Return to the M.B.Herald Vol. 36, No. 13 Home Page
1. Comparisons with the Mennonite World Conference are inescapable. WEF participation was broader but thinner. 4500 people attended the MWC Assembly, including 3000 from India. WEF's Assembly attracted 540 delegates and 100 guests from 87 countries, although celebration events attracted thousands of local attenders. (An average of about 2000 attended the celebration services each evening; 6000 attended a Sunday afternoon rally, and 5000 a Sunday evening youth rally.) However, while MWC represents about 1 million people worldwide, WEF represents 150 million Christians in 113 countries.
MWC met in a country that is largely non-Christian. WEF also met in a country now considered non-Christian. However, the particular site chosen for WEF's Assembly was Abbotsford, B.C., a well-known "Bible belt" where Mennonites, particularly Mennonite Brethren, are prominent. (Abbotsford has 100,000 people, a dozen MB churches and about half as many Mennonite churches.)
Mennonite Brethren were prominent in the Assembly. The location for all but the Sunday rallies was Central Heights MB Church. MBs were also prominent on the hosting committee, including chair Vern Heidebrecht and vice-chair John H. Redekop. Worship at the evening sessions was led by Wayne Loewen, worship pastor at Northview Community Church, a local MB congregation which has an average weekly attendance of over 3000.
It was easy for me to feel at home at the event. After all, the Assembly was held in my home church. However, there is more to it than that. What struck me was not the differences but the common faith I shared with these delegates from around the world. Mennonite Brethren say that we are "evangelical anabaptists". While some interpret that label to designate simply one branch of Mennonites, in reality Mennonite Brethren are a hybrid. We have feet in both the Mennonite and evangelical camps (although some MBs clearly favour one foot over the other).
2. Like MWC, the WEF Assembly was an enriching, multicultural experience. It was an opportunity to see visibly that the church is international. WEF's president (Tokunbo Adeyemo of Kenya) and the executive director (Jun Vencer from the Philippines) are from the Third World, as are the majority of the 13 members of the International Council (there is one North American on the Council).
Local participants were particularly blessed by one-on-one interaction with delegates from other countries and by learning of the persecuted and suffering yet rapidly growing church around the world.
Such international gatherings usually give attenders an opportunity to explore the local culture. This includes putting up with some inconveniences. I was standing in a long registration line in which registrations seemed to be written out by hand when a Third World delegate remarked, "Back home, we would have used computers." (This, incidentally, seemed to be the only glitch; delegates praised the hosting committees for doing an extremely good job and for being very helpful.)
In this case, the local culture that attenders experienced was Canadian. On the first evening, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada President Brian Stiller explained the significance of such national expressions as "eh?" He also explained the multicultural character of Canada, and described Canadians as conservative and modest, people who cross the road to get to the middle--only to have that image shattered by the exuberant, contemporary worship of the local worship team. "And," Stiller quipped, "many of them are Mennonites!" Perhaps this introduction to Canadian culture proved enlightening to participants from other countries, such as the United States.
One of the many memorable moments at the Assembly came at the closing session when the worship team led in the singing of "We will break dividing walls" (between blacks and whites, between denominations, between rich and poor, between men and women, between the fears of the church and the streets of the world). It had the audience standing and applauding.
3. It is clear that the strength of evangelicalism has moved from Western nations to the Third World. It is in parts of the Third World that the church is most dynamic, the church is growing the fastest and Christians are showing the highest level of commitment. Third World leaders show remarkable gifts for vision-setting, evangelism, worship, theology and preaching. How many of North Americans have won 96 people to Christ during six years in prison (as a Vietnamese pastor did)? How many of our Bible school students are required to plant a church in a Muslim area as a graduation requirement (as some Indonesian Bible school students are)?
One observer noted that we should no longer "assume that the most effective Christian preaching, teaching and leadership still come from the Western, white world". This is true (although whether we should have assumed this in the past is also questionable). On the other hand, it would also be wrong to assume that all Christians from the Third World are now great leaders, evangelists and preachers. This would place impossible burdens and expectations on them. As evident in discussions at WEF, some parts of the Third World Church also suffer from shallow commitment, moral failures and church squabbles. There was some excellent preaching at this Assembly, but there was also some preaching that contained sloppy hermeneutics and weak delivery and relied more on stories of personal experience than on Scriptural content.
4. Worldwide evangelicalism is more holistic than North American evangelicalism. Mennonites cannot dismiss evangelicalism as easily as they dismiss the caricature of evangelicalism presented by American televangelists. Here we saw a church that remains faithful while suffering persecution and enduring severe hardship; there was no prosperity gospel here, no wild claims that God will give every Christian material riches. The delegates here--Third World and Western--talked of relief and development, combatting racism, concern for dying children and a host of other social issues. Many also related stories about how they had already implemented what they were talking about. There were some touches that Mennonites might find troublesome, such as singing the Canadian national anthem at the opening ceremonies (an unusual circumstance at any gathering in Canada). However, there was also much discussion of peace. WEF's Department of Church and Society, headed by Mennonite Reg Reimer, has decided to focus its work on peacemaking and reconciliation, offering materials and resources and teachers to the various national fellowships.
One of the most moving moments of the Assembly occurred on the last evening when host committee Vern Heidebrecht washed the feet of WEF Director Jun Vencer, who in turn washed the feet of Thomas, a pastor from Rwanda whose sons had been killed in the recent civil war.
5. The World Evangelical Fellowship is one of three worldwide evangelical bodies, and the most formally organized. WEF is an umbrella organization for national evangelical organizations such as the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and the National Association of Evangelicals (in the US)--which in turn are umbrella organizations for national denominations. WEF was formally founded in 1951, but traces its roots back to 1846. (In honour of the 150-year anniversary, WEF vice-chair Harold Fuller unveiled an official book outlining WEF's history, People of the Mandate.)
The other worldwide evangelical organizations are the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (an ad hoc organization formed in the 1970s to encourage cooperation in evangelism) and the AD 2000 and Beyond Movement (primarily an alliance of mission agencies trying to ensure that the gospel is preached to every people group in the world by the year 2000). The three organizations cooperate and have conducted talks, but have not taken what seems to be the logical step of merging.
6. Like MWC, WEF should be seen as an opportunity for networking and fellowship rather than a ministry agency. WEF has financial struggles (it depends on donations) and an annual budget of about $1.3 million US, only a little larger than that of the B.C. Mennonite Brethren Conference. (An additional $700,000 was budgetted for this Assembly--Assemblies are held every 4-6 years--with about $200,000 of that contributed by Abbotsford area churches and Christians.)
Compared to the excellent evening worship celebrations, the five formal business sessions on the last two days were a disappointment. No major decisions were made. One session was used to discuss whether WEF should change its name to WEA (World Evangelical Alliance). Coming from a denomination that has been debating name change for 15 years, I felt right at home, but I didn't feel particularly inspired. Another session degenerated into a procedural wrangle over voting procedures.
The official theme of this assembly was "Focussing the strength of local churches". As an employee of a national church structure (the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches), this caused me to do some reflecting on how church should be done. Clearly the trend in North America is that denominations are declining while more money and effort is being spent in the local church. The denominations are being reduced to merely providing opportunities for networking, fellowship, worship and inspiration. It is very difficult to do significant ministry at the 150 million-people level (although some Billy Graham electronic crusades have exceeded this scope). However, at this point, I am still convinced that there are some ministries that can be better done at the 30,000-people level than at the local level. Our task is to discern what is the most appropriate level for each task.
7. Cultural transmission is not a simple process. It was a bit disconcerting to see a young Indonesian group in colourful native costumes playing bamboo instruments and then singing in English two Gaither-style songs of a type that was popular in North American churches 30 years ago. In contrast, African Voice, a group from Kenya, sang songs in tribal languages that caused the Africans in the audience to jump to their feet and begin dancing in the aisles; the dancers were soon joined by some North American whites and others. Interestingly, that music was closer to the contemporary Christian worship music led by Wayne Loewen than the Indonesian group's music which had been borrowed from North America.
8. WEF does not have any easy solutions to the women in ministry issue, any more than the rest of us. In one of the most memorable of the evening messages, Judy Mbugua of Kenya urged strengthening women's role in the church; her examples of the remarkable contributions of African Christian women seemed more compelling than her biblical basis (women should be freed for service as the donkey was freed in Mark 11). WEF's Women's Commission, of which Mbugua is a member, has recently published a book called Women as Risktakers profiling the achievements of some remarkable Christian women.
On the other hand, 80% of registered attenders at the Assembly were men, even though 80 million of the 150 million evangelicals in the world are women. A long floor debate also took place on whether the two at-large positions on the WEF International Council should be reserved for women. Eventually a man was allowed to run against the two women nominated, but the women were elected anyway. The other 11 members of the Council (representing seven regions of the world) are all men.
9. The Assembly revealed the increasingly pagan, anti-Christian or at least anti-evangelical nature of Canadian society. As far as the national media and even the media in the nearby city of Vancouver were concerned, the WEF Assembly did not happen. The Vancouver Sun newspaper has a full-time religion reporter, but his only coverage seemed to be a short backpage piece put together secondhand through information supplied by a WEF press officer.
Such neglect is almost inexplicable. In a time of increasing racial tension, it was not considered newsworthy that people from 87 nations could literally embrace one another as brothers and sisters.
In a society with an insatiable appetite for the bizarre and unusual, the press overlooked the story of a pastor who had led an unseen man to Christ through a toilet pipe while in solitary confinement for his faith.
A few years ago, a photo of Kim Phuc, a Vietnamese girl badly burned by US napalm, won a Pulitzer Prize; however, the press was not interested in learning that she has now had a tearful reconciliation with the US officer who ordered the attack (both have since become Christians), or to see her reunited with the pastor who led her to Christ over 14 years ago. (Kim Phuc now lives in Toronto, and pastor Ho Hieu Ha lives in the US. WEF official Reg Reimer, a former Mennonite missionary in Vietnam, had pastor Ho brought in as a surprise for Kim Phuc after she had given her testimony on Saturday night.)
10. The Assembly made a favourable impact on the Abbotsford area. The local newspapers covered the event in detail, and were clearly impressed. (The coverage made a welcome change from the bitter arguments over homosexuality and abortion that usually fill the papers' letter columns.) There were reports that some delegates had witnessed to local people passing by on the street and led them to Christ.
Some local Christians were clearly inspired and encouraged and had their horizons broadened by the evening and Sunday celebrations. Many nights the crowd overflowed the 1550-seat sanctuary into a chapel equipped with closed-circuit TV. Seeing this on the first night, I suddenly thought, "My church is too small." I am sure many other attenders had similar thoughts.
As well, the experience of working together on the Assembly improved cooperation between the churches. Particularly significant was a pre-Assembly prayer summit attended by 45 local pastors.
11. We missed an opportunity. WEF is a fellowship network, not a mission agency. Yet, I think the local organizers missed a glorious opportunity to evangelize our community. On the whole, we did not take advantage of the attention WEF attracted and use it as an opportunity to invite other people in the community to become followers of Christ.
One of the world's leading evangelists, Luis Palau, spoke to an open-air crowd of 5000 at a recreational facility on Sunday afternoon, but it was a crowd of Christians; the community had not been explicitly invited, and Palau's message was geared to Christians.
A youth rally on Sunday evening led to a large number of conversions, but it also was not largely promoted outside the churches.
One of the world's leading Christian apologists, Ravi Zacharias, was also present. He is of Indian descent and was in a community with a large, hard-to-reach Indo-Canadian community, but he, too, spoke in church, to a largely Christian audience.
After one of the evening sessions, as I walked the few blocks to my home, I passed two groups of adults and one group of teenagers. All were having parties and seemed oblivious to the worldwide event that was occurring just down the street. Eventually one neighbour did stop me to ask questions about WEF (my wife and I have been witnessing to her and her husband). WEF talked about evangelizing the world; we did not evangelize Abbotsford.
12. Spiritual warfare is a reality. While the closing session was in progress, a small group, including a man dressed in a devil costume, burned Bibles on a barbecue in the church parking lot. It was a publicity stunt for "Sa Tan", a gag candidate in the national elections Canada was having at the time. After the group had left, the Central Heights youth group emerged from the church and prayed in the area where the Bibles were burned. The local press, who had been invited to the burning, roundly denounced the gag candidate for his bad taste in burning Bibles while inside Christians were hearing stories of Christians being tortured and martyred for their faith. The papers also praised Christians for the gentle way in which they responded to the affront. It was some of the most favourable press coverage the Christian community has received in Abbotsford in years.
Local prayer teams had been praying for the Assembly for weeks before the event, and prayer sessions were held every morning during the Assembly. This will perhaps have a more lasting effect than any other aspect of the WEF Assembly. Another lasting image from the Assembly was Operation Mobilization's George Verwer holding an oversize globe and praying for the world country by country.
Return to the M.B.Herald Vol. 36, No. 13 Home Page