General Conference of MB Churches has last meeting

The last official meetings of The General Conference of the Mennonite Brethren Churches Executive Council, Executive Committee and Board of Trustees took place in Wichita, Kan. on November 1–2, 2002. With the divestiture of General Conference’s ministries complete, the Executive Council, for purposes of concluding the business of the Conference, was composed of the members of the Executive Committee and the Board of Trustees.

A major item of business for the Executive Council was the disposition of the General Conference corporation which was incorporated in Kansas in 1900. It was decided that this corporation should be given an ongoing legal existence by merging it with the United States Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, also a Kansas corporation. Both the Board of Trustees and the Executive Council approved and executed the documents necessary to accomplish this merger. Similar documents were subsequently approved and executed by the appropriate United States Conference boards at their meetings later in November. The merger became official on January 1, 2003.

The Executive Council reviewed the final financial reports of the General Conference. Any surplus funds of the General Conference will be transferred to either the Canadian or US Conference, depending on their origin.

The Executive Committee arranged for the writing and publication of a Yearbook covering the Conference business for the last triennium. This publication will be made available to all churches and will contain a history of the divestiture process, copies of the Memoranda of Understanding governing the transfer of the ministries of the General Conference to the national conferences, outlines of the Celebration 2002 closing worship services in Abbotsford, B.C. on July 27–29, 2002, copies of documents related to the disposition of the General Conference corporation, and other items pertinent to the historical record of the last triennium. The Yearbook will be published this spring.

In other business, the Executive Committee decided:

• To adhere to its prior decision sealing the official records of all divestiture negotiation sessions for a period of five years;
• That videos of the Celebration 2002 worship sessions would be available for copying to anyone interested, at the Fresno and Winnipeg archival centres; and
• That all General Conference documents maintained by the Executive Secretary and Executive Committee Secretary be lodged in the Fresno archival centre.

In recognition of Marvin Hein’s services to the General Conference as the only Executive Secretary during the more than 100 years of its history, the Executive Committee, as one of its final acts, bestowed on Marvin, with sincere gratitude, the exclusive title of “Executive Secretary Emeritus of the General Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches”.

Members of the Executive Council present at the Wichita meetings were Herb Kopp, Lyndon Vix, Hildegard Bandsmer, Jim Enns, Marvin Hein, Dean Jost, Dale Regier and John Wiebe. Ron Martens is also a member of the Council.

—Hildegard Bandsmer, secretary, Executive Committee, General Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches