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PERSONAL OPINION
Challenging three denominational myths

John H. Redekop

In the late 1950s, I had the privilege to serve as the first English-language recording secretary for the B.C. MB Conference provincial convention. Several factors impressed me at the time. First, there was extensive floor debate. Second, most of the decisions were actually made by the delegates, not by the boards. Third, virtually all churches sent delegates, often a full slate.

Times have changed. One Conference official recently observed that at the last Canadian MB convention, only about 40 out of 200 MB churches were represented. Some large congregations sent only a token delegation. The result, not surprisingly, is that many congregations see Conference structures and programs as mainly external to their own activity, many are poorly informed, more than a few have a weak sense of denominational identity, and dozens give little or no financial support to their own Conference.

Various proposals have been spelled out to remedy this situation. Many have very limited merit because they are rooted in one or more of three propositions which I call myths.

The first myth is that attendance and support are weak because we have too many Conference levels – provincial, national and, until now, North American. This was the main argument made at the General (North American) MB Conference convention in Wichita in 1999, when a majority of delegates voted to phase out the General Conference. We were told that with only two levels, there would be increased Conference support.

It hasn’t turned out that way. At the 2000 Canadian convention, less than 25% of the churches sent delegates, and at the provincial level, while the participation rate has been higher, there was no marked improvement. At Wichita, we addressed a symptom, not a main cause of the problem.

The second myth is that conference financial support is lagging because the churches, more particularly the church members, are “maxed out”, as one brother put it to me. His thesis was that the funds are simply not there. Quite frankly, I don’t buy his argument. While in some regions funds are scarce, especially where farm prices have collapsed, crops have failed or major factories have closed, in general that is not the case.

Check with any travel agent. Never before have Mennonite Brethren spent so much money on travel. Check with realtors. In most regions, MBs now live in better homes than ever before. Check with accountants. On average, Mennonite Brethren incomes have never been higher, and never before have so many MBs owned second cars, summer cottages, holiday time shares and RVs. Never before have so many MB retirees lived as well as many of us do now. Check with financial advisors. Never before have so many MBs needed professional help to invest their funds prudently. Fifty years ago, when MBs in North America managed to find adequate funds for missions and other Conference ministries, our parents and grandparents had no concerns about their investment portfolios. They had none.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with financial success. Were it not for the outstanding stewardship modelled by many of our more well-to-do sisters and brothers, many of our MB ministries and institutions might have floundered long ago. Yet, to blame our present major financial shortfalls in ministry and missions support on scarcity of resources is, in my view, to believe in a myth.

The third myth is that the various MB Conferences are themselves the cause of the present attendance and financial problems. I hear that Conference personnel should spend more time in churches and that information should be presented more emotionally (or more frequently, more factually, more concisely, more eloquently, etc.)

Why don’t our churches get more direct communication from visiting representatives of the MB Conference? A main reason is that we have not provided adequate funds to hire Conference people to do this work. A second key reason is that often such representatives are not given an opportunity to speak to the congregations. They are sometimes treated as if they represent just another outside agency.

The main causes of poor attendance at Conference conventions and of inadequate financial support, I suggest, have much to do with spotty pastoral support, a surprisingly common reluctance to invite MB Conference representatives to speak, inadequate orientation of new members, inadequate initiation of non-MB trained pastors and a reluctance to identify with MB undertakings. In addition, some pastors and other leaders give priority to schools and other ministries from which they have come rather than the schools and ministries of the denomination which they have freely joined and in which they have chosen to serve.

There is obviously room for improvement in Conference public relations, but our periodicals and MB agency mailings do provide much information. The suggestion that poor convention attendance and lagging financial support are directly traceable to our Conference personnel and Conference publicity is another myth.

John H. Redekop is on the faculty of Trinity Western University and is a member of Bakerview Mb Church in Abbotsford, B.C.

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Last modified April 17, 2002.

© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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