Good news and business

ONTARIO MB CONFERENCE CONVENTION, FEB. 20-21

The Ontario MB Conference has expressed the intention of shifting its focus from the Conference agencies to the local churches. Judging by the annual convention Feb. 20-21 in Kitchener MB Church, it is succeeding. The convention abounded in inspiring testimonies and messages. The Conference business seemed a somewhat confused afterthought.

Prayer

Preceding the convention on Friday afternoon, about 50 pastors and other leaders gathered for an-hour-and-a-half prayer meeting led by Ed Willms, associate pastor at Scott St. MB Church.

Testimonies

The convention itself got off to an encouraging start with four "good news" testimonies.

Lynn Roy described how she had been a successful mother and career woman who thought she was in control of her life--except that she had a daughter who was deaf, she was a perfectionist and a workaholic, she had problems with alcohol and she suffered from agoraphobia and a host of other fears. She came into contact with Waterloo MB Church through two teens dressed as clowns who came to her door to invite her children to a kids' carnival. Attending the church, she decided she had come to a family where she could share her fears. As a result, she has given her life to God.

Hilldegard Wall enthusiastically provided a long list of good news from her congregation, Scott St. MB Church in St. Catharines: a good pastoral team, spiritual growth, 28 baptisms and 40 new members in the past year, a fully attended prayer week and weekly prayer services on Sunday evening, good music and preaching, the healing of an unborn baby through prayer, vibrant care groups, a clubs program attracting many unchurched children, and many special events and retreats.

George and Carol Pentland a Roman Catholic and Presbyterian couple, both previously divorced, described their long road to faith in Jesus. Seeking spiritual meaning, Carol began attending a Presbyterian church in 1989 and was led to Christ by the pastor in 1993. George came to Christ through the Presbyterian church and through the witness of Christians at Eden High School, where George began teaching in 1991. The Pentlands are now members of Orchard Park Bible Church in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

Pastor Henry Wiebe reported how his traditional congregation, Vineland MB Church, has learned to reach out, adding 13 new families from the community in the past year. Particularly effective have been Sunday services dedicated to honouring local politicians, firefighters, police and teachers.

Challenge

Herman Neufeld, a former associate pastor at Orchard Park Bible Church, brought the main message for the evening. He noted how previous revivals had been squelched: The Anabaptists grew rapidly during the persecution of the 16th century, but shrunk due to afluence in the 17th century. The early exuberance of the first Mennonite Brethren in 1864 was taken away by the "reforms" of June, 1865.

Neufeld then listed four ailments that keep Mennonite Brethren from growing: having pride in their own ethnicity that keeps MBs from accepting people from other ethnic groups; leaving evangelism to the 10% of Christians who have the gift of evangelism instead of recognizing that all Christians have a responsibility to witness; expecting non-Christians to become morally pure before they are offered the gospel; losing their "first love" for Jesus. Neufeld closed with the story of lepers who realized their responsibility to share the good news (II Kings 6-7).

The "night of good news" closed with a communion service.

Partnership

The first Saturday morning session, around breakfast tables in the church gym, included two encouraging examples of partnership. John and Lottie Durksen described how they had gone from Grantham MB Church to help provide music and other ministries at Niagara Falls Christian Fellowship in 1981. They are an early example of the Conference's newly organized church partnership initiative, in which every congregation is paired with one or more other congregations (often a new church with an established church) for mutual support and encouragement.

Randy Friesen, director of Youth Mission International announced the development of a new program, SOAR Northeast. This is a partnership with the Ontario Conference's Eden High School in which six teams of students will be sent out this summer to minister in Montreal (two teams), Toronto, Buffalo, Kentucky and the Atlantic Provinces. The program also includes some MB youth who do not attend Eden.

Friendship

Luc DelMonte, a half-time associate pastor at Waterloo MB Church and half-time worker with the Navigators parachurch organization, brought the main message of the morning. He suggested that Mennonite Brethren are still in the first chapters of Acts, preaching the gospel to people who are of their own ethnic group and who already know about the Bible. He urged Mennonite Brethren to move on to Acts 8: Philip became close to a non-Christian (the Ethiopian eunuch), listened and then was able to lead him to Christ. Rich Wilton, a member of Kitchener MB Church and a Navigators worker, then outlined a Navigators strategy which encourages Christians to engage in friendship evangelism. DelMonte concluded with a two-fold admonition: MBs should hold on to key biblical doctrines but should replace any church program that is not effective.

Both messages and all of the "good news" stories at the convention were received very enthusiastically by delegates.

Prayer

Mark Johnson, senior pastor of Glencairn MB Church in Kitchener, had laid the foundation for this convention's theme with his call to renewal at the 1997 convention. (His message was published in the Jan. 9, 1998 MB Herald.) Johnson led an hour-long, four-part concert of prayer in the middle of Saturday morning. In the first part, delegates prayed around the tables in corporate repentance for several sins outlined by Johnson: an independent spirit in the churches; apathy and lack of love for the lost; individuals, churches and conferences having a greater interest in survival than in giving themselves away for Jesus; arrogance and lack of cooperation with other denominations; a desire for control. Delegates also prayed around the tables for their local churches. Johnson led in a prayer for martyrs and the suffering church around the world. The session ended with all delegates praying simultaneously out loud their own prayers for renewal and revival.

Workshops

The rest of the morning was taken up by two blocks of workshops, which in recent years have been the only forum for boards to report to the convention. A concern was raised later in the convention that this approach may create difficulties in the long run, as one workshop was attended by only four people and the workshops tend to attract only those who already support the work of a given board.

Harbour

The afternoon session opened with a final "good news" story. Rob Driedger, a member of Evergreen Heights Christian Fellowship in Simcoe, reported how he, his wife and two other couples had begun an outreach in the nearby community of Port Dover. The outreach is a cell-based church, with two groups now meeting weekly; twice a month, worship services (called The Harbour) are held in a local hotel. The "church" now has 20-30 people. Among the new Christians are three men who were formerly leaders in a local mototcycle gang.

Numbers

Secretary Terry Shuh reported good news in the statistical report. Membership has increased 4% in the past year (from 4061 to 4221 members), and weekly church attendance has increased 3% (from 4790 to 4918). Baptismal candidates and church attenders come from a broad range of age groups.

Apology

The rest of the afternoon was devoted to business. The first recommendation was to accept a joint statement of apology by the Conference Executive, the Board of Management and the Board of Camping Ministries. The matter concerned two instances of boards hiring their own members to do conference work.

Eden High School is formerly a completely Conference-run school and now an "alternative school" in the public school system. Four years ago, the school moved from its small Conference-owned building to "Scottlea", a building owned by the school board, and the Ontario Conference Board of Management was given the responsibility to sell the old building. That building was recently sold for $1,254,980. The Conference had also gained $19,334 from rental of the property over the four years.

However, the Conference spent $90,748 to maintain the property for four years, including $5558 paid to SpySpec International, a company owned by Board of Management chair Werner Dick. An additional $105,085 was spent on costs related to the sale, including $43,254 to SkySpec and a "settlement" of $21,400 to realtor Royal LePage. (The property was sold after the contract with the realtor had expired, but the realtor laid a claim for payment, and a settlement was agreed on by both parties; the Conference hopes to recover this latter amount from the purchaser.) No tenders had been let for Skyspec's work on the project because it had been expected the building would sell quickly and there would be little expense. A further $216,946, including $23,432 to Skyspec, was spent planning needed renovations at the new "Scottlea" site. Ironically, Eden has outgrown that building too and had planned to move to a third site, but this process was stopped by the Ontario government's decision to amalgamate public school boards, and a move is now not likely until fall, 1999.

The other matter concerned the Board of Camping Ministries, which had hired some of its members to work on the Kitchen Plus extension to its facilities.

The Conference's Leadership Council commissioned Henry Petkau and John Janzen to study the Eden matter. They prepared a 21-page report, which was examined by the Board of Reference and Counsel (BORAC) Nov. 25, 1997 and by an open meeting attended by 60-70 people Nov. 29, 1997. The consensus of the report and the meetings was that no rules were broken but that "mistakes" had been made in processing the decisions and that those involved should be forgiven.

At the convention, the statement making the apology was accepted by a standing vote after a brief discussion.

The study commission also made a number of recommendations for tightening up the Conference's procedures. These will be processed by BORAC in the coming year.

Constitution

The next recommendation was that BORAC review the constitution. An amendment that the Leadership Council review the constitution was defeated, but an amendment that BORAC appoint a task force

to review the constitution was passed, as was the amended recommendation.

The Constitution Committee gained acceptance for nine housekeeping amendments to the constitution and presented a notice of motion for one more change. The only one that generated a discussion was a provision that no more than one member from a church could be nominated to the same board. The Constitution Committee will have another look at the issue in the next year--after a member was nominated and elected to a board that another member of that church already sits on. (Only one member was "nominated" this time, but two now sit on the board.)

The election of members proceeded, with some confusion. One vacancy remains on the Board of Church Ministries. Peter Klassen was acclaimed as secretary, joining two other "Peters" on the Executive: Peter Durksen, acclaimed for a second two-year term as moderator, and Peter Neufeld, who is assistant moderator.

Camp

The Board of Camping Ministries received approval for two recommendations. The first allows it to continue to do fundraising, mainly for capital expenses but for some operating expenses as well. Over the past two years, the Camp has spent $437,054 on a major building project called "Kitchen Plus", with $60,000 of that being borrowed from the Canadian MB Conference. The Camp has agreed to aim at raising $88,000 this year (in some years, it has raised closer to twice that amount). $20,000 of this will be used to complete bedrooms in the Kitchen Plus project, and $16,000 for other capital projects.

The second recommendation was that the Ontario Conference pay off the Camp's Canadian Conference loan and that the Camp repay the Ontario Conference over two years, at virtually no interest. Some discussion arose on the floor over the term for repayment. The extra $52,000 the Camp hopes to raise plus almost $8000 it still has in its Kitchen Plus account should enable it to pay off the loan in one year, but the Camp has not promised to do this, partly because it may need some of the money for its operating expenses since the Conference is reducing the operating grant it gives the Camp.

Direction

The Board of Church Extension's only recommendation was to thank Henry Wiebe who has served as church extension director on a part-time basis for 10 years (1978-84 and 1994-97) and has now phased out of that work.

BOCE had hoped to appoint another full-time director, but put that on hold in favour of following a joint strategy with the Board of Faith and Life. This strategy was presented as three recommendations.

The first recommendation was a three-part call for renewal: that all church and conference boards seek renewal (repentance, reconciliation and reformation); that all churches have a renewal emphasis in 1998; and that the Conference promote leadership development. The leadership development includes participation in the Canadian MB Conference ReFocusing strategy (see MBH

, Oct. 24, 1997) and a pastoral internship program partially funded by the Conference.

The second recommendation was to encourage the church partnerships discussed earlier.

The third recommendation was that BOCE develop a long-range strategy for church planting and that BOCE accept partnership with the Canadian Conference's key cities initiative, to plant churches in Toronto beginning in the year 2000. (That key cities initiative still needs to be approved at the Canadian Conference convention this summer.)

All three recommendations passed.

Policy

The Board of Faith and Life received approval for three other recommendations. The first was to create a Pastors'/Moderators' Consultation Committee through which the Conference will be involved in helping churches find and candidate pastors.

The second recommendation called for acceptance of a 7-page working document called "Policy and Procedures for Dealing with Sexual Misconduct and Abuse". The recommendation passed despite some opposition. Some feared that passing the document would legally bind the Conference and churches to abide by it, while others feared the Conference and churches might be more legally vulnerable if it did not pass it.

Through a final recommendation, Rudy Bartel was appointed to a further one-year term as interim part-time conference minister.

Budget

Each year, the Ontario Conference receives pledges from the congregations regarding how much money they will give, and then adjusts its budget accordingly. For 1998, the congregations have pledged $232,500, a very tiny increase over the last two years. The Board of Reference and Counsel, however, made significant adjustments within the budget to reflect the Conference's priorities.

The subsidy to Camp Crossroads was cut from $25,000 to $10,000; the $8500 subsidy for the chaplain at Tabor Manor seniors complex was eliminated; the $10,000 subsdidy for the chaplain at Bethesda (the Conferences ministry to people with developmental disabilities) was eliminated; the subsidy to the spiritual life program at Eden High School was cut from $63,000 to $60,000; the subsidy that the Ontario Conference has been paying to MB postsecondary schools in other provinces attended by Ontario MB students was cut from $5000 to zero. (The regular programs at Tabor, Bethesda and Eden are fully financed by the Ontario government.)

The Board of Faith and Life budget was increased from $19,620 to $40,000, largely due to adding $12,450 for the pastoral internship program and $6700 for the ReFocusing program.

The Board of Church Ministries budget was increased from $10,000 to $17,000 to reflect the increased Conference emphasis on resourcing congregations.

The Board of Church Extension budget was increased from $85,000 to $100,000, largely because of $13,751 set aside to launch the church planting effort in Toronto in cooperation with the Canadian Conference.

Bethesda Board chair David Wiebe moved an amendment to the budget to grant Bethesda $30,000 (half the cost of Bethesda's chaplaincy program) in keeping with Bethesda's original budget request. The amendment was defeated in a fairly close vote. A recommendation had been passed earlier giving Bethesda the right to do fundraising, but it was noted that when Tabor Manor had tried to raise money for a building program a few years ago, hardly any money had come in.

The budget passed, with little opposition.

JC

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