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Previous | Next CONVENTION 2000
MBMSI and MB Seminary
100 years of mission
While the General MB Conference boards are not yet integrated into the Canadian Conference structure, the two major General Conference agencies were each given a half-hour slot to report to the convention.
On Friday morning, MBMS International gave an upbeat and well received report on its work. MBMSI is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and planning for its second century of ministry.
General director Harold Ens began by recognizing the 2332 full-time missionaries MBMSI has sent out over the years; their names displayed on a “wall of remembrance” at the convention, they represent “an amazing amount of commitment”. Currently, MBMSI is supporting 59 long-term missionaries; relating to 61 MB long-term missionaries working with other agencies; supporting 5 short-term missionaries; relating to 5 MB short-term missionaries serving with other agencies; working with 519 “global volunteers” who have gone out under MBMSI subsidiaries such as Youth Mission International and Church Partnership Evangelism; and supporting 450 national workers in their home countries. Ens then showed a video of his recent sabbatical tour of MBMSI work, which demonstrated the results of a century of mission effort: a church of 18,000 in China resulting from MB work there; 200,000 MB church attenders in India, 42 MB congregations in Kinshasa, Congo; and 15 other national conferences now joining in mission with the Canadian and US Conferences (Japanese MBs serving in India, Colombian MBs serving in Peru and German MBs serving in Lithuania). The purpose of all this is that “all the peoples” will praise God (Psalm 67:1-3).
Dave Sinclair-Peters described how he, his wife Louise and two other young couples have made a 10-year commitment to go to Thailand and plant churches among an unreached people group. He explained they are going because they love to do team ministry, they love to share Jesus with people and see lives transformed and they love to worship Jesus. This “Team 2000”, representing a new approach to mission work for MBMSI, will be touring MB churches this fall to raise funding support and to seek out 2000 people who will support them in prayer.
Laurence and Leona Hiebert described the struggle to build healthy growing churches in Japan, where they have served for 12 years. Through a video, they told how East Toyota MB Church rejoiced at the recent baptism of two young women and mourned over the death of a 21-year-old man in an accident; through an accident insurance policy, the young man left $400,000 to the small church for its building fund.
The 20 or so MB missionaries present at the convention received applause, and MBMSI Board chair Neil Fast closed the presentation with the Revelation 7 vision of a great multitude from every nation praising God and shouting, “Salvation belongs to our God.”
Expanding to new campuses under a new partnership
MBBS is currently an agency of the General (North American) MB Conference but will be transferred to the Canadian and US MB Conferences within the next two years. On Saturday morning, MBBS Board chair Ron Toews reported that, in preparing for that transition, MBBS had surveyed 450 MB church leaders and interviewed 11 other seminaries. The consensus from that research is that Mennonite Brethren in North America should continue to do Seminary education together but use several “delivery points” (campuses).
Toews also announced that the MBBS Board had reappointed president Henry Schmidt for a further term beginning June 1, 2001.
Schmidt responded to a Christian Schwarz statistic that 85% of unhealthy, nongrowing churches and 42% of healthy growing churches have seminary-trained pastors. He noted that graduates of conservative seminaries do much better and demonstrated it by noting that the six members of MBMSI’s Team 2000 and two church-planting couples with Mission Calgary were graduates of MBBS. When asked to stand, at least half of the attenders at the convention indicated they had attended an MB postsecondary school, and perhaps 90% had attended a Bible school of some kind. Schmidt affirmed that the task of the Seminary is to help the church think theologically, understand the Bible and understand the church. Schmidt also noted that while the number of Canadian MBs studying at MBBS’s campus in Fresno, Calif. has declined, the number of Canadian students overall has increased dramatically due to the new MBBS campuses in Canada (currently there 50 Canadian students in Fresno, 72 in British Columbia and 12 in Winnipeg).
Faculty member Bruce Guenther and campus dean Peter Enns described the strengths MBBS brings and the advantages it receives from being part of the ACTS seminary consortium in Langley, B.C. Pierre Gilbert then gave a hilarious description of his duties as the first MBBS faculty member stationed in Winnipeg, with responsibility to investigate development of an MBBS campus there.
The presentation ended with prayer for the Seminary and for faculty member Jim Westgate, who is suffering from heart disease and cancer.
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Last modified December 4, 2000.
© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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