Latest Posts
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We Worship Part 2
The first members of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church in the very end of 1883, were practically all from the Mennonite Conferences, and had therefore grown up worshiping in the North American/ Pennsylvania Swiss-South German style.1 John C Wenger… Continue reading
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We Worship Part 1
When I was a church-planting pastor under the Home Mission Board, I planned and led many worship services, generally imitating the patterns in the Missionary Churches I knew (mainly Lakeshore in North Bay, Evangel in Kitchener and Riverside in Toronto).… Continue reading
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Self-Denial Days
Years ago, researching other things in the Gospel Banner, I noted letters to the editor about “self-denial.” It sounded like a Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church institution of some sort which had not survived by that name into the era… Continue reading
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Gospel Radio, Showtime Radio
Religious radio? Sunday afternoons when I was young my family sometimes turned on the Rod and Charles Show on CBC Radio. It was a comedy program. Apologies to all those religious broadcasters out there, but we never listened to religious… Continue reading
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How Sunday Schools Progressed in the Ontario Conference
As I mentioned in the previous blog about EMCC Sunday Schools, the United Mennonite merging conference in Bloomingdale, Waterloo County, Canada, in 1875, resolved “That Sunday schools shall be organized and supported by all our power.”1 As early as the… Continue reading
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Early EMCC Sunday Schools: Background
The EMCC Sunday School is in decline at this writing, judging by annual reports, or lack of them, from congregations. (Beginning in 1986, more and more EMCC congregations failed to report their statistics, especially their Sunday School numbers.) The form… Continue reading
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Levi and Fannie Raymer, Sunnidale Township, Simcoe County
Like Priscilla and Aquila in the Bible, Levi and Fannie Raymer stand out as married disciples of Christ in the history of the MBiC in Ontario. What they left behind intrigues me. First, Fannie Raymer (1844-1927) left a short manuscript… Continue reading
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A Speculation About Theodore Roosevelt
Sometime before 1947, when the Mennonite Brethren in Christ changed its name to the United Missionary Church, a certain “Mrs W J Sproule” donated a book to the “Stayner Mennonite [ie MBiC] S. S.” That was very kind of her.… Continue reading
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Mergers That Didn’t Happen Part 2
Denominations have fallen on hard days in North America though they are flourishing in much of the rest of the world. In the last Canadian census, 2 million Christian respondents declined to name a denomination as their religious identity, a… Continue reading
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Mergers That Didn’t Happen Part 1
As the old joke goes, “Put two [you name the religious group] in a room and you will get three opinions.” Baptists, Jews, Mennonites, et al– humans are prone to divide. Websites on the internet claim there are about 44,000… Continue reading
EMCC History 