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Discovery Community Church in Campbell River, B.C. will be holding its 10th anniversary celebration Sept. 23-24. Founding pastor couple Garry and Ruth Prieb, current pastor couple John and Diane Emmons and the congregation will spend the weekend “celebrating the gift of God’s grace to the church and community”. – Discovery Community Church
A Church Planting Canada national congress will be held Nov. 15-17, 2001 in Montreal. The theme for the congress is “Church Planting Coast to Coast: Igniting Passion for Lost People”. The conference will be bilingual. Montreal was chosen for this congress to highlight the needs of Quebec, “the largest unreached people group in North America” – 6 million people, of whom fewer than 2% are evangelicals. Plenary speakers will be Henry Blackaby, author of Experiencing God; Kevin Manoia, author of Church Planting: The Next Generation; and Jacqueline Dugas, director of the Centre for Prayer Mobilization with Every Home for Christ International/Canada. The conference design team is headed by Major David McCann of the Salvation Army and chair of the Comité d’Implantation d’églises au Québec; and Glenn Gibson of Outreach Canada. Among the other team members is Ewald Unruh, executive director of Evangelism for the Canadian MB Conference. Denominations have been encouraged to schedule denominational strategy meetings with key church planting leaders following the congress. – Church Planting Canada
Mennonite Central Committee has contributed $62,000 toward 1000 tonnes of lentils to be exchanged through the Canadian Foodgrains Bank for 2200 tonnes of sorghum in Eritrea. The food will be distributed by the Kale Heywet Church, an indigenous church in Eritrea. The Eritrean government is currently open to nongovernmental agencies being involved in relief work there, a change from previous government policy. – Mennonite Central Committee
John Stackhouse, professor of theology and culture at Regent College in Vancouver, made front-page news in The Vancouver Sun’s July 22 issue for saying he and his family were boycotting Vancouver’s Playland Amusement Park because its latest marketing theme is an offense to Christianity. A Playland ad campaign tried to entice customers by using the biblical theme “Second Coming”. Two of the park’s rides this year were called “The Hellevator” and “Revelation”. A TV ad campaign featured a turnstile clicking to “666”, a Christian symbol for satanic evil and an early Roman emperor who slaughtered Christians. Stackhouse said his children – Trevor, 14, Joshua, 11, and Devon, 6 – made the decision on their own not to buy tickets to the theme park this year. “They’ve seen the TV ads. Even at their age, they know exploitation when they see it. They know the sacred is being profaned.” Deb Marko, the marketing manager for Playland, said she received a half-dozen complaints about the ads, but defended the campaign, arguing that it was based on horror movies, which are part of popular culture. Stackhouse wondered how crass a message has to be before Christians are offended by it. – The Vancouver Sun
Robert Runcie, the 102nd Archbishop of Canterbury, died July 12 after a long battle with cancer. He was 78. He served as the head of the Church of England 1980-91, during which time the denomination struggled with controversies such as the ordination of women and the modernization of liturgy. He was also a leading critic of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who appointed him, disagreeing with her on issues such as the Falkland Islands War and breaking a strike by coal miners. Runcie also encouraged the church to be more liberal on remarrying divorced people. He presided at the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981. – Evangelical Press News Service
House church leader Xu Yongze was released from a Chinese labour camp May 16, after serving three years of a four-year “re-education through labour” sentence. Xu, 58, is the founder of the Born Again movement, a Henan-based house church network whose membership may be in the millions. He was arrested Mar. 15, 1997, when police raided a meeting of house church leaders in central China. At that time, there were fears that Xu would be executed. Chinese authorities had intended to give him a 10-year hard labour sentence, but that was reduced to four years because of international pressure. Xu’s wife, who was arrested with him, served a one-and-a-half-year sentence. Xu said that during the first months of his detention, he was slapped “hundreds of times”, handcuffed and beaten. At the labour camp, each prisoner had to string 2,500 Christmas lights every day (for later sale to the US), but Xu was not forced to work, so he helped a weaker prisoner meet his quota. Xu gained world attention in 1988 when he was arrested in Beijing on his way to meet with visiting US evangelist Billy Graham. The Born Again movement is quite emotional and at one time insisted on copious weeping as evidence of repentance. – Compass Direct
At the annual meeting of the Western District Conference of the General Conference Mennonite Church July 7-9 in Tulsa, Okla., the Peace and Social Concerns Committee recommended that no action be taken on the issue of partial-birth abortion. The issue was commended to the committee at last year’s sessions for possible action in 2000. Committee chair Gay Kauffman said, “We are not all in agreement about what to do about the problem of abortion.” – The Mennonite
A proposed bill in France’s parliament aimed at restricting the activities of harmful cults could also restrict religious freedom and even make it a crime to evangelize. The bill, which is intended to restrict the growth of 173 previously blacklisted faiths – Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists and Unificationists – also targets groups such as Southern Baptists. The bill outlaws “serious and repeated pressure on a person in order to create or exploit a state of dependence”. It would also authorize the French government to shut down a religious group when two representatives have been found guilty of at least one legal infraction, including “mental manipulation”. The law would apply to individuals, organizations, religious groups and advertising agencies. – EPNS
On May 15, 24 youth from North Peace MB Church in Fort St. John, B.C. signed their names to the “True Love Waits” wall of their youth room in the church. “True Love Waits” is a four-to-six-week teaching series on sexual abstinence originating with the Southern Baptist church in the US. Youth pastor Ken Braun introduced the series to the youth group in 1994. Since then, 55 youth have signed the wall. – North Peace MB Church
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Last modified September 20, 2000.
© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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