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Prayers of gratitude and intercession

  • A teaching resource from the Faith and Life Commission

    What does it mean for member churches of Mennonite World Conference to share an
    Anabaptist identity? What is the value of Anabaptist “tradition” – and what does that word
    mean in a global context? What are our Anabaptist understandings of mission and
    fellowship?

    In 2009, the newly appointed Faith and Life Commission was asked to produce three papers that could be used in helping MWC communities reflect on such questions:

    • “A Holistic Understanding of Fellowship, Worship, Service, and Witness from an Anabaptist
      Perspective” by Alfred Neufeld Friesen of Paraguay;
    • “The ‘Anabaptist Tradition’ – Reclaiming its Gifts, Heeding its Weaknesses” by Hanspeter Jecker of Switzerland; and
    • “Koinonia – The Gift We Hold Together” by Tom Yoder Neufeld of Canada.

    All three papers were approved as a teaching resource by the MWC General Council in May 2012.

    Throughout Scripture God repeatedly confronts his people with this insight: if you want to reach the Promised Land, then remember the path in which God has led you until now (Deuteronomy 8:1-2)…

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    Faith & Life Commission

  • A teaching resource from the Faith and Life Commission

    What does it mean for member churches of Mennonite World Conference to share an Anabaptist identity? What is the value of Anabaptist “tradition” – and what does that word mean in a global context? What are our Anabaptist understandings of mission and fellowship?

    In 2009, the newly appointed Faith and Life Commission was asked to produce three papers that could be used in helping MWC communities reflect on such questions:

    • “A Holistic Understanding of Fellowship, Worship, Service, and Witness from an Anabaptist Perspective” by Alfred Neufeld Friesen of Paraguay;
    • “The ‘Anabaptist Tradition’ – Reclaiming its Gifts, Heeding its Weaknesses” by Hanspeter Jecker of Switzerland; and
    • “Koinonia – The Gift We Hold Together” by Tom Yoder Neufeld of Canada.

    All three papers were approved as a teaching resource by the MWC General Council in May 2012.

    The word koinonia has rightly become a central term and concept for Mennonite World Conference. In addresses, publications and programmatic efforts, leaders have been nudging the global Anabaptist community to a deeper relationship with each other. Even when we don’t use the word koinonia itself, much of the terminology we use depends on it: meeting needs, mutual encouragement, gift giving and receiving, fellowship, interdependence, solidarity, consensus, communion, community, unity, being “together”…

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    Faith & Life Commission

  • A teaching resource from the Faith & Life commission

    Mennonite World Conference embarked on the first formal dialogue process with the Baptist World Alliance in 1989. Since then, MWC has entered into conversations with Lutheran World Federation, Seventh Day Adventists, Catholics, and, most recently, a five-year trilateral dialogue with Lutherans and Catholics. Seeing the value of these dialogues, the Faith and Life Commission developed this document to give MWC national churches and local congregations a better understanding of the theological basis for ecumenical hospitality and why we think such conversations are consistent with Anabaptist values.

    The document was approved as an MWC teaching resource by the General Council in Limuru, Kenya, April 2018.

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    Faith & Life Commission

  • In the world today there are still some countries that have mandatory military conscription, and there is a wide variety of policies toward conscientious objectors. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 18) states that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. In addition to the Christian foundation for exemption from military service expressed in this document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides a legal framework for protecting conscience against war. 

    Our hope and desire is for these provisions to be made accessible to all members of society who for reasons of conscience cannot take part in military service or training.

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  • A teaching resource from the Faith & Life commission

    What does it mean for member churches of Mennonite World Conference to share an Anabaptist identity? What is the value of Anabaptist “tradition” – and what does that word mean in a global context? What are our Anabaptist understandings of mission and fellowship?

    In 2009, the newly appointed Faith and Life Commission was asked to produce three papers that could be used in helping MWC communities reflect on such questions:

    • “A Holistic Understanding of Fellowship, Worship, Service, and Witness from an Anabaptist Perspective” by Alfred Neufeld Friesen of Paraguay;
    • “The ‘Anabaptist Tradition’ – Reclaiming its Gifts, Heeding its Weaknesses” by Hanspeter Jecker of Switzerland; and
    • “Koinonia – The Gift We Hold Together” by Tom Yoder Neufeld of Canada.

    All three papers were approved as a teaching resource by the MWC General Council in May 2012.

    Some weeks ago, I received a request from Bert Lobe to consider describing and reflecting on how the sixteenth century Anabaptists understood diaconal service, and how that understanding and practice developed historically. The idea was that this kind of study might provide a basis for discussion and discernment for the MWC Deacons Commission…

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    Deacons Commission

  • Mennonite World Conference

    Declaration of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples

    In the Christian Scriptures, we encounter God who hears the cries of the dispossessed and suffering, feels deep concern for their welfare, and moves to save. In the Gospels, Jesus Christ, the living example for the church, embodies God’s preferred presence with the neighbor who is excluded, oppressed, ignored, rejected or treated as alien. Jesus associated with people on the margins, listened to and respected their experiences, and collaboratively sought justice.

    Mennonite World Conference desires to follow Jesus’ example to respond to the cries of Indigenous Peoples worldwide. This response is not concerned only with caring for people suffering within unjust structures. It also includes efforts to disarm (Colossians2:15) the structures of oppression themselves, in order that all of God’s People and Creation might experience the Psalmist’s hope that truth and mercy will meet, and justice and peace will kiss each other (Psalm 85:10).

    Date Approved: April 2018

    Approved By: MWC General Council

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  • A teaching resource from the Faith and Life Commission

    What does it mean for member churches of Mennonite World Conference to share an Anabaptist identity? What is the value of Anabaptist “tradition” – and what does that word mean in a global context? What are our Anabaptist understandings of mission and fellowship?

    In 2009, the newly appointed Faith and Life Commission was asked to produce three papers that could be used in helping MWC communities reflect on such questions:

    • “A Holistic Understanding of Fellowship, Worship, Service, and Witness from an Anabaptist Perspective” by Alfred Neufeld Friesen of Paraguay;
    • “The ‘Anabaptist Tradition’ – Reclaiming its Gifts, Heeding its Weaknesses” by Hanspeter Jecker of Switzerland; and
    • “Koinonia – The Gift We Hold Together” by Tom Yoder Neufeld of Canada.

    All three papers were approved as a teaching resource by the MWC General Council in May 2012.

    The “Anabaptist tradition” is a historical movement, rooted in the sixteenth century Radical Reformation, of contextualizing the Bible’s apostolic and prophetic legacy as lived out by the early church. Tradition is a historic witness of moments of renewal and contextualization, a dynamic in need of permanent perpetuation…

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    Faith & LIfe Commission