Mennonite Brethren in Christ
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The Pandemic of 1918-1920 and the MBiC: Part 2
The Ontario Conference of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ faced the “Spanish” Flu with impatience to be back at public worship and prayed it would end soon. Published response in other Conferences was fairly similar. Did they have other concerns… Continue reading
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The Pandemic of 1918-1920 and the MBiC: Part 1
Spanish Flu. The COVID-19 pandemic is fading from memory already, but before it does, we should look back at North American Christian churches’ response to an earlier pandemic in 1918-1920. The pandemic affected nearly every country in the world and… Continue reading
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The Sherkston field: Forgotten MBiC believers
Not only have there been forgotten workers, men and women, in the EMCC, there are forgotten communities of believers that flourished for a while but have died out. Jesus in the book of Revelation warned a church their lamp stand… 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 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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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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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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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
EMCC History 