AN OVERVIEW OF THE COLLABORATIVE MODEL

By now, you are aware that at our 2019 AGM in Waterloo, Ontario, MB delegates voted to implement the Collaborative Model of governance. Since then, the Executive Board and staff have worked diligently to draft several documents to give structure and legal foundation for this governance model. To offer as much relevant information as possible and update you on the latest modifications and additions to the Collaborative Model, I present this abbreviated introduction.

What is the Collaborative Model?

The MB denomination in Canada has a unique polity that can challenge unity and coordination. Most of our ministries can legally and logistically move independently of each other, leading to duplication of plans, indirectly competing and occasionally silos. Further, the growing regional divide found in the Canadian political world can permeate our ministry.

The Collaborative Model is a new form of governance best suited to coordinate multiple independent organizations serving a similar constituency. We have six separate provincial conferences, two national agencies, a national financial organization and a national conference, all who can operate independently in our denomination. Still, we serve and respond to the same constituency.These same churches are telling us what they want to be done on their behalf. This new Collaborative Model helps us to coordinate our efforts to minimize redundancies and maximize results. TheCollaborative Model calls us to bring the best that we have for the benefit of the whole. In other words, together, we are thinking about what is best for the MB family of churches in Canada and its called mission.

The Collaborative Model also creates a better accountability system than what we have at present, inviting not only church delegates but also provincial and agency boards to speak and vote into relevant matters. Together with church delegates, a board of boards will have greater influence and voice in what we do together. The Collaborative Model also invites all parts of the MB family into the designing and executing phases of our collective plans. The Collaborative Model also acknowledges that there are nuances and contextualization in the different regions of Canada. Thus the importance in the provincial conferences being the coordinators of ministry for their region. The sum of all of us will be known as our collective impact.

What is new with this new system of governance?

The Collaborative Model is in full compliance with our national constitution in all areas, including member churches’ rights to vote on all relevant matters. In addition to churches as voting members, the Collaborative Model introduces a new member class (not in terms of special privilege, but a legal term to identify a membership category), the National Assembly. Elected boards of provincial conferences, MB Seminary, Multiply, and Legacy are now members of the Collaborative Model and can speak and vote as members of the National Assembly. The National Assembly will gather annually to coordinate efforts and propose unified plans for approval at the General Assembly.

The General Assembly replaces the national AGM and is the gathering of both member classes in Canada. All voting will occur through the General Assembly either in real-time or by referenda at provincial conventions. These decisions are important because when we make them

together, we will own them. When we hold these decisions, we will work, fund and measure results collectively.

To achieve a coordinated approach to ministry and mission, the Collaborative Model creates new intersecting points where all parts of our ministry collaborate towards achieving common goals.

One such intersecting point is the National Ministry Team: a collection of the senior staff from agencies and provincial conferences, the national conference and the National Faith and Life Team. This body combines the represented ministries’ collective knowledge to form an idea or plan for how we should behave as a whole family. What is our mission? Who is going to do it, how it needs to be done? How can it be funded? All of these questions begin their process at the National Ministry Team table.

What are the necessary components of the Collaborative Model?

Joint mission and agenda: In designing together, we find agreement on our mission and how it will be carried out. We need to define what we will do, how it will be done, who will do it, and how it will be funded.

Common measuring system: Different organizations measure different things in different ways. We must define a standard measuring system to give an accurate accounting of what we are doing. We will know then if our efforts are effective and what changes or adjustments to make. In creating this system, we will determine how the metrics get reported to the various stakeholders.

Clear relational structures: Another component of the collaborative model that is crucial is our relationship structure. Clearly defining authority and accountability structures is a necessary part of this Collaborative Model.

Principal organization: The principal organization is not the most important, but it carries the principal responsibility for maintaining the relationships and systems needed for the Collaborative Model’s functioning.

The following documents will serve as the legal foundation of the Collaborative Model: ˚ Spiritual direction: Our Confession of Faith and any General Assembly approved position papers will guide us. ˚ Governing: Our national constitution, bylaws, a governance library containing policy and procedures, Strategic Partnership

Agreements (SPA) and Memorandums of

Understanding (MOU) ˚ Strategy: The Collective Unified Strategic Plan (CUSP) will keep us on track to fulfilling our mission together.

Members will be provided with drafts of these documents and are invited to attend virtual town hall meetings on October 14, 15 and November 10, 12, 2020, to speak into and help us complete these documents. You can register for the first two town hall meetings—focusing on changes to our by-laws—here. Check mennonitebrethren.ca and MB Herald’s social media platforms for more information.

We look forward to connecting with you as we develop the next steps of this Collaborative Model.

E LT O N D A S I LVA is the national director of the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches. Elton and Ana live in Winnipeg and have three children.

Additional information:

>> Elton DaSilva’s abbreviated overview [video] >> J.P. Hayashida’s overview of the bylaw revisions [video] >> Register for one of two town hall meetings on recommended bylaw changes – October 14 and 15, 2020

A moment in time

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA C. 1945

A group of Mennonite domestic workers stands in the Mary-Martha Home’s front yard in Winnipeg. Mary-Martha Home, a social and spiritual center for women, was established in 1925 as an offshoot of the Winnipeg City Mission of the Mennonite Brethren Northern District Conference. City missionary Anna Thiessen and Matron of the house is second from right.

>> Learn more about Mary-Martha Home here >> Learn more about Anna Thiessen here

Image courtesy of the Mennonite Archival Image Database

FROM A DIFFERENT ANGLE A Culture of Anger

THE COVID CRISIS HAS BEEN INTERRUPTED BY AN ANGER CRISIS.

daily news was all about COVID. THE Then it was about police brutality. Then it was about protests. Then violent protests and burning buildings. The world is angry. The world is gone mad. The culture declares that you ought to be angry. There is so much injustice. If you are not angry, you don’t care, you’re a bad person. Good people are angry people. Angry people are the only good people. They care.

And everyone is being drawn in. If you aren’t angry at the police, then you should be angry at the people who are angry. If you aren’t protesting police brutality or racism, you should be protesting protesters who protest. Or protest COVID church closures. But protest something! You should be angry! Don’t you care?!

Whom else can we be angry at? People are bad. They have always been bad. Let’s be angry at people who have long been dead. How dare they not have lived by 2020 standards? Let’s tear down some statues. Am I the only righteous person left on this earth?

Take a deep breath.

There is plenty of injustice. There are plenty of things to be angry about. But while anger might drive us to address issues, anger doesn’t solve issues. Are there solutions?

It seems to me that the world has finally come to the realization that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Everyone except me of course.) Everyone should be apologizing because they are sinners. So far, so good.

But realization and acknowledgement of sin does not remove the problem. For that we will need another step.

Forgiveness.

It sounds far too simple. And it sounds like we’re letting those sinners get away with sin.

But there is no other way to “remove” the sin or the guilt or the offense. You can pay me back the $10 you stole from me, but I still feel violated and careful about trusting you again. I could still tear down your statue. Unless I forgive.

Our current culture of blame and guilt will lead to one of two responses. Either we will become angry and be led into a downward cycle of vengeance – an eye for an eye until we are all blind. Or we will forgive and give an opportunity for a reset, a fresh start – to those sinners, to our culture, and to ourselves.

It starts with honesty. If all have sinned, then I have sinned. And I know I have sinned. I think others have sinned, but I know that I have sinned. (Let him without sin cast the first stone.) If I were not forgiven, then I would be doomed in a cycle of judgment and condemnation. My statue should be torn down. (There is no statue of me.) There would be no statue of anyone. I depend on forgiveness.

The good news is that God, in Christ, has forgiven me. For me there is hope. Not because I haven’t sinned, but because God decided to forgive me. That changes everything. For eternity.

Forgiven people should be generous forgivers. Christians should be leading our angry society to a place of grace. In every angry, judgmental face I see the sadness of an unforgiven, guilty sinner, trying to deflect guilt onto someone even worse. I don’t see hope in an angry face.

Christian, you have the hope that this angry world is looking for – forgiveness.

I’ll give the last word here to the apostle Paul. If he were able to preach a sermon in Seattle in the summer of 2020, I’m thinking he might preach Ephesians 4:31-32:

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

BISHOP DAVE REIMER is the managing editor of The Chronicle, a publication of the Christian Mennonite Conference

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