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2009-02-03 issue:

What went wrong with Winnipeg summit?

Church leaders consider future of joint meetings after low U.S. participation.

by Aaron Epp of the Canadian Mennonite

Print Article

Executive staff from Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite Church USA want to continue to look for ways to encourage members from both churches to meet together, in spite of low U.S. turnout at last July’s binational gathering in Winnipeg, Man.

That was one of the messages that came out of November 2008’s Joint Executive Committee (JEC) meeting in Sioux Falls, S.D., said MC Canada moderator Andrew Reesor-McDowell, who attended the meeting with general secretary Robert J. Suderman.

“It is my view that Mennonite Church USA is a highly valued and primary church partner to MC Canada,” Reesor-McDowell wrote in an email. “There are historic ties that nurture and mutually build us up as we work on our separate and important national church agendas.”

Just 61 U.S. Mennonites participated in the People’s Summit for Faithful Living at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, July 8-10, 2008, with most of those registrants coming from Mennonite Church USA agencies.

Meanwhile, there were roughly 450 Canadian Mennonite representatives. The goal of the summit was to build relationships between the two churches at grassroots levels as well as to generate discussion about what it means to be counter-cultural in today’s world.

“The turnout was so low that it was almost—somebody just has to say it—it was a little bit embarrassing, if not offensive,” said Tim Reimer, pastor at Danforth Mennonite Church in Toronto in a phone interview. “Something went wrong. I think it was planned well. I think the workshops were good, but something was obviously out of tune.”

The JEC doesn’t think that low attendance signifies a lack of interest in future connections between the two churches, Reesor-McDowell said. He added that the two churches share commitments to Mennonite Publishing Network, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary and the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective. Face-to-face meetings between the two churches are important from time to time.

“We don’t know why people who didn’t come didn’t come,” said Pam Peters-Pries, executive secretary of MC Canada Support Services and one of the gathering’s key organizers.

She added that it could have been the result of a variety of factors: People don’t find it important to meet if there’s not a delegate session attached to the event, the location was a hindrance, people didn’t have enough information, finances, or maybe they weren’t interested in the theme.

In defense of Mennonite Church USA, she wondered how many Canadians would have attended a learning summit in the United States, saying, “I don’t think it would have been 500.”

Jim Schrag, executive director of Mennonite Church USA, shared many of Peters-Pries’ sentiments. “It was disappointing,” he said in a phone interview of the low U.S. turnout, adding that organizers had hoped for at least 200 U.S. participants. Schrag said that he is not sure what the message is in the low turnout, but Mennonite Church USA and MC Canada need to work together to decide what the next step is.

“I don’t think it’s for U.S. folks to make statements about the future of this, or for Canadians to make statements about the future of this. They should make statements together,” he said.

Peters-Pries said that 154 of the 233 surveys filled out by summit participants indicated they think it is important for the churches to meet and would probably attend again.

“People aren’t ready to say, ‘This is just like any [other] relationship,’ ” she said, adding that the history that MC Canada and MC USA share “shouldn’t be let go lightly.”