Previous | Next 

Fresno, Calif.
US MB Conference faces changes


The US Mennonite Brethren Conference, sister to the Canadian Mennonite Brethren Conference, has undergone considerable change in the last decade, and is now facing even more change.

Mission USA

With 185 churches and just over 26,000 members, the US Conference is still a little smaller than the Canadian Conference, but it has been growing rapidly. Ten years ago, it was far less active than the Canadian Conference, as American Mennonite Brethren preferred to do most of their joint ministries through “district conferences” (the equivalent of the provincial MB conferences in Canada) and through the General (North American) MB Conference (through which Canadian and American Mennonite Brethren operated a number of joint ministries).

This began to change after a 1993 meeting of a broad range of US MB leaders. The leaders decided to make evangelism and church planting the central focus of the US Conference (previously, church planting had been done only at the district conference level). They also agreed that this would involve shifting some resources from other ministries to church planting. As a result, an agency called Mission USA was eventually created to carry out the new mandate. It was given a large board, which included the district ministers of the district MB conferences. In 1996 veteran pastor Ed Boschman was hired as executive director.

By all accounts, Mission USA has been a success. It has successfully planted a number of churches and assisted others in renewal, there is more focus on outreach generally in the US MB Conference, and there is new enthusiasm among the constituency for the work of the US Conference. Moreover, after some years of near stagnation, Conference membership has begun to grow significantly due to the efforts of both Mission USA and another agency called Integrated Ministries.

Other developments

In the meantime, other developments were taking place in the US Conference. First, the US Conference, meeting in convention, decided to expand the Board of Church Ministries, the central board of the US Conference. It now functions in a way similar to the Canadian MB Conference Executive Board, setting the main direction for the Conference. Its membership includes the Conference executive, the senior executive staff, the chairs of the other Conference boards and representatives from the district conferences.

The 1999 decision to abolish the General Conference and pass its ministries to the Canadian and US Conferences also gave new responsibilities to the US Conference. Its boards now include Mission USA, the Board of Communications (which publishes the Conference magazine, The Christian Leader), the Board of Trustees (equivalent of the Canadian Conference Board of Management), MB Foundation (the equivalent of the Canadian Conference’s Stewardship Ministries, which in Canada is not separate but an agency of the Board of Management), the Board of Faith and Life and MBMS International. The last two ministries were passed to the US Conference (and the Canadian Conference) from the General Conference in 2000. The fate of the remaining three General Conference agencies (MB Biblical Seminary, Board of Resource Ministries/Kindred Productions and the Historical Commission) will be decided in the summer of 2002.

As well, Integrated Ministries, a ministry of the US Conference Board of Church Ministries, was helping new ethnic congregations join the US MB Church, particularly a considerable number of Slavic congregations composed of recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union. In fact, Integrated Ministries added more members than Mission USA, which has tended to focus more on “anglo” or mainstream English-speaking church plants.

To handle its growing responsibilities, in the summer of 2001, the US Conference hired new staff: Loyal Funk as interim conference minister, Vyacheslav Tsvirinko as part-time assistant director for Integrated Ministries (Loyal Funk’s previous position) and Ted Goertzen as part-time director of church and constituency relations.

Expansion

Over the last six years, the US Conference budget has expanded very rapidly, almost entirely due to increases in the Mission USA budget. In fact, some other agencies have experienced cutbacks in their budgets. In the current year, Mission USA’s budget of $628,730 makes up the bulk of the US Conference’s $1 million budget.

This in turn caused changes in how the US Conference raised and spent money. Prior to 1998, ministries were funded from two sources: contributions from churches (the “core” portion of the budget) and fundraising by the Board of Church Ministries and by Mission USA. In 1998, board members for the other US Conference ministries agreed to also raise funds for the Conference, which was facing deficits largely because of the increase in the Mission USA budget. Fundraising, however, still failed to reach the expected levels. In 1999, the Board of Church Ministries gave Mission USA permission to hire professional fundraisers, and the other boards were made responsible for raising a portion of their own budgets.

While more money was raised this way, it wasn’t necessarily cost-effective. In addition, Conference leaders began hearing from constituents concerned about “competitive fundraising”.

Tensions

By June 2001, tensions in the system had become evident. In the 2000–2001 year which had just finished, the US Conference had a deficit of $65,000, the seventh and largest deficit in its last 10 years. At its next meeting on Sept. 22, the Board of Church Ministries decided to move responsibility for the professional fundraisers from Mission USA to the Board of Church Ministries.

Conference leaders were quick to say that the changes do not mean that the Conference is changing its overall direction. “We haven’t changed our vision or mission,” says Loyal Funk, interim executive conference minister. “BCM doesn’t see a change, but a continuation of the existing policies, priorities and expectations of the US Conference,” says US Conference chair David Reimer.

Not everyone is happy, however. Mission USA board chair Steve Reimer, says, “I don’t doubt that every person wants to do the best thing.” However, he adds, “We . . . differ on what . . . the right strategies are.” He believes the Board of Church Ministries has in effect made “a larger decision that the Mission USA mandate of church planting and renewal through evangelism is no longer the primary focus” of the Conference. He says the decision to move fundraisers from Mission USA to Board of Church Ministries supervision has “eroded the ability of Mission USA to accomplish [its] goals”.

This disagreement contributed to the resignation of Mission USA executive director Ed Boschman in October (see “Boschman resigns”). Conference leaders were quick to praise Boschman’s leadership and express regret at his resignation. “I’m sorry to see Ed resign,” says David Reimer. “Ed has gifts and talents, and the US Conference appreciated those. He was a good resource for us for five years.”

US Conference leaders insist that evangelism and church planting are still the Conference’s priority. “Winning the lost to Christ and nurturing them in the biblical faith has always been a fundamental priority of the Mennonite Brethren,” says Funk. “We’ve always been a missional people, where the majority of funds go to winning people for Christ.” However, there are suggestions that support for evangelism is shared by all US Conference ministries, not just Mission USA. US Conference vice-chair Rolando Mireles says that evangelism “is a focus for everyone in the US Conference . . . not only for Mission USA, but also for Integrated Ministries and our districts.”

David Reimer agrees that evangelism and church planting are “still our priority” but that there is a debate over “the strategies for how we do mission and how we reach lost people”; everyone wants a priority on evangelism and church planting, but the term “priority” means different things to different people. “BCM believes that evangelism and renewal should be a priority for the US Conference,” he says, adding that this is reflected in Board of Church Ministries decisions like creating the new large Mission USA board, reducing financial resources previously allocated elsewhere and rerouting them to Mission USA, expecting all board members to raise money, and deciding to place district ministers on the Mission USA board rather than on the US Conference Board of Faith and Life or the Board of Church Ministries.

Steve Reimer, however, asks “what price we are willing to pay” for church planting and evangelism. He suggests that price should include being willing to live with the fact that some congregations are unhappy about “competitive fundraising”, and having patience with new churches that need time to process through MB distinctives and how and when they will partner with the Conference either financially or in other ways.

In spite of the different opinions, US Conference leaders stress that they are committed to working with each other to define the best way to go about God’s business. In fact, more than one sees the differing opinions as normal, and even a positive sign. “What we are experiencing is no different than many denominations,” says Steve Reimer. “It means we are doing something right,” agrees Mireles. “People come from all different kinds of backgrounds, and we’ve got different ideas on how to do something.” The challenge, he says, is to not eliminate differences of opinion but to “keep it as something resolvable under the basic principles in Scripture. . . . We need to ask ourselves how we can work together for the betterment of the whole.”

 – adapted from reports in The Christian Leader

Previous | Next 

Last modified January 9, 2002.

© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
Masthead and usage information.