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The General MB Conference task force report--detailing recommendations for restructuring the management of North American Mennonite Brethren denominational ministries--is in the hands of the General MB Conference Executive Council. Now it is up to the General Conference officers and board chairs to sift through the report and draft final recommendations to be presented to delegates at the General Conference convention in Wichita, Kansas, this summer.
The main thrust of the report, issued at the beginning of December, advises dissolving the current General Conference structure and moving management of the ministries to Canadian and US national levels. The report recommends that church planting and financial management continue as solely national ministries and all other ministries be done within "partnerships" between Canada and the US, directly controlled and managed by the national conferences.
The recommendations come after 11 months of examining all levels of MB conference and church activity in North America. Called for by the delegates to the 1997 General Conference convention in Waterloo, Ont., the task force made a "no-holds-barred" review of all levels of conference ministries with a goal to prepare an appropriate realignment of Conference ministries. They were also instructed to provide opportunity for strengthening relationships with other national MB Conferences.
"The Executive Committee is grateful to the task force and commends them for their thorough and helpful recommendations," said General Conference moderator Ed Boschman. The other General Conference Executive Committee members are Marvin Hein, executive secretary, Herb Kopp, assistant moderator, and Valerie Rempel, secretary.
Throughout the report, the task force acknowledges that the sharing of unique gifts and cultures is beneficial to overall ministry. They also express a desire for greater accountability to the local church and a commitment to model positive partnership in a global environment.
The task force recommends that the General Conference "as a legal entity" be dissolved. The General Conference is a bi-national structure and currently meets every other year at a convention. It owns ministries and elects boards to complete work associated with those ministries.
In place of the current structure, five partnership ministries would be formed between the US and Canadian conferences in areas of existing ministries:
* faith and life
* global missions
* theological training
* communication, Christian education and resources
* historical commission
Each ministry would have a board consisting of members from each country. The task force emphasized a desire for equal representation from each country on each board. Each national conference would carry responsibility for the partnership ministries. Reporting from the various ministries would occur at the national conventions.
In addition to the partnership ministries, each national conference would carry responsibility for its own national evangelism and financial management. The report also recommends that the bi-national conventions would be discontinued in favour of a rotating schedule of regional and national conventions, with a partnership convention occurring every six years.
Over the next several months, individual boards, leadership teams and national conference executives will review the report for implications for their ministries. The General Conference Executive Council will meet February 5-6 to decide and prepare the recommendations to be presented to delegates for action in July at the General Conference convention in Wichita, Kan. The entire text of these recommendations will be published in the April 30 issue of the MB Herald and the May issue of The Christian Leader.
"The mandate for change given to the Executive Committee at the General Conference convention in Fresno, Calif. in 1995 has taken us on a considerable journey of interaction and process with our North American MB constituency," said Boschman. "We request your continued prayer with and for us."
Boschman urges people to freely communicate with the Executive Board members and their own local leadership. "It's our desire to serve God and our bi-national family faithfully, and to prepare ourselves for a new millennium of effectively contributing to the support of His Kingdom on earth."
Copies of the task force report are available from the executive secretary's office: 4812 E. Butler Ave., Fresno, CA 93727; phone (209) 452-1713; e-mail mhein1@fresno.edu. --General Conference Executive Committee news release
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