Embodying God's mission with authenticity

At the 2020 Mennonite Church Canada study conference, plenary speakers from Mennonite Church Canada-affiliated schools will share on themes of ecclesiology, worship and mission.

For the five-person team planning the conference, these themes are essential for our time. The global pandemic has scattered our worshipping bodies and introduced new ways of being church together. The team sees the present moment as an opportunity to discern, discuss and explore what we really mean what we say when we are church.

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Open to us a door by Doug Klassen

Yet I feel the need to reflect on this moment. I think it is significant. While this scramble to offer digital worship services is understandable, I believe COVID-19 has revealed how “worship-focused” western churches are at the expense of being missional communities. I knew this, but I had not seen it as starkly as I do now.

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After Wet’suwet’en: Re-membering the Church’s “Future Directions”

I was in Wet’suwet’en territory when COVID-19 social-distancing protocols were implemented across Canada. For two weeks I served as a legal observer with Christian Peacemaker Teams. I took vacation time to leave my family in Winnipeg in order to join Gidimt’en clan members and land defenders out on their Yintah (ancestral homeland). I wanted to support their nonviolent struggle for the recognition of their jurisdiction in the face of a government determined to build a fracked-gas pipeline on their territory, at the cost of Indigenous peoples’ full consent and Earth Mother’s well-being.

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