Mennonite Brethren in Christ

  • Nonconformity to the World Part 3, Mennonite Brethren in Christ Experience

    When I was a young preacher in the Missionary Church of Canada, before the 1993 merger produced the EMCC, I attended a conference promoting a simple lifestyle. I signed a promise to live a simple lifestyle as much as possible.… Continue reading

    Nonconformity to the World Part 3, Mennonite Brethren in Christ Experience
  • Nonconformity to the world Part 2, Wesleyan holiness Background

    The EMCC today may seem like a generic evangelical church to some attenders, perhaps teaching therapeutic techniques, listening to non-denominational evangelical podcasts and singing pop evangelical worship songs, but it did not seem so to its first generations. The early… Continue reading

    Nonconformity to the world Part 2, Wesleyan holiness Background
  • Nonconformity to the world Part 1, The Anabaptist Background

    Practically all Christian traditions recognize the importance of holiness. For the EMCC, the Anabaptist/Mennonite, Pietist,1 and Wesleyan holiness traditions all encouraged their communities to turn away from enticements by the world. The Mennonites who were expelled from the Mennonite Conferences… Continue reading

    Nonconformity to the world Part 1, The Anabaptist Background
  • Mrs Elizabeth Risdon: Mystery Woman, Part 2

    This is the second part of my account of a zealous Christian lady from Michigan (ca 1850-ca 1915) who in widowhood devoted herself to holiness causes in Ontario. Where she began life and where she ended is unknown to me.… Continue reading

    Mrs Elizabeth Risdon: Mystery Woman, Part 2
  • High Bright Buggy Wheels: a Stouffville Story, Sort of

    Browsing one day in the United Missionary Church of Africa Theological College library in Ilorin, Nigeria, I came across a curious book in the fiction section, a 1951 dark red hard cover novel called High Bright Buggy Wheels. It was… Continue reading

    High Bright Buggy Wheels: a Stouffville Story, Sort of
  • Peace and War and the EMCC Part 2

    The remoter wars of the USA and Canada in the second half of the 19th century did not greatly disturb the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church, but the outbreak of a Great War in Europe in 1914 did. By 1917,… Continue reading

    Peace and War and the EMCC Part 2
  • Peace and War and the EMCC

    At the close of our youth fellowship meeting in North Bay, a young man came dressed in a uniform of the US Army. Several in our group knew him and gathered around, amazed. He was Canadian, about 19 years old,… Continue reading

    Peace and War and the EMCC
  • Troubled Borders

    Does it matter where an EMCC General Assembly meets? Could the world take interest in any action or teaching of our church today? We grumble in many congregations about issues supported by current Canadian culture with which we disagree, but… Continue reading

    Troubled Borders
  • 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
  • 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?