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Abbotsford, B.C.
Staff changes, major proposals for B.C. Conference


Two major personnel announcements and debate of two major issues dominated the B.C. MB Conference Council of Church Leaders meeting March 14. The Council of Church Leaders (a gathering of the senior pastors and moderators of all the churches) is held twice a year, once in fall and once in spring in preparation for the annual convention to be held in May.

Mentoring

The Council of Church Leaders meeting is held in the evening. In the afternoon, all of the pastors and spouses in B.C. MB Conference churches are invited for a time of sharing and enrichment.

On this occasion, held in the chapel at Columbia Bible College, the afternoon was devoted to teaching on mentoring leaders. The Canadian MB Conference Board of Christian Education Ministries, in conjunction with the MB postsecondary schools, has discerned a need for teaching on this topic. (Leadership development is one of the three “foci” of the Canadian Conference.) Therefore, Canadian Conference executive director Dave Wiebe and Canadian Conference Christian Education Ministries director Sharon Johnson arranged to provide teaching to the B.C. pastors on this occasion as a pilot project.

Resource person for the afternoon was John Poortenga, senior pastor of New Life Christian Reformed Church in Abbotsford. Poortenga has developed a model in which he mentors three potential pastors at a time in an intensive one-and-a-half-to-two-year process. The process begins with a one-on-one accountability program called a Life Transformation Group and grows from there to supervised ministry experience within Poortenga’s church and possible academic training. The model has proved so successful in preparing leaders that the home missions department of the Christian Reformed Church has commissioned Poortenga to mentor potential pastors and church planters and to teach other Christian Reformed pastors to do the same sort of mentoring.

People

The Council of Church Leaders meeting was held in the same location in the evening. The only recommendation voted on at the meeting was a significant one: ratification of the appointment of Robert Friesen as associate Conference minister. The creation of the position, to share the workload of Conference minister Ike Bergen, had earlier been approved by the B.C. Conference convention. The recommendation to appoint Friesen passed apparently unanimously, with little discussion. (See separate news story.)

The Board of Church Extension announced the retirement of church extension director James Nikkel by the end of 2002. (See separate news story.) The Board hopes to have a replacement for Nikkel in place by the fall in order to allow for some overlap and a smooth transition.

A regional Seminary centre

B.C. MB Conference moderator Arnie Peters introduced the first of two major proposals, notice of motion of a recommendation to be processed at the B.C. MB Conference convention May 3–4: The motion is that the B.C. Conference “enter into negotiations with the Executive Board of the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches with the purpose of accepting their invitation to take responsibility for the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary/ACTS teaching centre.”

Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary (MBBS) has been an agency of the General (North American) MB Conference, which will disband this summer. Responsibility for MBBS is therefore being passed on to the Canadian and US MB Conferences. According to an agreement negotiated by those two Conferences, they will continue to jointly fund a central overseeing board and administration structure for the Seminary. However, the individual national Conferences would be responsible for operating the “regional” Seminary campuses in their own country. Thus, the US Conference would fund and operate the main campus in Fresno, Calif., and the Canadian Conference would fund and operate the MBBS campus which operates as part of the Associated Canadian Theological Seminaries in Langley, B.C. and the fledgling “campus” in Winnipeg.

As a refinement of that proposal, the Canadian Conference Executive Board is now asking the B.C. MB Conference to take over responsibility for funding and running the Langley campus. The Canadian Conference would continue to provide the Canadian half of the funding for the central MBBS board, as well as developing a scholarship program. The other provincial Conferences would have the option of joining as partners with the B.C. Conference in running the Langley campus or of creating and operating their own branch campuses.

This recommendation stimulated considerable discussion, particularly around the question of whether the B.C. Conference really had a choice in the matter. One pastor objected that not enough information had been given in order for the churches to be able to discuss the issue adequately and for the B.C. Conference convention to make an informed decision in May. Two responses were given to this. One was that the recommendation to be passed in May was only permission to negotiate, not approval of a final structure. The other was that the B.C. Conference leaders had been wanting responsibility for the Langley campus for several years. On the other hand, it was observed that there really wasn’t much time or choice because the Canadian Conference wants to implement the new structure at its convention in July. In response to a question from the floor, it was reported that funding for the regional campus had not been decided but that $15 of the Canadian/General Conference “norm” (the amount of money the Conference asks the churches to donate to the Conference per member each year) would probably be transferred from the Canadian Conference to the provincial Conference. This would probably be a non-compulsory norm separate from the B.C. Conference norm.

Restructuring

The second major proposal was presented by the B.C. Conference Board of Management. Currently, the B.C. MB Conference is registered with the government as a religious society and the local churches operate as branches of that society. As a result, all property is considered to be “owned” by the provincial Conference. The Conference is now proposing that each local church register as a separate religious society using a standard constitution and bylaws.

The primary motivation for the change is the possibility of crippling lawsuits, particularly in the area of sexual abuse. Lawsuits regarding sexual and other abuse at aboriginal schools run by some mainline Christian denominations have pushed some of those denominations to the point of bankruptcy and may result in land and buildings in other locations being sold to pay legal damages. (For instance, schools operated by a Roman Catholic order in B.C. are in danger of being sold to pay damages to abuse victims at a school operated by the same order in Newfoundland.) The fear is that if a case of sexual abuse should occur in one MB congregation, the buildings of other congregations could be sold, at the insistence of the courts, to pay the legal damages.

The proposal is a complex one, and the discussion touched on several aspects. One was the question of whether the proposal would actually do what it was designed to do. Since the Conference would continue to own all the land and buildings (with the local churches owning the moveable assets such as chairs, musical instruments and desks) and since the Conference would continue to credential pastors, the land might not be protected from being lost in a lawsuit. (There are differing legal opinions on this.)

Some churches were pleased that they would now have the legal right to buy vehicles, sign contracts, etc. without needing an authorized signature each time from the provincial Conference.

Each congregation would have to pay about $1000 in legal fees in order to register and would then have to do some reporting of its activities to the government. Moreover, the process might result in constitutional wrangling at the local church level. Each congregation would have to register using the standard constitution (regardless of differences in organization such as the elder versus church council model of government). Once registered, the congregation could go back to the government and make whatever revisions it wanted to the standard constitution, except for a few unalterable clauses. (These clauses would primarily be adherence to the Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith and agreement that the local church’s assets would go to the Conference if the church shuts down.)

Another possible drawback is the perception that being registered separately might weaken the link between the Conference and the local churches.

Although there has been discussion in the B.C. Conference for some time about addressing this issue, this was the first occasion on which local church leaders saw the actual proposal. Presentation of the proposal at this session constituted “notice of motion”, and the recommendation itself will be dealt with at the B.C. Conference convention in May. Conference administrator Marilyn Hiebert noted that this is an all-or-nothing proposal; all of the churches must agree to register or the change cannot be made for any of them.

 – jc

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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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