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Winnipeg, Man.
Space for Discipleship


Thirty people gathered at Canadian MB Conference headquarters in Winnipeg on Tuesday, February 26 to think creatively about the new Board of Discipleship. The new Board is expected to incorporate the Board of Communications, the Board of Christian Education Ministries, Kindred Productions/Board of Resource Ministries (handed down from the General MB Conference, which is dissolving this summer) and the associate director’s responsibilities from the Board of Evangelism. (For further information on the new Board, see the report on the Canadian Conference Council of Boards meeting in the March 8 issue of the Herald.)


Present for the meeting were most of the executive staff from the ministries involved, two representatives from each of the Canadian Conference boards involved, and a number of interested members of the Canadian MB Church with expertise in certain areas. The format was an “open space” similar to an open space on leadership development held last year. At the event, participants suggested topics that needed to be discussed, with the one making the suggesting being responsible to lead a one-hour round table discussion on that topic. Up to five such discussion groups were held at a time. Altogether, 18 discussions were held on topics ranging from the practical (budget and board structure) to the theoretical (the mission of the new board, the purpose of the MB Conference, the relevance of Anabaptist theology). Notes were taken, and distributed. Then the entire body chose the five most important topics and broke into five groups to glean from the notes the most important points and areas of consensus.

This material was then passed to a “design team” for the new Board, consisting of Canadian Conference executive director Dave Wiebe, Board of Communications chair Doug Heidebrecht, Board of Christian Education Ministries chair John Neufeld, Board of Evangelism member Geoff Neufeld and Canadian Conference moderator Jascha Boge. This team was charged with developing specific proposals which would be presented to the Canadian Conference Executive Board in March and then to the Canadian Conference convention in July.

 – jc

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Last modified April 12, 2002.

© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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