New churches want links to conference: four congregations joined the Conference of Mennonites in Canada this summer at the annual sessions in Stratford, Ontario

Calgary Vietnamese Mennonite Church

The Calgary Vietnamese Mennonite Church formed to meet the needs of Vietnamese refugees who were looking for a place to worship. At present it has 133 members.

Ezekiel Wong was influential in starting the church. He moved from Vancouver to Calgary in 1981 to serve as pastor to both the new Vietnamese and Chinese fellowships. When Wong retired in 1987, Nhien Pham took over pastoral duties at the Vietnamese fellowship.

Recently the church has hired an assistant pastor, Randy Burtis, to minister to the younger English-speaking generation.

Until 1991, the group met at Foothills Mennonite Church. Then the church bought land on the east side of the city near the Vietnamese community. The church dedicated its new building in November 1991.

"Our mission," said Pham, "is to reach out to the Vietnamese for Christ." While Pham emphasized their aim to "nurture the spiritual lives of members and evangelize non-Christians," he added that "we tend to help people [Vietnamese immigrants] when they have difficulties in adapting to life in this country." The church sponsors refugees and helps find jobs for them.

In 1994 the church assisted in planting the Edmonton Vietnamese Mennonite Church.

Pham said he appreciates "the cooperation between CMC and the Vietnamese Mennonite church," both in Canada and in Vietnam. The Calgary church has been a member of both the Alberta conference and the North American Vietnamese Mennonite Fellowship for a number of years.

"We thought it was proper to join CMC," said Pham. He would like to see the conference "keep the balance between spiritual and physical ministries...between relief work and church planting."

Abundant Life Fellowship

Unlike the other new CMC churches, the Abundant Life Fellowship in Waterloo, Ontario, did not begin with the intention of becoming a church. As Mahlon Roes explained, "We began as a Bible-study group back around 1993 with seven or eight people."

When the group started growing, they sensed an opportunity to begin a church. The mission commission of the Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada (MCEC) helped form a liaison committee, consisting of Waldemar Regier, Hugo Neufeld and Doug Snyder, which offered assistance.

Four couples, each from a different congregation, formed the core group.

"These couples," said Roes, "were encouraged by their home churches to begin a new congregation." Originally the church met at the Waterloo Inn, but for the last two years they have made their home at Conrad Grebel College.

Roes described the church as, "a community-based group, where many of the members were not Christians previously and were not of Mennonite background." He added, "We're trying to reach the community, the people who don't go to church." This aim is reflected in a diverse congregation with a broad age range.

The church has been part of MCEC. Membership in the Canadian conference was motivated by wanting to belong to the larger church.

"We're trying to relate to Canadian Christians as a whole," said Roes. "There are many years of history behind all of this, so a lot of stability comes with it."

West Hills Mennonite Fellowship

The West Hills Mennonite Fellowship in Baden, Ontario, began ill 1991 with five families' About 45 people now meet in this church fellowship.

When the Steinmann Mennonite Church began contemplating building a larger sanctuary, a group within the church wanted to worship in a more intimate setting.

"We felt the Lord was calling us to start a new church." said Stan Gingerich, current half-time pastor of the West Hills fellowship.

With the support of the home church, the group founded West Hills as a daughter church of Steinmann. When word got around, others in the community were quick to support them. Another church offered a building.

For the first few years, the church was without a pastor. Gingerich, who had been with the group from its beginning, eventually felt called to take up the challenge. He was licensed as pastor two years ago.

"New families find us a warm, loving church," he said. The vision is "to establish a community-based church emphasizing evangelism and outreach" to the community. "We want to be a friend to single morns, to people who have not had a very good home life." He noted that younger families are harder to reach.

Gingerich took much of the initiative in bringing West Hills to the Canadian conference. He saw the importance of this connection since many in the church are from non-Mennonite backgrounds.

"I wanted them to understand we were working under a larger umbrella," he said. "We need to know more about what God is doing through the larger church. There are things we don't always agree on. yet we're trying to come together as one body under Christ."

Abbotsford Mennonite Fellowship

The Abbotsford (B.C.) Mennonite Fellowship began as a house church in the fall of 1996. The initial group of about 8 people has increased to an attendance of 26. The original group drew from three congregations.

The church keeps to a simple structure, said Walter Paetkau, chair of the congregation. It rents space and members take turns preparing and leading the services.

"A number of us just wanted to have a different sense of worship," said Paetkau. Services focus on the liturgical year, a three-year cycle of Bible readings and worship themes.

Members range from people in the 30s to those in their 60s; the majority are young families and young adults. Paetkau explained that the fellowship was "not an intentional growth congregation." Visitors hear about the church and come out of interest.

He described the church's mission as "basically, to worship God, to celebrate, to serve and to practise Christian fellowship."

For this church, membership in the Canadian conference means being part of a larger church family. It "has more to do with identity, and resources" while they also gain stability from "a common statement of faith and convictions."