Latest Posts
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EMCC church buildings Part 5: interesting real estate
Enjoying worship includes feelings about the physical surroundings: often, the building. This is a luxury; for many of our brothers and sisters in the world, persecution takes away any choice in the matter. I have not seen anyone else collect… Continue reading
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EMCC church buildings Part 4: Rented or Bought
The Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada in Ontario, throughout its history, has made use of buildings constructed by others. We have few unique architectural needs, if any, so we can adapt a worship space fairly easily. In this two-part post,… Continue reading
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Adventures with Film: Movies and the EMCC Part 3
Except for outside groups, Christians of every shape, size and colour make videos and watch movies, whether documentaries or narrative fiction, whether in a cinema, on TV or on a cellphone. As Paul Fromer, professor of writing at Wheaton College… Continue reading
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Movies and the EMCC Part 2
There was a time when members of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ and then United Missionary Church just never entered a movie theatre, as several readers in places such as Stratford and Stouffville tell me. The door opens a crack.… Continue reading
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Movies and the EMCC Part 1
Do you remember the first movie you ever saw–in a theatre? My big sister says since we were a “frugal family,” we Fullers hardly ever went to a movie. I think my first time ever was at a friend’s birthday… Continue reading
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Family Bibles and the early EMCC
Somehow I inherited through my grandfather, William James Oliver, a family Bible set of two volumes, printed in Boston in 1856. He inherited them from one of his great-grandparents, Philip Wade and his second wife, Susan. The spines have gone,… Continue reading
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EMCC church buildings Part 3: the Living Room or the Theatre
When the 1960s opened, EMCC congregations started building worship spaces that firmly turned away from the Gothic ideal that had dominated Canadian church buildings since the 1850s. I should mention that in Ontario, the EMCC almost never used the white… Continue reading
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Church Plates
I was eating my lunch off a commemorative plate when a thought struck me. Commemorative church plates were not exactly meant to be used to hold my beans and greens, but to commemorate and be displayed. The Canadian Presbyterian Church… Continue reading
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EMCC Church Buildings: Part 2: Built, Bought, Rented
The Mennonite Brethren in Christ Discipline had instructions about how church buildings were to be constructed. They were to be “plain” (Mennonite language) and, borrowing an idea from the Free Methodists, pew rents were not allowed: “Let all our buildings… Continue reading
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EMCC Church buildings Part 1: Beliefs and Early Practices
The Church exists whether we use buildings or not! Our heavenly Father knows when we need them. Nevertheless, the “medium is the message,” as Canadian media theoretician Marshall McLuhan said. Worship spaces convey meanings in addition to the words spoken… Continue reading
EMCC History 