Deacons
The responsibilities of the Deacons Commission include overseeing the Global Church Sharing Fund (GCSF), fostering prayer within the Anabaptist communion (sending the Prayer Network email, hosting Online Prayer Hour and collaborating with the president on pastoral letters), and deacon visits.
From 2022 to the end of 2024, the Deacons Commission approved 20 GCSF proposals for around $239 000 after careful discernment and evaluation. “The GCSF demonstrates that churches in Africa, Asia and Latin America are not alone and that the global faith community stands together in sharing and support,” says Tigist Tesfaye, Deacons Commission secretary.
Often in concert with related MWC specialists, the Deacons sent a delegation to visit member churches in duress to listen to, share with, pray and worship with the church. “This serves to strengthen the local church and their connection to the global fellowship,” says Tigist Tesfaye.
In 2024, alongside the Peace Commission, the Deacon Commission visited to 17 pastors from Myanmar in Thailand. Members made an unofficial visit to other member churches in Thailand also.
Every two months, the Deacons Commission invites all members to an online gathering. Online Prayer Hour was conducted in four languages – English, Spanish, French, Hindi – with 60-80 participants praying together in real time.
Faith & Life
As Faith and Life Commission, we seek to support MWC member churches in giving and receiving counsel – and so developing mutual accountability – on matters related to Christian faith and practice, and to Anabaptist-Mennonite identity and action in the world today.
Faith & Life promoted teaching, conversations and resources with the publication of the study guide on the baptism report. It was distributed to General Council delegates with an invitation for them to promote, use and study it in their churches. Commission members shared testimonies from their baptisms on the MWC website to spark interest in exploring our convictions around baptism.
The Commission continued to discuss together and provide resourcing for MWC on being a global communion, being unified and also on concerns like creation care.
When Mennonite World Conference is invited to relate with other world communions, the Faith and Life Commission is called to represent. In addition to dialogues with World Communion of Reformed Churches, which produced a significant reconciliation statement for 2025, they also sent Anne-Cathy Graber to represent Anabaptists at a Vatican synod on synodality.
Structurally, the new Global Anabaptist Education Networks fall under the Faith and Life Commission. These emerging networks for primary and secondary and seminary education are learning together to resource students to become pastors and leaders around the world.
Mission Commission
Meeting together – online and in person – was a significant part of the Mission Commission’s work in the past three years. The 2023 gathering in Harrisonburg, Virginia was a crucial event for the MC and its two networks as we had the opportunity to meet in person for a time of fellowship and resourcing. about 60 delegates participated from the networks.
The Mission commission supported the Global Anabaptist Service Network and the Global Mission Fellowship in offering numerous webinars that were both a learning and a fellowship opportunity. Their work was highlighted in the previous issue of Courier.
For 2025, we are looking forward to publishing an updated online bibliography of Anabaptism and Mission. Look for it on the MWC website.
Peace Commission
Each year, the Peace Commission produces the Peace Sunday worship resource that is shared with MWC member churches around the world. The photos and reports congregations send from their celebration are a testament to our work at building peace.
The Global Mennonite Peacebuilding Conference is sponsored by the Peace Commission. Organized by Eastern Mennonite University in 2023, it brought together 160 theologians, peacebuilders, pastors, activists, and artists from 20 different countries to Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA. They participated in conversations on theology and practice of Anabaptist/Mennonite peacebuilding and shared about the Declaration on Conscientious Objection (released in 2022).
Members of the Peace Commission joined with Deacons on a solidarity visit to Myanmar to encourage pastors in a time of war.
The Peace Commission has also been engaged with other partners in devising a path for conversations with Old Colony Mennonites who are part of family of Anabaptist believers but not a part of our formal association as Mennonite World Conference. Concerns about farming practices concerns have provided opportunities for building peace in conversations with other organizations, MWC partners and Old Colony Mennonites.