GC-MC INTEGRATION APPROVED; NAME WILL BE "MENNONITE CHURCH"

Integration plans have been underway for some time and the formal proposals were not expected to fail. Instead, debate at the conventions of the General Conference Mennonite Church in Winnipeg and the Mennonite Church in Orlando, Florida revolved around certain aspects of the merger.

It was the name of the new denomination that provoked intense discussion in Winnipeg, where General Conference Mennonites met July 6-8. The Integration Committee proposed that the integrated church be called "Mennonite Church". Delegates speaking against the proposed name had a variety of reasons to dislike it, including the frequent charge that "it sounds arrogant". Another was that one of the integration partners the larger one (formerly known as Old Mennonites) already uses it.

Those speaking in favour supported the rationale of the Integration Committee. Committee members considered more than 20 names, they said, and felt it was more important to have a short and simple name that communicates well with those outside the church than to distinguish one Mennonite group from another.

When the vote on the name was taken, it passed with a 76 percent majority. Two subsequent recommendations each passed with a 96 percent majority. One concerned the time frame for integration. The General Boards of the two denominations will meet together for the next two years and become one at the 1999 joint delegate assembly in St. Louis, Missouri.

Another concerned the merger of the two denomination's periodicals. The Mennonite (GC magazine) and the Gospel Herald (MC magazine) will both be discontinued, with the formation of a new periodical named The Mennonite, to start in early 1998. (J. Lorne Peachey, currently editor of Gospel Herald, was later named editor of the new integrated publication.)

The Integration Committee also solicited counsel from delegates on organizing the new denomination. Most responses dealt with representation at the assemblies. In the GC, congregations appoint delegates; in the MC, area conferences appoint significantly fewer delegates. The IC is recommending a compromise in which conferences appoint delegates, though many more than at present.

The same three recommendations about integration were approved with hearty majorities at the July 29-Aug 2 convention of the Mennonite Church in Orlando. Here the name of the new church raised fewer concerns than the name of the integrated periodical, The Mennonite, which is the current name of the GC Mennonite church magazine. Some felt both names missed the opportunity to signal something new.

The decision of the Canadian side of the General Conference of Mennonites Conference of Mennonites in Canada to launch a new periodical, Canadian Mennonite, also raised questions. (In current proposals, the U.S. paper is accountable to the binational conference while the Canadian paper is accountable to Canadian conferences only.) In the integrated denomination, Canada is slated to become one of four regions.

The Conference of Mennonites in Canada had met in Winnipeg July 3-6, just before the GC binational meetings. Each of Canada's five area conferences and Mennonite Publishing Service had agreed this spring to launch a new magazine, Canadian Mennonite, to replace the current papers, Mennonite Reporter and Nexus.

The proposed federation of three Winnipeg colleges, which includes Canadian Mennonite Bible College, was also discussed. The federation proposal will come to a vote at next year's session. Noteworthy at the conventions of both denominations were their parallel youth conventions. In Orlando, the place of Disney's Magic Kingdom, 5000 MC youth and their sponsors gathered to consider "God's Kingdom: Beyond Illusion." The days were filled with seminars, worship that "really rocked", performances, service projects, and recreation. Speakers included Bernice King, daughter of the late Martin Luther King, and Tony Campolo.

In Winnipeg, some 600 GC youth and sponsors held their own sessions and joined the adults one evening for worship. The youth worked on many service projects, especially helping with cleanup from the spring flood in Manitoba.

from GC and MC convention reports

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