North American church planters meet Asian counterparts
Mennonite Brethren church planters from Canada and the United States met with overseas counterparts in February, in what MB Mission general director Randy Friesen calls a “mission DNA exchange opportunity.”
On many occasions, as the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches has responded to the call to reach Canada with the gospel, church members have spoken of “our MB church-planting DNA.”
MB Mission invited Canada’s C2C Network and the U.S. Conference of MB Churches to send 15 church planters to travel across the Pacific to meet with local pastors doing church planting work in Southeast Asia.
Friesen says most of the Asian pastors are first-generation Christians who have experienced God’s power in their lives. Most are bivocational farmer-pastors and many, he says,
have been imprisoned for the gospel. “Their definition of God looks a lot like that of the New Testament church,” says Friesen.
“I think they have something to teach us.”
A statement from MB Mission expresses hope that the fellowship and story exchanges will produce a new vitality and vibrancy in gospel work on both sides of the ocean. One participant says, “It’s about who you know God to be.”
—Barrie McMaster, B.C. correspondent
