EMCC HISTORY

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  • What Happened to the Manitoba Mission? Part 2

    City Mission Workers Society. In the Mar/Apr 1905 Mennonite Brethren in Christ Canada Conference annual meeting, Henry Schlichter Hallman, the CMWS President, announced that he was posting Emma Hostetler and Mary Markle to Winnipeg, MB. I assume as part of… Continue reading

    What Happened to the Manitoba Mission? Part 2
  • What Happened to the Manitoba Mission? Part 1

    Michael Haug’s mission. Winnipeg. As early as 1884, the newly formed Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church in Ontario turned its attention to Manitoba as a place for missionary work. (See EMCC History blog page for “Formation of the EMCC.”) Winnipeg… Continue reading

    What Happened to the Manitoba Mission? Part 1
  • City Mission Workers Society (Ontario)

    Approved Ministering Sisters and Presidents. Janet (Douglas) Hall was the first accredited woman preacher in the EMCC’s antecedent churches. She was licensed in Indiana and Ohio in 1884, and in Ontario in the following year. During the next dozen years… Continue reading

    City Mission Workers Society (Ontario)
  • Huffman and Biblical Archaeology

    Jasper Abraham Huffman’s book, Voices from Rocks and Dust Heaps in Bible Lands,1 was probably the first book of biblical archaeology I ever read. I was likely less than 14 when I read it, but by then I had certainly… Continue reading

    Huffman and Biblical Archaeology
  • Women Preachers in the MBiC Part 4: Mariah Parr

    Forgotten Women Preachers series [Dec 5 2025: I finally found the obituary for Maria Parr: see the end of the text for the summary.] Out of the 133 women who participated in the official ministry of the early EMCC in… Continue reading

    Women Preachers in the MBiC Part 4: Mariah Parr
  • Harvey Weber Stauffer, Pastor

    Like Harvey Stauffer, I did not last long in the pastorate. All fired up about church planting after Bible College, I and a handful of others tried to start an English-language church in Sudbury, ON, 1981-1984,1 and later I served… Continue reading

    Harvey Weber Stauffer, Pastor
  • Music in the early EMCC Part 4: Music of Evangelical Association and Church and the EUB

    The way congregations are increasingly isolated in the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada, the music we sing no longer generally unifies the Church, even inside a congregation. Unless worship leaders deliberately educate the churches, the default is the lowest common… Continue reading

    Music in the early EMCC Part 4: Music of Evangelical Association and Church and the EUB
  • EMCC Bishops?

    The position and powers of ecclesiastical officials called (in English) “bishops” has gone through a lot of variation in history. The word in English is descended from the Greek word “episkopos” which meant foreman, overseer, one who watches over, or… Continue reading

    EMCC Bishops?
  • The Strange Case of the MBiC East End Mission

    Parliament St, Toronto. [Banner: Grace Memorial EM Church, Toronto, ca 1999. Courtesy Glenn Menard Collection MCHT] Students of Canadian Pentecostal history are familiar with a storefront mission in Toronto at 651 Queen St East sometimes called the East End Mission,… Continue reading

    The Strange Case of the MBiC East End Mission
  • Women Preachers in the MBiC Part 3: Sarah McQuarrie

    Forgotten Women Preachers series Among the numerous women preachers (I count 133 from 1884 to 1945) of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Canada Conference is a lady called Sarah McQuarrie (b 1863), who entered city mission work in 1900. Not… Continue reading

    Women Preachers in the MBiC Part 3: Sarah McQuarrie