Part V: Risking relationship

This six-part series draws on Kara Carter’s PhD studies, for which she conducted five focus groups with Mennonite Church Eastern Canada pastors.

“Relationships involve risk,” a pastor from MC Eastern Canada told me. “It’s not a risk to hang out with people that I know, that I love, that are like me. . . . being a missional community means putting myself at risk to meet and be with people that are different.”

How do Mennonite Church Canada congregations live within the tension of formative Anabaptist ecclesiology, separateness from the world theology and our “sent” calling?

This tension was raised by a wise pastoral colleague as she discussed the possibility of writing proposals for community grant money.

“Pastor Ruby” grew up in a southwestern Ontario church which held a strong “separate from the world” identity and theology. According to Ruby, “‘the church in the world but not of the world’ has been huge in our theology. We don’t partner with. It’s one thing to work with neighbours, but it’s another to get funding from our neighbours to fund programs for and with our community.”

Ruby’s experience highlights a monumental shift that is unfolding: the church needs her neighbours.

It is not a new posture for the church to respond to local, national, or international needs. A strong “barn-raising” culture has shaped us as God’s people and has led to the establishment of Mennonite institutions focused on service, justice issues and peacemaking.

Rebuilding homes and communities following ravaging floods or fires, providing finances and sweat equity in support of affordable housing projects, hosting community meals and more have been both fulfilling and spiritually transformative.

However, what does it mean to be the church when the church needs the community’s finances and resources to run its programs? Is the church primarily focused on one-sided relationships, “doing for,” or, are we taking the risk of engaging in ministry with our neighbours?

As God’s people, are we open to receiving the community’s hospitality and being transformed?

Non-conformity and separateness, rooted in Scripture, has historically been formative for Anabaptist theology. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Romans 12:2). Amidst 16th century oppression, “separateness from the world” was closely tied to self-protection and survival.

As we live into a 21st century post-pandemic context, “separate from the world” is working against a missional church.

At the heart of God as Trinity is relationship. It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that God’s people connect with the Divine and one another. Amidst the reality of church decline and shifting demographics, not only did my research reveal that the church needs its neighbours, it also revealed that self-sufficiency is a relational barrier for a missional church.

Pastor Ruby and her congregation are trying to figure out what it means to walk with people in their community; “not fix them, just love them and welcome them in our homes,” she says. Ruby is also building relationships with the mayor, various community partners and ecumenical colleagues in response to community social issues.

Relationships are both beautiful and life-giving, both challenging and messy. Communal relationships can be open or closed.

One pastor suggested, “Our Christian community is having such a good time together, but we haven’t learned what it means to open the door to people who may be interested.”

On one hand, this leader acknowledged the congregation has discussed how to connect with households settling into a newly developed subdivision. On the other hand, the pastor has lived on the same street for more than a decade and acknowledged knowing just two neighbours.

As God’s people living and serving in an ever-changing world, are we committed to ongoing personal change? Are we committed to developing new capacities, including relational risk-taking in ways that enable the church’s larger transformation?

Formation and transformation are core to our relationship with Jesus, one another and all of creation.

In his book, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory, Tod Bolsinger writes, “Christianity is about the Creator God’s mission to transform his world and all his creatures. That transformation is accomplished not through signs of power, shows of force or unavoidable miracles that force us to our knees, but through the transformed lives of people who transform communities who transform their spheres of influence” (Romans 12:2).

May we continue to be transformed into the people whom God uses to further God’s mission of restoration and reconciliation with all of creation.

Kara Carter is pastor of Wellesley Mennonite Church.

Read the previous instalments of God's Story, Our Story:
Part IV: Telling, re-telling, re-storying
Part III: Who owns your church building?
Part II: Telling and re-telling who we are
Part I: God’s story, our story