March 25thFrom The Desk of Our Executive Minister
Mennonite World Conference - MWC BIG NEWS!
Mennonite World Conference - MWC BIG NEWS!
Greetings family in Jesus! If you’re new here you might not know that we are part of a larger Anabaptist global family. That family connects through something called Mennonite World Conference. The conference gathers every x many years. The next one will be in Tanzania.
MCBC uses the MWC 7 Shared Convictions as the common ground for a church to engage with us as an Exploring Congregation. This non-member category was approved at our 2024 AGM. This past Sunday Anne and I worshipped at an independent church in the Lower mainland with African (in this case Ethiopian MKC roots). Some of the largest Mennonite-Anabaptist churches in the world are in Africa. May we learn from our global family lessons of life and staying centred on Jesus.
From the press release:
The Executive Committee of Mennonite World Conference accepted the invitation from the member churches of Tanzania to host the global Assembly 18 in 2028. The five-day gathering of Anabaptists from around the world will take place in the first two weeks of June. The theme is being finalized.
There are more than 46 000 Mennonites in Tanzania in two MWC member churches: Kanisa la Mennonite Tanzania (KMT) and Kanisa La Mennonite La Kiinjili Tanzania (Evangelical Mennonite church of Tanzania).
“We expect approximately 1 500–2 000 participants from outside of the continent and 500–1 000 from other countries within Africa,” says Liesa Unger, manager of international events. “Tanzanian church leaders expect more than 2 500 local participants to join the entire Assembly and another 200 for the closing mass worship service on Saturday.”
KMT is the oldest national Mennonite church in East Africa, established in the 1930s. Waves of revival moved through Tanzania from the 1940s to 1960s. Tanzania evangelists from Mennonite churches carried the gospel into Kenya, establishing the Mennonite church there.
May your faith be challenged and enlived as you look to the leadership of the Global South churches!
☩ Boese
PS: Summer book group sign-up link
Minority Report #2: An Explainer
What is a "minority report"? In legislative bodies or committees, if a report is not unanimous, the opposing members may file a minority report to outline their reasoning, ensuring their perspective is part of the official record (composite dictionary definition). In Mennonite land we often try for consensus, but absent that we default to majoritarianism — in the best cases, after much prayer, discernment, conversation, Scripture, and church history study. I'm using the phrase in a more free-floating sense. MCBC in some ways is a "minority report" within the other Regional Churches of Mennonite Church Canada, in large part due to our make-up and historic influences. So the idea here is to throw out thoughts that might be "minority" opinions or perspectives — not to defend them per se, but to invite and provoke follow-up conversations.
I have been serving diverse church communities for some years and appreciate a little thoughtful push-and-pull: not as official statements, but as dialogue and question. So while real issues are raised, this is meant to provoke you and me to see from another angle or lens. We do believe that all have the agency and competency to wrestle, and to hold some of our conclusions without making certainty an idol — other than the Love of God revealed particularly in Jesus. [Prep for Minority Report #3]