Reflections on MC Canada Assembly, Edmonton
To be back in Edmonton again! Ahh! City of Wide open Spaces, wide streets and big boulevards, City of Champions… okay, not for a long long time, they actually took down that sign. Edmonton is the city I grew up in, and in so many ways shaped who I am – both the city and my home congregation – First Mennonite Church. I was back in Edmonton last week for the MC Canada Nationwide Gathering and will share some reflections on that experience. But first a bit about being back in Edmonton, something I have only done a few times in the years since I moved away in 1987. I did a nostalgia tour the first day. I went by all 3 of my schools and stopped at our old somewhat run down duplex house – even knocking on the door and talking briefly to the older woman who has lived there the last 22 years – who confirmed they still get those yummy crab apples in the backyard, even as the tiny Spruce trees we planted now overwhelm the yard. I looked up my best highschool friend, James Freeman, who I have seen each time I return. But this time I also had supper with Jim Song and Steve Szeto, 2 others from our highschool IB group that I have not seen since highschool ended 37 years ago. We shared about our life journeys and families. I met spouses and their daughters. We got out old year books and reminisced about stories and people and jokes and my bad handwriting, and pondered how much life has changed, and yet how core personalities and values have remained the same. What a gift. I was shaped by the multicultural group of close friends I was privileged to have, unique for the early 80’s. I also reconnected with so many First Mennonite church members – the core volunteers for the Gathering. They still claim me. So much so that they nabbed me to sing bass in a little singing group for one of the offerings. It was so good to catch up with most of those and have a bunch of visits and meals. But I also saw Edmonton through some new eyes. I joined an afternoon watershed discipleship tour along the Mill Creek ravine near the North Saskatchewan river. I had never been aware of the local watershed, some of the environmental challenges, a canceled Freeway that almost ripped apart the ravine, as well as the FIrst Nations History of the area. I learned about a specific treaty with a particular Indiginous Tribe in the 1870’s for land then taken away in what became the new 1970’s Millwoods neighbourhood I grew up in 100 years later. That was sobering. This is all part of what I have now seen and heard.
It was also wonderful to simply be at an in-person Mennonite Church Canada Gathering, the first since Abbotsford in 2019 – with the church having changed so much since then. For me, there has always been a different depth and richness about our nationwide gatherings than even MCEC Gatherings or conferences. I feel myself connected and part of something much bigger than myself, or our congregation or our area church. I think it is about peoplehood – belonging to this geographically diverse group that holds onto a core Anabaptist identity and purpose that can discern and worship and struggle together with what it means to be church in our time. It also continues to be a much more intercultural identity and peoplehood and I celebrate that. Throughout the gathering it feels like we are grappling with the key issues of our day together – through main sessions and the workshops and tours – evangelism and interculturalism, interfaith dialogue, Indigenous relationships, the calling of pastors, International Witness and what it means to be a global church, which by the way included video from our SJMC-BBI partnership celebration, to Creation Care and LGBTQ inclusion and stories. I remember conferences where LGBTQ folks were not allowed any display space and had to meet off campus. Now there is integration with displays, buttons, several workshops and a wonderful and well planned evening worship led by the ‘In This Together’ group, all a part of the larger program and schedule. Another unique element to this year was a group of 10 young leaders, which included Lorena, which met together and took in the Gathering and Delegate sessions. They were mentored by Phil Campbell Enns, pastor at Homestreet Mennonite in Winnipeg and composer of 2 of our songs this morning. They had a discussion meal with the Joint Council and they even lead all of the Scripture presentations in worship.
Two of the larger blocks of time were reserved for the Delegate sessions and discernment. Congregations no longer send delegates, rather each of the 5 area churches do, since the 2017 restructuring that made MC Canada the sum or the work of what we bring and do together as area churches – a covenanted partnership between the 5 area churches. How this all gets worked out still feels in progress. What gets decided by these area church delegates and what gets decided by the Joint Council or the Executive Leadership Group from each province or by the Executive Minister, Doug Klassen? One example is the recent staff changes and priorities with a reduction from full time to half time for the Indegenous Settler Relations and the leaving of Steve Heinrichs to make room for a new half time role in Congregational Leadership and a new half time Climate Action position. The Indegenous Settler Relations work is to become more spread out and owned by each area church. This decision and shift in direction was done before this Gathering. Some of the delegate conversation was about how delegates speak into the broader vision and direction that would undergird decisions like this. Delegates also did things like pass budgets and affirm nominations and give feedback on program areas and communications.
The highlight for me of the whole time was worship. This was done so well from the large changing coloured lights mountain backdrop to the creative litanies to the excellent speakers to the sharing of communion. I assume that the sermons will all be available on-line, and they are well worth listening to. And then there is the singing, led by Anneli Loepp Thiessen and First Mennonite musicians I grew up with. Someone commented that this was probably the largest gathering of people singing old and new songs out of Voices Together in Canada since its release. Powerful! With an extra evening hymn sing to boot. I was in heaven! Maybe of anything, it is shared worship that unites us and draws us together as a people of God.
The theme for the Gathering was ‘We Declare what we have seen and heard,’ based on 1 John 1. It was basically asking the question of what it means to share our faith, in our current context where the church is not at the centre of society, with a history of having done evangelism badly in forced ways or from a colonialist and superiority position, and in a time when we recognize that we live on stolen Indigenous land. The theme was also challenging those of us maybe less comfortable in speaking openly about faith to find the language and opportunities that are natural and authentic and can speak into our world. Each speaker gave us a different window to respond to this question.
I thought it was brave and courageous and refreshing for the planners to invite Indigenous Elder Cheryl Bear from Nadleh Whut’en First Nations and professor at Regent College to speak to this question. She spoke emotionally about how devastating and heavy life has been since the discovery of the 215 unmarked graves in Kamloops and what that has changed about Settler relationships. She challenged us around the staffing cut to Indigenous Settler Relations and whether we are going backwards. She also framed a way forward. It has to do with first listening, deep listening. Then walking alongside and seeing Indigenous spirituality as equal to your own.
Professor John Boopalan from Canadian Mennonite University pointed us to an embodied faith where the gospel is good news that connects all of humanity in non-hierarchical mutual reciprocating ways. Bodies matter and suffering bodies trouble God. He pointed to the risks Pharaoh’s daughter took in saving baby Moses. We are called to vulnerably bring our whole selves to places of suffering in our world. The gospel leads us to accompaniment with others in the ordinariness of life.
Executive Minister Doug Klassen, in his Sunday morning sermon, used the image of losing and finding, based on the Luke 15 parables of the lost sheep, lost coin and prodigal son. There is much we need to lose and let go of in how we have done church, empty tools we no longer need. Maybe we don’t really have a living faith until we lose it and then find it again. Jesus is first known in relationship. We have forgotten the personal encounter with the living God – and with a Jesus who ate and shared with the poor and marginalized. Our way forward is not in doctrines, creeds and documents but in the intimate relational ebb and flow of losing and finding.
MCEC pastor Kara Carter, in her closing sermon for the Gathering pointed us to the lost people of Israel in the wilderness, no longer able to lean on familiar ways of doing things. The old solutions don’t work. Are we in a similar identity crisis now, especially after the pandemic with churches looking so different? She too pointed to deep listening and being comfortable with ambiguity. She also shared lots of practical stories of hope and finding ways forward. So many had to do with community collaboration, offering hospitality, and going to the edges. Rather than ask what the church is doing, the key question is to wonder what God is up to and what is God’s call for the church.
These 4 windows all pointed to a vulnerable, honest, real, relational and authentic faith from which we speak and declare what we have seen and heard and walk alongside the suffering of our world. It left me eager to hear more and to wonder what this might mean for our own congregation.
It was a privilege to be in Edmonton and a part of our Nationwide Community of Faith.
I will end with our key Scripture, read collectively in each worship service:
We will declare:
What we have heard,
What we have seen with our eyes,
What we have touched with our hands.
We will declare the Word of Life:
So that we might have fellowship with one another,
Fellowship with God, and with Jesus Christ
So that our joy may be complete
We will declare the eternal Word of Life.
Amen.