You're a Mennonite pastor?

Graeme Isbister

"You're a pastor! And a Mennonite pastor at that?"

I heard this remark and others like it from a number of people when I began ministry in my home town some four years ago. I had been away from the town I grew up in for almost 25 years, and a lot had happened to me in those years. When I left to go to university at the end of the 1960s, I was very much a product of the times: I had been an exceptionally rebellious teenager. I had experimented with an alternative lifestyle, and I held those from the "straight" community in contempt. Growing up surrounded by conservative Mennonites, I saw MBs as typifying that community. Every evening, when the local radio station played the opening strains of "I love to tell the story" signalling the start of the nightly Back to the Bible broadcast, I couldn't get to the off-switch quickly enough--Mennonites listened to that!

Things changed. Shortly after leaving home, through the steady, loving, prayerful influence of Christian people (one of whom was to become my wife), I began to see that God and His love might be real. Half-way through a cross-country hitchhiking "pilgrimage"--this was in the days when it was still relatively safe to hitchhike--God finally convicted me of my need for Him. I knelt down, confessed my sins and accepted Christ as Saviour.

More things changed. I received a solid, evangelical grounding in the faith through the (non-Mennonite) church we attended while at university. My wife and I then decided to put our newly earned teacher's certificates to use overseas, as contract teachers in Nigeria.

While teaching there, we had much contact with (surprise!) Mennonites, specifically Mennonite Central Committee workers. Two things impressed me about these people--they integrated their biblical faith and theology with practical Christian service, and they worked at developing community, especially within the family.

Because of this favourable impression, we responded readily to an invitation to attend an MB church when we returned to Canada. Another surprise--we discovered that the style of worship, approach to ministry and general lifestyle of that particular congregation fit us like an old sweater (and I'd like to think we fit them as well). The opportunity to develop and use ministry gifts at that church led, in part, to a call to the ministry--and eventually to the town that I had left as such a different person so many years before.

Looking back at it all now, it's hard to believe God doesn't have a sense of humour. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined years ago that I could ever be a part of and a servant to that community that I had dismissed. Fortunately, God's transforming power is not limited to our dreams.

Also, the shocked look on many former acquaintances' faces when they discover all that's happened is fertile ground for witness.

"You're a pastor, and a Mennonite one at that?"

"Well, yes I am. . . . Can I tell you about the One who brought that all about?"