Mennonite Brethren, Mennonite Church cooperation over Columbia Bible College in danger over LGBTQ+?

For 52 years, the Mennonite Brethren and Mennonite Church conferences in B.C. have cooperated to operate Columbia Bible College (CBC). Is that collaboration now about to come apart over LGBTQ+? 

That's the concern among some in that province. Word is that some MB churches in B.C. have said they won’t recommend the school to their students in the future because of LGBTQ+. 

It’s nothing the school has done. It’s because MCBC is part of Mennonite Church Canada, and that national denomination gives its congregations freedom to decide about whether or not to include, welcome and affirm LGBTQ+ people. Some congregations have done that.

Apparently, these MB pastors are uncomfortable with CBC's connection with MC Canada through MCBC over this topic—even though MCBC is one of the more conservative of MC Canada’s provincial conferences when it comes to LGBTQ+ inclusion, welcome and affirmation. 

The MB pastors brought their concern to the school in fall, according to reports. That prompted some to worry CBC's association with MCBC/MC Canada has the potential to hurt the school financially—if those churches follow through on their threats. 

This news comes on the heels of a summary of a recent report by a U.S. consultant about BCMB that recommends it re-evaluate the role of CBC in the conference. No additional details about that were provided.

A request for comment about the situation was made to Rob Thiessen, Conference Minister of BCMB. To date, no reply has been received.

Living into challenge or opportunity: Jubilee Mennonite Church's journey to becoming inclusive of LGBTQ+ people

 

On November 19, 2022, Chris Friesen, congregational chairperson at Winnipeg’s Jubilee Mennonite Church, shared the following with the Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba (MBCM) Council of Representatives.

Written following consultation with the church council and our congregation. Its purpose is to explain the process by which Jubilee decided to become inclusive of LGBTQ+ people.

The hope is that other Mennonite and Mennonite Brethren churches might read this story and understand difficult conversations are possible—regardless of the content of the conversation—without splitting apart. 

In late September, Jubilee's membership in MBCM was suspended over its decision to be inclusive, the first step in being expelled from the conference.

Thought experiment: Think of your own congregation, the people and personalities, the overall character of it.

Think also of an issue or question that if addressed and discussed, has the real potential to be controversial and divide your congregation into antagonistic sides.

It could be a doctrinal issue, or a matter of scriptural interpretation, it could be an ethical question, or maybe one of church practice (like worship music or use of face masks).

How hard was it for you to think of something like this in your congregation?

For Jubilee Mennonite Church (JMC), one of these questions was about LGBTQ inclusion.

Questions about this had been percolating at JMC for many years and finally got to the point where a broader congregational conversation about it was needed. Members of JMC had friends, neighbours, and family members that were part of the LGBTQ community. We had members of JMC that came out as LGBTQ. JMC’s community ministry programs regularly connected with LGBTQ people.

As biologists continue to better understand the science of sexuality, the social and scientific context in which we live, work, and minister has changed much in recent decades. It was time for conversation. We needed to talk.

Mennonite history, of both distant past and recent memory, offers far too many examples of churches being unable or unwilling to engage with such questions without divisiveness.

It’s scary as church leaders to address these kinds of questions. Mennonite history, of both distant past and recent memory, offers far too many examples of churches being unable or unwilling to engage with such questions without divisiveness—how many church splits and excommunications have there been? How many good and sincere Christians, including pastors and church leaders, have been shown the door? At the same time, we the divisiveness in society more broadly.

In short, we could see all that could go wrong—hurt feelings, broken relationships, people leaving the congregation, impacts to our community ministry, tension with our denominations (JMC is a member of both MBCM and MCM). We certainly had these concerns at JMC, both among church leadership and within the congregation in general.

We knew that there was a diversity of perspectives present at JMC regarding LGBTQ inclusion. But we, both leadership and congregation, knew that a conversation could no longer be avoided and ignored. The focus for us as a church council then became ensuring that the framing and structure of the conversation was such that the opportunity for constructive conversation was maximised and the opportunity for divisive conversation was minimised.

We wanted to welcome diverse perspectives, but not divisiveness.

Notice my choice of words here: minimize the opportunity for divisiveness. We wanted to welcome diverse perspectives, but not divisiveness.

Before our intentional discussions began in earnest, our pastor (Ken Warkentin) held one-on-one conversations with all JMC congregants to see where we were as individuals. These conversations were structured around several questions that Ken asked each member to help us get a more detailed understanding of people’s thoughts, perspectives, and questions about LGBTQ inclusion.

The challenge for us as church leadership was then to find a way to have a congregational conversation that drew out and gave space to the diversity of perspectives we knew existed within JMC in a way that promoted mutual understanding; a way that would help us live into one of our mission statements: to know one another in loving community.

We started by talking about talking. At the leadership level this meant many hours at council meetings discussing how to meet this challenge (or was it an opportunity?).

At the congregational level, many members read and discussed the book ‘How the Body of Christ Talks’, which discusses the theory and practice of having hard but healthy conversations in the church.

These were valuable exercises in that they helped us as a congregation focus not on arriving at a particular outcome regarding LGBTQ inclusion, but rather on developing a process that welcomed diverse perspectives in a way that built up rather than tore down.

We all recognized that what we needed and desired was a conversation, not a debate.

In addition, since it focused on the process rather than the issue itself, it helped establish an ethos and atmosphere of listening, learning, and understanding. It helped bring us to the place where we all recognized that what we needed and desired was a conversation, not a debate.

The goal of a debate is to win, to convince and persuade; it encourages entrenchment instead of openness. A debate was not what we wanted.

We also didn’t want a conversation with a constrained or pre-determined outcome; why bother having a conversation if you know what the outcome is going to be? No, we needed to have an open conversation. This was true for both the form of the outcome and the substance of the outcome.

We didn’t start these conversations with a plan to issue a statement at the end.

Regarding the form, this meant we didn’t start these conversations with a plan to issue a statement at the end—we didn’t know what, if anything, we would do. Regarding the substance of the outcome, we didn’t know where these conversations would lead us in regards to LGBTQ inclusion. And, importantly, we as leadership were very intentional about not leading or pushing the congregation toward a particular outcome.

The board of Mennonite Brethren Church Manitoba (MBCM) has expressed dissatisfaction that JMC did not invite conference representatives to have a bigger part in our conversation. It was quite intentional that we did not issue such invitations to either of the conferences to which we belong.

Both of our conferences have confessions of faith with similar perspectives on marriage and sexuality. One of our concerns with conference involvement was that, as participants in the conversation, conference representatives could not be truly open to different outcomes and may feel the need to adopt a posture of defensiveness and/or a posture of persuasion regarding the confession of faith.

Such postures tend to foster debate rather than an open conversation where participants must be willing to at least entertain the possibility of a change in understanding. This was what we asked of ourselves at Jubilee.

Uniformity of thought was an unrealistic expectation.

Just as important as being open to different outcomes, it was important to have realistic expectations. Critically, this meant acknowledging that no matter how the conversation went, there would still be a spectrum of perspectives at the end. Uniformity of thought was an unrealistic expectation. We were entering this conversation with a diversity of perspectives and in all likelihood would be finishing this conversation with a diversity of perspectives.

The importance of recognizing this is hard to overstate. Knowing that there would always be a diversity of perspectives freed us from the burden and pressure of trying to get everyone to agree on everything. It allowed us to have a truly open conversation instead of a debate. It helped each of us individually recognize that we had, for many years, already been worshipping and serving alongside those who had different perspectives.

While the particular question of LGTBQ inclusion remained directly in front of us, the question in the background now came into focus, and centred on the relationship between unity and uniformity. Was unity without uniformity possible? And if so, what did it look like in the context of LGBTQ inclusion at JMC?

The first step we took was to look to the Bible.

It was against this backdrop that we entered intentional congregational conversations. The first step we took was to look to the Bible. Both within our congregation and Christendom at large, there are various understandings of the Biblical message when it comes to LGBTQ inclusion in the church. We wanted to explore and understand these different perspectives and have a forum in which people could ask questions about the Biblical text.

We invited professor Dan Epp-Thiessen of Canadian Mennonite University to provide us with this biblical background. He graciously spent three evenings with us, describing the various ways in which people understand the biblical message in this context. He made it clear that the writers of the Bible understood heterosexuality to be the cultural and moral norm, and that in those instances where the biblical authors explicitly discuss sexuality, they do so from this perspective, and that this has been the traditional perspective of the church.

It’s important to recognize that there are sincere, Bible-believing Christians on both sides of this issue.

He then discussed how some Christians see this traditional perspective to be in tension with the broader biblical themes of love of neighbour, welcome, non-judgementalism, and humility. He emphasized that it’s important to recognize that there are sincere, Bible-believing Christians on both sides of this issue (or perhaps more accurately, along the full spectrum of perspectives). This was, and still is, true of JMC.

We then held a series of conversation events that each focused on different aspects of the question of LGTBQ inclusion at JMC. The structure and questions of a given event were discussed and approved by council, and often modified based on the outcomes of previous events.

We didn’t pre-determine how many events we would need, or how long this process would take. We knew that this conversation was challenging for many people—it was emotional at times, it pushed and pulled each of us in various ways and directions. As leadership we were aware of the tension between the desire to let the conversation take as long as it needed to take, while also respecting the emotional and relational energy it took for people to engage in it.

We sensed that the congregation was ready to move beyond conversation and was wanting to distill our collective understanding into something like a statement.

After several of these events, we sensed that the congregation was ready to move beyond conversation and was wanting to distill our collective understanding into something like a statement. We conducted an anonymous poll of the congregation to determine if our sense was correct. This poll showed unanimous support for moving towards full inclusion of members of the LGBTQ community at JMC.

I want to remind you that a diversity of perspectives on LGBTQ inclusion is still very much present at JMC. And, as expected, we did not end up at a place of uniformity of thought on this. However, the congregation was unanimous that JMC, as a congregation, should move forward in this particular way.

We achieved unity for our direction as a collective, but not uniformity of thought as individuals.

We achieved unity for our direction as a collective, but not uniformity of thought as individuals. We have decided how we as JMC will move forward together, while ensuring there is room for a diversity of individual perspectives. We are now living into the challenge (or is it an opportunity?) of figuring out how this looks in our particular time and space.

JMC was born out of the union of two congregations: Northdale Mennonite Fellowship and Valley Gardens Mennonite Brethren Church. Even before the MB’s and GC’s came together to found Canadian Mennonite University, the two conferences had come together in the form of this little congregation.

While I wasn’t around at the time, I’m told by those who were that there was much conversation and introspection. This was new and different—could something like this work? What did it look like to be part of two conferences? Was unity possible despite diversity?

The conferences were bold and took a chance, letting their respective congregations take their first steps as a united congregation. Since its founding in 1995, JMC has lived out this experiment. By no means has the path always been clear and easy, but we’re still here.

Mennonite Brethrenness is baked into who JMC is.

There are still some at JMC who were part of Valley Gardens MB and there are others who have joined JMC along the way that are MBers. Mennonite Brethrenness is baked into who JMC is. It is a part of who we are. And being part of the larger body is important to us.

We have benefitted immensely from the resources and wisdom of MBCM. And we strive to contribute where we can, whether that’s helping fund missionaries like Richard and Hazel Funk, which we did for many years, joining with our neighbouring MB churches to put on Christmas dinners for our local community, sharing our experiences of community ministry with other MB churches, or lending our unique voice to conference conversations. Being part of the larger MB body is important to us, and there is much we have in common.

We recognized at the outset that by having an open-ended conversation about LGBTQ inclusion JMC might end up at a place that wasn’t entirely consistent with our conferences’ confessions of faith. For example, both of our conferences have confessions of faith that define marriage as exclusively heterosexual. It was certainly not our intention to cause friction with our conferences, though we weren’t ignorant of that possibility, either.

Like we did 27 years ago, JMC is again embarking on an experiment.

Like we did 27 years ago, JMC is again embarking on an experiment, testing our discernment, trying to live out our unity in Christ despite our diversity of perspectives. Our hope is that MBCM will once again be bold and continue to journey with us. It is part of our history, it is part of our present, and we certainly hope it will be part of our future.

I’ll end today with some questions. Throughout this conversation with the MB conference, we’ve invited our members to bring us their thoughts, concerns, and questions. These are the questions Jubileers are asking.

Questions for the MBCM from JMC are:

1) Has there been enough talking about talking? Has the response process been intentional and well-thought out? What’s the rush?

2) What are the goals of the process? Persuasion in order to achieve compliance? Is discipline the best lens with which to view this process?

3) Is uniformity of thought consistently practised and/or a realistic expectation? Does it exist presently? Consider the thought experiment at the beginning, think of your congregation, think of the conference as a whole.

4) Is uniformity of thought and practice desirable? To what degree is such uniformity a liability rather than an asset?

5) Is this a question of authority of scripture as opposed to authority of Confession of Faith (CoF)? Scriptural interpretation has been shown to have relativity to it over the centuries. What is the role of the CoF—to centre or box in?

6) Is there an opportunity for true and open-ended conversation with MBCM? One without a pre-determined outcome? An opportunity to explore what unity without uniformity? What might look like within MBCM?

Shared with this blog with permission from Jubilee Mennonite Church.

Willow Avenue Church joins Mennonite Church USA after being suspended by the U.S. Mennonite Brethren Conference

Willow Avenue, a California congregation expelled by its U.S. Mennonite Brethren conference for affirming and welcoming LGBTQ people, has joined Mennonite Church USA.

According to Anabaptist World, it is believed to be the first USMB congregation to make that change in affiliation. 

The church was welcomed by MC USA’s Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference on Nov. 29. 

The MB Pacific District Conference suspended Willow Avenue in 2021 for considering a proposal to affirm and welcome LGBTQ people. The church adopted the proposal in 2022. 

Read more about Willow Avenue’s decision to leave USMB. 

Read the full story in Anabaptist World about Willow Avenue joining MC USA.

U.S. Mennonite Brethren won’t participate in Anabaptist Bible project because of MCUSA approach to LBGTQ+

 

The U.S. Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches (USMB) will not join a project to create a study Bible celebrating the 500th anniversary of Anabaptism in 2025.

The decision was made by the USMB Leadership Board because one of the participating denominations in the project, Mennonite Church USA (MCUSA) has decided to allow its congregations to be open and welcoming of members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Participating in the project with members of MCUSA “would not be appropriate” because MCUSA recently passed an LGBTQ-­affirming resolution that is “contrary to our confession of faith,” the USMB Board said.

The Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches has not yet decided about participating in the Anabaptist Bible project. 

Read more about the USMB decision in Anabaptist World.

 

Ontario Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches ousts Executive Director for holding LGBTQ+ discussion

Ed Willms had high hopes when he organized a September 13 event for about 45 pastors and other leaders from the Ontario Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches (ONMB) to talk about LGBTQ+ welcome and inclusion. 

Willms, then Executive Director of ONMB, wanted to provide a “safe place to listen, learn and hear from each other on a topic we all know needed more discussion, and reflect together on what type of family of churches we envision growing into in the days ahead.”  

Regrettably for Willms, his effort resulted in his being terminated without cause by the ONMB board. His last day was October 31.

Read about it in Anabaptist World.

 

Ontario Mennonite Brethren Conference suspends two churches over LGBTQ+ welcome and inclusion

Two churches in the Ontario Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches (ONMB) have had their membership in the Conference suspended over LGBTQ+ welcome and inclusion.

In a message to ONMB churches on November 7, board Chair Michelle Knowles said the Southridge Community Church in St. Catharines and the Toronto FreeChurch had been been placed under suspension.

In the case of Southridge, it was suspended for publicly communicating its intention to invite members of the LGBTQ+ community into all levels of participation, leadership and decision-making within the church.

This would include full inclusion “under a framework of disputable matters, which demonstrates convictions and actions which are outside the articulation and application of our MB understanding of scripture, as expressed in the Canadian Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith,” Knowles said.

The decision to suspend Southridge was made “after more than a two-year journey of engagement” with the church by the Conference, she said, noting the suspension was effective as of November 5.

Also suspended was FreeChurch Toronto, effective as of October 14, based on their “articulated position on full inclusion and their desire to be a fully affirming church, which is also outside of our Confession,” Knowles stated.

On its website, FreeChurch says "we value the inclusion, dignity and flourishing of all people, and there welcome LGBTQ+ folks to fully participate in church life, including membership, leadershop and as staff members."

It goes on to say it supports LGBTQ+ people whether they choose celibacy or marriage.

The suspensions of the two churches are effective until the ONMB convention in February, 2023, at which time the ONMB Board will recommend revocation of membership unless a resolution is achieved with either church before that date.

Suspension or revocation of membership by ONMB automatically results in suspension and revocation of membership in the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches.

“The purpose of suspension is to address issues of compliance with our Confession and bylaws, while allowing room for dialogue in good faith as we seek a resolution together,” Knowles said in the message to the churches.

“As we interact with and serve all of our neighbours, including the LGBTQ+ community, we want to model the posture of Jesus, walking with grace and speaking truth in love,” she added.

Waterloo, Ont. Mennonite Brethren Church current & former members call on leadership to create safe space to talk about LGBTQ+

 

A public letter has been sent to leadership at the Waterloo, Ont. Mennonite Brethren Church (WMB) asking them to “create safe and open spaces for the WMB community to have conversations about LGBTQ+ inclusion without fear of repercussions.”

The letter was signed by 79 current and former members or attenders and participants. Other former members are invited to sign it as well.

(Find the letter and link for signing below.)

Isaiah Ritzman is spokesperson for the group of eight who initiated the letter. When asked why the letter was being sent to the leadership of the church now, he  said they did it “because we believed we were not alone. We believed more people at WMB church believed and felt as we did—they wanted a more inclusive community.”

The group also was frustrated they didn’t have another mechanism to share these concerns.

“We drafted this letter because we believed a public letter would be a means of reaching this larger group, giving them voice, as well as signalling to our wider community of how significant of an issue this is to so many people.”

When asked what the group meant by “safe space,” Ritzmann said “whether a space is ‘safe’ has to be determined by the people who have felt unsafe in the past or continue to feel unsafe.”

Church leaders, he said, “might believe they are creating that space, and perhaps they intend to do so (we're not in the business of judging intentions). But many who signed this letter have not experienced safe space at WMB.”

This was illustrated, he shard, by “the fact that we had people approach us who wanted to sign the letter but were scared to. That says something.”

To date, there has been no response from WMB leadership.

“We respect that it can take time for leadership to respond to the letter,” he said, noting the group went public with it on October 28.

“We hope to hear the beginnings of an answer by November 13th when the Leadership Board is having a townhall on issues such as these.”

Anyone who has been part of WMB in the past is invited to sign the letter, Ritzmann said.

“If you have been part of WMB church in the past we invite you to sign. For others we invite your prayers and moral support.”

Former WMP members who want to sign the letter can do so here. 

To the leadership of WMB Church,

We write out of love and concern for this community.

All of the undersigned have different relationships to WMB. Some are quite involved, others have taken a step back, and still others have left the church community in sadness. 

Alarmingly, some feel they have been kicked out of the church. While all the undersigned have different relationships to WMB, we all come with a common concern: LGBTQ+ inclusion. 

  

Not all of us are of one mind on theology. We range from general traditional beliefs to those who affirm LGBTQ+ people in marriage, membership, & ministry in the church. But we are of one heart - we care about this community, each other, and our LGBTQ+ siblings & neighbours. It remains deeply painful that WMB lacks safe & open spaces to listen, study & dialogue, and even to remain members when and where conscience and conviction differ over such matters.

 

Together we call upon the leadership of WMB church to:

 

Frist, Create safe & open spaces for the WMB community to have conversations about LGBTQ+ inclusion without fear of repercussions.

 

Second, publicly commit to separate membership entirely from personal convictions concerning LGBTQ+ inclusion (as membership is already separate from theological conviction in other areas).

 

We ask these things in hope that change is possible.

 

Letter from Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba regarding the suspension of Jubilee Mennonite Church

 

 

In a letter to Manitoba Mennonite Brethren Churches, the Board of Mennonite Brethren Church Manitoba (MBCM) shared about its decision to suspend Jubilee Mennonite Church from membership for its decision to welcome, affirm and be willing to marry same-sex people. 

“With a humble and careful posture, the MBCM board moved Jubilee Mennonite Church’s membership in MBCM to a status of suspended, as of October 3, 2022,” the letter from Moderator Dave Ens said. 

“As per the process outlined in MBCM’s constitution, the MBCM Provincial Faith and Life Team will conduct a review of the circumstances that have led to this suspension. They will report their findings back to the MBCM board. The board will then either resolve to reinstate Jubilee Mennonite Church upon the board’s satisfaction that the concerns have been adequately rectified or provide recommendation to the Assembly of MBCM churches in March 2023 for removal of membership.” 

Enns went on to say the MBCM board has offered to meet with Jubilee’s leadership for further dialogue and to resolve the “concerns” related to the church’s decision. 

A major concern, as outlined in a previous letter to Jubilee, is how the church’s statement of inclusion “fails to adhere to CCMBC confession of faith” which states that “Marriage is a covenant relationship intended to unite a man and a woman for life. Jubilee’s statement avoids our confessional definition of marriage as exclusive to a man and woman for life.” 

To date, Jubilee has not indicated it is willing to change its statement.

Jubilee is also a member of Mennonite Church Manitoba, which welcomed its decision. 

The full letter from the Conference is below. 

October 21, 2022 

To the Manitoba MB Family of Churches. 

Grace & peace to you. 

This letter is a follow-up to the September 9, 2022 communication you received from us regarding Jubilee Mennonite Church. 

The MBCM Board recognizes that LGBTQ+ persons, along with their friends and families, have experienced exclusion and rejection in churches. While this is not everyone’s story, we understand that it is the story of many. We are committed to a future where better stories are experienced. Each MBCM church is invited to join in this journey, where LGBTQ+ persons and their families experience inclusion and care. 

As well, we recognize that some of the implications of working to include and care for LGBTQ+ persons can bump up against our shared confession. The MBCM board continues to affirm our shared confession, in all of its aspects. 

On August 5, 2022, you received a communication informing you that Jubilee Mennonite Church had published a statement of inclusion related to LGBTQ+ people. While there are many aspects of the statement with which we agree, the statement disagrees with our confession of faith on the matter of marriage. At that time, we proposed a town hall meeting on September 14 to provide more information and give space for questions. 

On September 9, a second communication was issued that cancelled the Sept 14 town hall, indicating that this will be part of the agenda at the Council of Representatives (CR) on November 19. The board felt it prudent to cancel Sept 14 given that we had entered into the constitutionally outlined process in regards to reviewing a church’s membership in MBCM. The process creates space for us to ensure that both the church and the MBCM board have clarity on the issue. We recognize that we are working through this as brothers & sisters and want to do so with humility and integrity. 

As is outlined in the process, there has been on-going communication with Jubilee. While these conversations have been good in many ways, we find that Jubilee continues to hold to their statement that disagrees with our shared confession. 

With a humble and careful posture, the MBCM board moved Jubilee Mennonite Church’s membership in MBCM to a status of suspended, as of October 3, 2022. As per the process outlined in MBCM’s constitution, the MBCM Provincial Faith and Life Team will conduct a review of the circumstances that have led to this suspension. They will report their findings back to the MBCM board. The board will then either resolve to reinstate Jubilee Mennonite Church upon the board’s satisfaction that the concerns have been adequately rectified or provide recommendation to the Assembly of MBCM churches in March 2023 for removal of membership. 

As we continue in this process, the board has offered an invitation to meet with Jubilee’s leadership for further dialogue. As mentioned, there will be time for discussion on this matter at the CR on November 19, 2022. We invite you to be in prayer for all involved as we journey through this process. May God work in and through us as we seek to be faithful in following him. 

On behalf of the MBCM board 

Dave Ens, MBCM Board Moderator, Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba

Jubilee Mennonite Church membership suspended by Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba over LGBTQ+

Earlier, I wrote about the decision by Jubilee Mennonite Church in Winnipeg to become welcoming and affirming of LGBTQ+ people. 

Jubilee is a dual-conference church, belonging to both Mennonite Church Manitoba and the Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba.

I also wrote about the initial response of MBCM to Jubilee's decision.

In September MBCM suspended Jubilee's membership. Read about it in Anabaptist World.

Opinion: Of the German language and welcoming LGBTQ+ people

“How dare you tell us what language we can speak!” 

That’s what a dear old saint said to me, her wrinkled finger waving menacingly in front of my face. 

It was the late 1970s. I was a relatively new member of the Mennonite Brethren conference, one of a few who came to the denomination from outside of traditional family ties—one of the “English.” 

A student at Mennonite Brethren Bible College, I was invited to go to the national conference assembly in Three Hills, Alberta to both observe and participate. 

The first evening of the gathering, people who spoke from the podium, and went to the floor mics, sometimes spoke German. 

That’s when I, in my early 20s, went to a mic full of trepidation and asked if people would kindly refrain from speaking German since some of us didn’t understand it—or to translate, if they did. 

Which prompted the reaction after the evening session, the tiny woman seeking me out and letting me know, in no uncertain terms, how unwelcome my comments had been for her. 

I can still picture the incident in my mind, 45 or so years ago. 

Today it is rare to hear German spoken in an MB church, and many people with “non-Mennonite” names have called the denomination their home. 

But back then, people like me—“Mennonites by choice,” as we were called—could struggle at times to feel welcome and fit in. 

For starters, it felt like everyone in the church was related. Then there was the insider knowledge about how things worked. 

And the music! Sure, four-part harmony sounded beautiful, but  if you couldn't sing you were immediately an outsider. The first time I stood up to sing in my new MB church I heard all these parts I didn't recognize around me and I stopped. I didn't try singing for months. 

(Churches that prize four-part singing have no idea how quickly it excludes many who grew up outside of those churches, and don't know how to sing. Those notes are a foreign language that only the insiders can read. Today, in most MB churches, anyway, it would be just as rare to hear four-part harmony as German. For them, both languages are now relics of the past.)

To be clear, nobody consciously tried to make me feel unwelcome. (Except that dear old saint.) They were glad I was there. I was glad to be there.

But newcomers like me could still sometimes feel like we weren't really part of the family, unless we made all the effort to fit in.

I mention this because the same may be true today for churches that decide to become welcoming and affirming of LGBTQ+ people. 

As I wrote in the Winnipeg Free Press on Oct. 21, the decision to welcome LGBTQ+ today, like the decision to welcome non-traditional Mennonites back then, is just the first step.

As David Driedger, lead minister of First Mennonite Church in Winnipeg put it when that church decided in 2017 to be welcoming and affirming: "There was a temptation to think we’d arrived” and no more needed to be done. 

But that was just the start of the conversation, he went on to say.

“If you think of a church like a house, and you invite people into your house, the next question is to reassess the house rules and accessibility,” he said. “What are the implicit and explicit things that make people truly feel welcome or not?”

That’s a good question. Answers include taking a close look at the language used in services, how the Bible is read and interpreted, and what hymns and songs are sung—among other things.

People interested in that topic can find out more at “Queer Theology and the Church: After the Affirmation,” a series of four Sunday evening in-person and livestreamed conversations sponsored by First Mennonite about ways churches can make sure LGBTQ+ people feel fully included.

The free series, which starts October 23 at 7 p.m., will cover topics such as “Queer theology and inclusion;” “A trauma-informed and justice-making approach to Christian theology;” “Worshipping the (W)holy other: queer theology in our hymns and confessions;” and “Undressed and undone: how sex and holiness change everything.”

As someone who sometimes struggled to feel welcome in the MB denomination years ago, I get it. Now it is being repeated as some churches seek to welcome a new kind of newcomer: LGBTQ+ people.

 

More information can be found at https://firstmennonitechurch.ca/special-events/

Opinion: In praise of the Ontario Mennonite Brethren Conference for talking about LGBTQ+

Earlier, I praised the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches for publishing critical comments on its story in the MB Herald Digest about the censoring of On Holy Ground.

Good on them, I said for allowing people to post criticism about the decision—not censoring comments about censorship. 

Time now to praise the Ontario Mennonite Brethren Conference for hosting a meeting of pastors and others on Sept. 13 to talk about LGBTQ+. 

It was not, the Conference said, to be a meeting where theology would be debated. Instead, it would be “an intentional time to hear from each other. The stories of how God is leading you and your church at this time is what we want to mine into.” 

It was to be a safe space to talk and ask questions, in other words. And that should be commended.  

Did the meeting fulfill that promise? I don’t know. Conference leadership isn’t able to talk to me about it yet. But I hope that happened. And I hope they will tell me at some point. 

The fact of the matter is this: The topic is being talked about in Mennonite Brethren churches across the country, whether leadership in provincial conferences or the national conference condone it or not. 

Church basements, Zoom meetings, home fellowships, friendship groups—it’s on people’s minds. 

Some want to explore it out of interest. But others do so because they have a gay child, sibling, relative or friend who loves Jesus as much as they do. 

They need safe places to talk about it—the very thing some leaders are unwilling or afraid to do. 

The only question is: Do conference leaders want to be part of the conversation, or not? Because it is happening, with or without their participation. 

So again, good on the Ontario MB Conference. Maybe the next meeting, or set of meetings, they hold will be for all members, not just leaders.