Thiessen to head Support Services

Vic Thiessen has been named the new exec­u­tive sec­re­tary of Sup­port Ser­vices for Men­non­ite Church Canada (tran­si­tion­ing to Chief Oper­a­tions Offi­cer), begin­ning his new duties on April 1.

Vic Thiessen

Vic comes to his new assign­ment after serv­ing as direc­tor of the Lon­don Men­non­ite­Cen­tre in Lon­don, Eng­land for seven years. Before that, he was the direc­tor of the Wel­come Home Cen­tre in Edmon­ton, a cen­tre for new immi­grants to Canada (5 years). He was also the founder and co-directorof the Rock­mere Chris­t­ian Study Cen­tre in New Brunswick (6 years).

He has also been instru­men­tal in orga­niz­ing the Root and Branch Rad­i­calChris­t­ian Vision Net­work in the UK, and has chaired the Net­work of Chris­t­ian Peace Orga­ni­za­tions in the UK. He is a grad­u­ate of Cana­dian Men­non­ite Bible Col­lege, Uni­ver­sity of Man­i­toba, and Asso­ci­ated Men­non­ite Bib­li­cal Sem­i­nary in Elkhart.

Sup­port Ser­vices, one of three coun­cils com­pris­ing the man­age­ment of MC Canada, over­sees the depart­ments of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, devel­op­ment and con­stituency relations, Human Resources management, information technology, pension plans, property man­age­ment, does annual Assem­bly plan­ning, decides sub­si­dies for the Cana­dian Men­non­ite, relates to Men­non­ite Foun­da­tion of Canada and is respon­si­ble for new initiatives.

“He brings with him a strong pas­sion for the work of the church, for what it means to be Anabap­tist in today’s world, and for the church to relate to the young adults in a way that gen­uinely includes and involves them,” said Jack Sud­er­man in mak­ing the announcement.

Vic, a film critic for the Cana­dian Men­nonite for sev­eral years, and his wife Kathy are mak­ing their home in Win­nipeg.  He suc­ceeds Louie Sawatsky who served as interim direc­tor for the past 13 months.

–MC Canada news release