November 10thA Word to Mennonite Church Manitoba
Executive Minister Michael Pahl sat down with Doug Klassen, Executive Minister for Mennonite Church Canada, and asked him, “What would you like to say to the congregations of MCM, based on what you are seeing across Mennonite Church Canada?” The following is Doug’s response, edited for clarity and brevity.
In 1998 we left Winnipeg to move to Calgary and pastor there. When I was being interviewed at Foothills Mennonite Church, somebody asked the question, “Why would you want to leave a Mennonite mecca like Winnipeg and come out here to the diaspora?” My response was that there’s a fair bit of creativity allowed in the diaspora that isn’t necessarily experienced or valued in the mecca.
I look at it this way. I grew up in Niagara, close to St. Catharines where General Motors had a huge plant built right after the Second World War. General Motors, along with Ford in Oakville and Chrysler in Windsor, had a hold on the Canadian market for cars. Everybody bought their cars, so GM and Ford and Chrysler could just keep building cars as they always had—no need for innovation.
In the late 1970s and early ’80s, though, foreign carmakers began importing their cars. At first there were a lot of problems with them—they weren’t up to the standard of a General Motors. But gradually the foreign imports improved, even outpacing GM or Ford or Chrysler. This caused some frustration among the local automakers and even some disdain for people who would buy these foreign vehicles. You didn’t want to have one of those foreign vehicles and drive it to work at General Motors because it would probably get vandalized!
Over time, these foreign imports eclipsed the market and through trade agreements began to set up factories in southern Ontario. And now they have in many ways become the standard for quality and safety and more—all because they looked at car making through fresh eyes and were willing to risk and innovate.
I draw this analogy because it reflects some things that I’m seeing across Mennonite Church Canada. Sometimes the hardest places to be innovative are where the largest concentrations of MC Canada churches are—because until now we haven’t had to be innovative in the way we think about and do church. But when you’re out in the diaspora areas you just start with dinner church, for example, because that’s what you can do.
I wonder, could Mennonite Church Manitoba learn from some of this innovation? Can we be more experimental in our expressions of church?
I was recently out in Mennonite Church B.C. visiting a new church in Kelowna called Valley Road Church. It’s a church plant focused simply around being Jesus-centered—and they’re drawing people in. There are new Christians, there are people recovering from previous bad church experiences. And it’s a dynamic congregation. They’re getting back to the core of the Gospels, looking at what it means simply to be Jesus-followers in this time.
Are we willing to learn from these fresh expressions of church within our nationwide family of churches?
Mennonite Church Canada has begun a new consultation group focused on New and Renewing Churches, meeting regularly by Zoom. If you’d like to join the next meeting to learn how congregations are exploring creative new expressions of church, watch for info in the MCM Update email. If you’d like to give financially to support this work in our regional and nationwide church, see www.mennochurch.mb.ca/giving.