Canadian MB Conference Council of Boards: Many significant developments

Canadian Mennonite Brethren Conference board members wrestled with a variety of theological, program and financial issues at their January 23–25 board meetings in Portage Ave. MB Church, Winnipeg. At the Council of Boards session Saturday morning, when the boards gathered together to report what they had been discussing for the previous two days, no one board or issue dominated, but every board presented significant proposals and announcements. None of these generated much debate, although they stimulated some questions, expressions of affirmation and advice. Perhaps a heated debate would have been welcomed by board members, given that the outside temperature in Winnipeg was hovering in the minus 20s that week.

Board of Faith and Life

As reported by board chair Walter Unger, the Board of Faith and Life is wrestling with most of the theological issues.

• The Board has received a number of submissions and is working at broadening the Spiritual Warfare guidelines passed at last summer’s Canadian Conference convention.
• The Board is also working at revising its “Divorce and Leadership Ministry” statement which was presented at the Canadian Conference convention in summer 2002 and will be voted on at the next Canadian Conference convention in summer 2004.
• River East MB Church in Winnipeg has adopted a policy which would allow the church to accept as members people who have been christened as infants and have made a profession of faith at confirmation but who have not been baptized as believers. Since this position contravenes Conference theological statements, the Board of Faith and Life has asked the church not to implement its policy. (So far, no such people have been accepted as members.) The congregation is also in dialogue with the Manitoba MB Conference Board of Congregational Ministries. The issue gives added importance to the BFL study conference on “Baptism and Church Membership” scheduled for May 22–24 in Winnipeg.
• BFL and the Canadian Conference Executive Board are writing a letter of concern to Mennonite Central Committee. It will outline four theological concerns: whether MCC accepts that Jesus is the only means to eternal salvation; what MCC’s position is in regard to Native spirituality; whether MCC’s statements on political issues exceed its mandate; and whether MCC’s position on women’s issues is in agreement with Mennonite Brethren theology. In practice, the Canadian MB Conference is asking MCC to adhere to the MCC confession of faith, to exercise more care in who it accepts as workers and to exercise more care in what it publishes (for example, some articles in MCC Women’s Report were described as “heretical”).
• BFL is passing on to MB Biblical Seminary a request from the Saskatchewan MB Conference that improvements be made in the courses the Seminary has prepared to orient pastors new to the MB Conference. In particular, it was requested that the courses place more emphasis on MB theology and polity, leadership skills and MB distinctives.
• BFL has examined the draft international Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith prepared by the International Committee of Mennonite Brethren. While suggesting minor changes, BFL “heartily endorses” the document. (Once all the national MB Conferences have examined the document, it may be formally accepted at the ICOMB meeting in Africa in the summer.)
• BFL has released a new pamphlet on “Death and Dying: A Christian Perspective”; another pamphlet, on “Euthanasia and the Sanctity of Life” is ready for printing; and BFL is planning to update its pamphlet on homosexuality.
• Besides the study conference on baptism and membership, BFL is hosting the new pastors’ orientation March 6–8 and a 55 Plus seniors’ conference Oct. 16–19.

Board of Evangelism

Executive director Ewald Unruh reported for the Board of Evangelism. He noted that with most of its “helping existing churches reach out” work (under former associate evangelism director Bruce Elwood) transferred to the Board of Discipleship Ministries, the Board of Evangelism is now focusing on planting churches, particularly through its Key Cities Initiative.

The Board is willing to contribute time and money to Canadian Conference initiatives on leadership development because “the bottleneck in church planting is finding church planters”.

The Board is initiating roundtable discussions on planting house church networks such as have been very successful in other countries. These are quite different from the house churches started in North America in the 1970s and 1980s, which tended to be a reaction against the institutionalization of the church. The new house church networks are doctrinal, community oriented and missional.

The Board is studying planting churches specifically geared to youth, since 80–90% of youth in Canada do not attend church.

The Board is also studying models of church planting among the urban working poor. There is a possibility that Mennonite Brethren could work in conjunction with World Impact, a nondenominational ministry working in the inner city in the US. World Impact is now planning to add a church planting component to its existing ministry work, and is also planning to begin work in Canada, starting with Winnipeg.

Unruh also reported progress in its KCI church planting:

• New Hope Community Church began holding regular services in January.
• Lance and Sharlene Christie have been appointed to plant the eighth KCI church in Calgary, a daughter of Dalhousie Community Church.
• David and Heidi Gray have been hired to plant the second KCI church in Montreal, an English-speaking church.

Patrice Nagant, the church planting director for Quebec, introduced a video promoting Rendez-vous Montréal. Montreal is the second largest French-speaking city and the only large bilingual city in the world. With 3.4 million people, it has half the population of Quebec; of these 2,300,000 are French, 700,000 are English (the least evangelized English population in Canada) and 400,000 people are from 168 other ethnic groups. It has the largest number of university students of any city in Canada, the highest number of foreign students per capita in Canada, the largest pharmaceutical research industry in the world, and the largest high tech industry in Canada. However, it is a spiritual disaster, with less than half of 1% of the population being evangelical Christians and evangelistic outreaches to only 30 of the 168 ethnic groups. It has the highest suicide rate for men in the world and more teen suicides (1500 a year) than the rest of Canada put together. Copies of the video are available, on DVD, from the Board of Evangelism office in Winnipeg.

Board of Discipleship Ministries

John Neufeld

Chair John Neufeld reported that this new Board had filled three of its six staff vacancies, having appointed age-level specialists for children’s, youth and adult ministries (see news story in Feb. 7 issue). It is still searching for an overall executive director, a director for the Centre for MB Studies (the archives) and an editor for Le Lien (the French-language periodical).

Neufeld noted that the Board’s periodicals continue to “do significant ministry with insignificant budgets”, having experienced major budget cuts last summer. The ministry specialists’ budgets are also mostly taken up with salaries and overhead, leaving little for program. Therefore, the Board has received permission from the Executive Board to do fundraising, as soon as the Executive Board has established policy guidelines for such fundraising.

Neufeld also reported that the staff have been mandated to lead in the development of a publication designed to equip leaders. Consultations are beginning to help define the exact shape of this publication.

MBMS International

Merv Boschman

Board chair Merv Boschman introduced a radical proposal to change the way MBMSI is funded. Currently MBMSI raises funds for its general program and then uses it to send missionaries and support its programs around the world. However, since churches and individuals now want to have a direct involvement with specific missionaries, MBMSI is proposing that in future “new missionaries will be sent and new programs will be initiated only as local churches and individuals have the vision for these ministries and fully financially adopt them”. Eventually, this plan, called “Relationship Based Funding” would be extended to all existing missionaries and programs. Boschman stressed that MBMSI has not yet decided to implement this new plan but is raising it in the hope of developing discussion and getting feedback. The change is being considered because churches are not funding MBMSI adequately under the old system; currently only 9% of Canadian MB churches pay the full MBMSI norm of $125 per member, which is separate from the Canadian MB Conference norm of $79 and the MB Biblical Seminary norm of $15. A decision on the new plan will be made at the Canadian and US MB Conference conventions in summer 2004.

Boschman also reported four highlights of MBMSI’s recent ministry:

• The Church Partnership Evangelism and Discipleship program has changed its name to Disciple Making International because the CPED name is already owned by another agency. DMI sends mainly North American volunteers to do door-to-door evangelism around the world, each person paired with a national worker. This program has seen hundreds of people come to Christ, to the point that a Mennonite Brethren Conference is being organized among converts in the Philippines.
• The young MB church in Toyota, Japan has bought property.
• The Peru MB Conference is beginning a church planting ministry in the capital city of Lima. MBMSI missionaries Jose and Esperanza Prada will move to Lima for their second term of service.
• A Mennonite Brethren Conference is being formed in Russia, in partnership with German Mennonite Brethren and Slavic MB churches in Washington state, USA.

Boschman also noted that MBMSI is facing some challenges:

• The Peru MB Conference is being sued by a church planter for “unfair labour practices”, a suit which could cost MBMSI up to $30,000–$40,000.
• In India, Congo, Panama and some other countries, MBMSI is struggling to balance giving long-term financial subsidies to national workers and programs without them developing an unhealthy dependence on MBMSI.
• Disciple Making International is facing major reductions in funding, which will result in changes to the program in 2003–2004.

Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary

Cal Bergen

MB Biblical Seminary made its first ever report to the Council of Boards. (Responsibility for MBBS moved from the now abolished North American MB Conference to the Canadian and US MB Conferences last summer.) Board chair Cal Bergen and president Henry Schmidt reported on a number of issues as the Seminary adapts to its new governance structure.

• Enrollment is up, particularly on the Fresno campus, to the point that a number of classes are now offered twice, once during the day and once in the evening.
• The Seminary hopes to appoint a new president by the time Henry Schmidt retires in June.
• Regional councils are being established to run the Seminary campuses in Langley, B.C. and Winnipeg. A chair of the Langley council has already been appointed (Jack Falk of Victoria), who will also serve on the MBBS main board by virtue of this appointment. A regional council has not yet been appointed for Winnipeg, but Neil Janzen will serve as the Winnipeg representative on the main MBBS board; he is outgoing moderator of the Manitoba MB Conference and one of the two MB representatives on the 10-member council guiding the development of an inter-Mennonite seminary in Winnipeg.

Board of Management

Board chair Herb Suderman and treasurer John Wiebe reported on a number of significant developments.

• Due to Conference restructuring and a major upgrade in the Conference accounting programs, the Conference has operated for several months without financial statements. When the financial statements finally became available at the end of December, seven months into the fiscal year, they revealed a remarkable turnaround in Conference finances. Contributions from the churches to the Conference Ministry Support Fund by Dec. 31 amounted to $965,754, just $25,913 behind budget but slightly better than last year at this time. However, because budgets were cut last summer and many boards have spent less than budgeted, the Conference is currently running a surplus of $171,390, compared to a deficit of over $300,000 at the same time last year. It was pointed out that the “surplus” is somewhat illusory because some spending has just been delayed; for instance, if the Board of Discipleship Ministries had been able to find an executive director last fall as planned (instead of later this spring or summer as is now expected), it would have spent considerably more money.
• The Conference Stewardship Ministries programs are having a remarkably good year. Essentially people lend money to these programs (in the form of deposits, Registered Retirement Savings Plans, etc.) and the programs lend the money to churches and pastors for mortgages and invest the money in other ways. As the economy slows and people are looking for safe places to invest, the amount of money on deposit with the Conference grew 15% in the first seven months of this fiscal year to $61 million. As a result, Stewardship Ministries could generate earnings of up to $1 million this year. Suderman warned that the situation is not as great as that sounds because some of that money has already been committed to various ministries, and the Conference is planning to share some of the wealth with churches and pastors by reducing its mortgage rates, narrowing the usual spread between the interest it pays investors and the interest it charges mortgage holders (although most of its profit is coming from the half of the money that is not invested in mortgages). By law, the profits from Stewardship Ministries must be dispersed to ministry budgets at the end of each fiscal year. Last year, the Conference used some of the profits to pay off the Conference’s quarter-million-dollar deficit.
• Stewardship Ministries is planning to add a savings program for younger families, although it will not be a full Registered Educational Savings Plan.
• Stewardship Ministries is looking for ways to expand its services into Quebec. It hopes to soon fill the additional half-time stewardship ministries representative position in British Columbia.
• The Board is looking at ways to help other MB Conferences around the world start similar Stewardship Ministries programs.
• The Board is going to offer a financial services package to churches, under which the Conference would manage the payroll, report to government and write receipts for donations for churches which wish to sign up for the program.
• The Board is developing a program to help churches buy land.
• The Board has added an Employee Assistance Program on a two-year trial basis to provide counselling to pastors and Conference employees. It is hoped that this will reduce stress and also reduce the cost to the Conference’s Long-Term Disability plan of employees and pastors taking mental health leaves.
• The Conference pension plan came close to breaking even this year (it did not lose or gain much), considered to be a reasonably good result in a difficult investment time.
• The Board is considering changing the fiscal year-end from May 31 to March 31 or April 30.
• The Board is moving its banking activity from the CIBC to the Bank of Montreal.
• Christian Press, the Conference-owned print shop, is still doing well although business is down somewhat both in Conference and non-Conference printing projects. The Press is buying some new equipment and hiring new staff in order to become more competitive.

The financial statements presented did not include any information on the finances of MB Biblical Seminary or MBMS International, whose budgets are funded separately from the main Canadian Conference budget.

Executive Board

Executive director Dave Wiebe reminded board members that, in the midst of restructuring, the Conference is still pursuing its three main foci: healthy churches, outreach (Canadian MB leaders hope to plant 150 new churches by 2010) and leadership development. He noted that the Executive Board has established a leadership development task force to define what an effective church leader looks like.

Moderator Jascha Boge reported on two developments:

• Planning for the 2004 Canadian Conference convention has begun early so that it will be attractive, successful and well attended. It will be held in the Toronto area.
• The Executive Board has established a task force to study relocation of the Conference head office. The office is currently in the former Concord College campus now owned by the Manitoba MB Conference. There is a possibility that the campus could be rented to a Mennonite elementary school in about 15 months. If that happens, the office would have to move. (Subsequently, WMES has decided not to pursue this option.)

  Jean-Raymond Théorêt

  The task force will study whether to move the office to another location in Winnipeg or to some other city. If it is decided to move the office out of Winnipeg, that decision would be taken to the 2004 Canadian Conference convention for approval.

Given this weighty agenda, the opening devotion given by Jean-Raymond Théorêt was fitting. He told the story of the apostle Peter in John 21 rededicating himself to following the call of Jesus, even though he had experienced personal failure and the apparent failure of the Kingdom of God (Jesus’ crucifixion). Théorêt left board members with the call Jesus had given Peter: “Do you love Me? Follow Me.”

—jc