. I think it would be a lot of fun, it sure was for me by myself. I don't know what the cut off between Lillooet and Lytton is like, although someone told me it is a very nice stretch of road. The road from Pemberton to Whistler was a nice highway, although the maximum speed limit was 80.
3. The ride from Whistler to Vancouver (I checked time at Taylor Way and Marine Dr. in West Vancouver) took 1 1/2 hours. The new Sea to Sky Highway is amazing - you just pray for the guys on the crotch rockets riding on the edge of their lives at three times the speed limit. The breath-taking views go unseen for these guys.
4. The ride from this spot in West Vancouver, home to Ladner took 3/4 hour.

So I tried to figure out in what condition all the construction is at this time. I ended up emailing the Pemberton Chamber of Commerce to ask. Here is the response on April 4th, 2010, "Hello Garry. Last year saw the completion of two bridges on the Duffey Lake Road, - the large one at the slide area before entering the canyon before Lillooet and another smaller one just prior to  the large bridge.  There also was about 20 kms of the road re-paved from Pemberton to the Lake ( Duffey Lake). This year there are plans to do some more paving as well. The road is in the best condition it has ever been and of course is a very popular motorcycle route. Hope this bit of info helps you. Regards, Shirley Henry, Pemberton Chamber of Commerce.
I think I have concern number one resolved.

The number two concern is still unresolved. I checked a blog on this ride, and here is a comment on the time of the whole route, "He started The Duffey Loop at 11:00am in Langley, riding up the Fraser Canyon to Cache Creek, then into the Marble Canyon, to Lillooet, Pemberton, Whistler, Squamish and Vancouver, returning to Langley at 10:15pm for a total of 703 kilometres."

I don't know if this guy was on a cruiser or a rocket, but it took him 11 hours and 15 minutes. That's a long day. I'm sure there must be a place to stay in Lillooet for night. I guess if we gave options, some could make it a one day trip and others a two day. If some of you may be coming from Black Creek, it would possibly be a two night event.

If anybody new is reading this who is not on my MCBC Motorcycle Riders email list, and would like to do the ride, leave a comment.

I am thinking we would go the weekend of August 14-15. Give me your thoughts.

If you are interested in more photos of my ride, go to http://www.jonjanzen.com/2010/05/pops-and-his-ride.html. If you are interest in the photographer (free ad for my son), go to the same address and leave a comment that you would like him to take photos of your ride, with your contact information.