James Clare Fuller
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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
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Nelson Kiteley’s Ministry Journey
Official records can be so misleading. Not intentionally, it’s just that organizations do not feel obliged to document the careers of personnel when the person was not in the organization. Early MBiC preacher Nelson Kiteley’s story is lopsided with only… Continue reading
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United Missionary Church of Africa and the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Part 2
16. MBiC worship patterns. The leaders of what became the MBiC in Ontario were converted in testimony, prayer or protracted meetings (later called revivals), not in their Sunday Mennonite worship services. When they had to organize their own Sunday worship… Continue reading
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Mennonite Brethren in Christ Public Worship and
the United Missionary Church of Africa Part 1 This background to UMCA worship patterns is excerpted from an essay I wrote for a conference in Ilorin, Nigeria, in November 2019. The convener, Rev Professor Samuel Ango, a UMCA scholar and… Continue reading
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We Worship Part 3
What is worship, after all? Much has been written and preached in the last generation or two about worship. I have heard many talks and books recall the etymology of the English word: Old English “weorth-shipe,” ascribing worth or honour… Continue reading
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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
EMCC History 