By 1911 a Mennonite settlement had taken root at Renata along the Arrow lakes in SE British Columbia. The settlers' source of livelihood was fruit growing and timber processing. They built a school and organized Sunday school classes and church services in which lay and visiting ministers played a leading role. In the mid-1960s the community was relocated when a nearby hydroelectric dam flooded the valley.

In 2001,  Mennonites in British Columbia worship in about 140 congregations from the NE Peace River valley to Vancouver Island, with a total membership of approximately 22,550. Most reside in the Fraser Valley and the city of Vancouver. Almost 100 congregations are affiliated with the British Columbia Provincial Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches and 35 with Mennonite Church British Columbia, the provincial level of the Mennonite Church Canada. There are four Church of God in Christ, Mennonite (Holdeman), congregations, one Fellowship of Evangelical Bible Churches congregation (formerly the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren), two Evangelical Mennonite Conference (EMC) congregations, four Eastern Pennsylvania Mennonite Church congregations and one Old Colony Mennonite congregation. Mennonites worship in a variety of languages, including German, English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Punjabi, Spanish, Russian, Indonesian, Arabic, Farsi, Laotian, Korean and American Sign Language. The conferences see church planting as a high priority.

B750ME-map-00.jpgSince the 1950s Mennonites have become more urbanized as the Fraser valley has acquired suburban characteristics. Dairy farming, fruit growing, and poultry raising are still important ways of making a living, but British Columbia Mennonites are increasingly entering the commercial and professional fields. Growing material success seems to be muting the traditional Anabaptist renunciation of secular society. Mennonites are relating more to evangelical Christian groups. They share with them an emphasis on regeneration, evangelism, and personal piety, characteristics also of the 16th century Anabaptists. At the same time some evangelicals are recognizing that the gospel confronts social and economic injustice and militarism. Interaction between Mennonites and the broader evangelical movement may therefore help both to speak directly to peace and justice issues.

British Columbia Mennonites serve society jointly and as individual congregations. Since the 1950s, the provincial Mennonite Brethren and the Conference of Mennonites in B.C. have cooperated through Mennonite Central Committee (MCC B.C.) and through educational ventures.

MCC B.C. was established in the 1940s. Siegfried Bartel served as chair during much of the 1970s and 1980s, and before him Gerhard Thielmann served for 17 years. In addition to MCC's global and national program it is involved in supportive care services for the developmentally disabled. MCC B.C. has established three group homes as well as a Community Living Program in which MCC staff provide assistance to mentally challenged people living in their own homes. It also provides a day school and a self-help craft program for the handicapped. Through its Peace and Service Committee, MCC B.C. has organized annual children's festivals to introduce children, within the context of their family, to their Mennonite heritage and to the MCC program. In 1986 MCC B.C.'s Social Housing Society opened the doors of an apartment building in Vancouver with the goal of providing affordable housing for the poor. MCC B.C. sponsors a number of voluntary service units and a growing number of annual relief sales.

Initiatives also come from individual congregations. In 1982 Langley Mennonite Fellowship launched its Victim Offender Reconciliation Program. It seeks to reconcile the victim of a crime with the offender in such a way that offenders recognize the effects of their actions on victims, and in some way make restitution.

Mennonite women are active in British Columbia. They meet monthly in individual congregations for fellowship, meditation, sewing, knitting, and quilting. The sale of their products provides MCC B.C. with a substantial part of its annual budget. After World War II, General Conference Mennonite women operated the Mary-Martha Home for young women in Vancouver, which took in women recently arrived in the city and put them in touch with employers. In 1985 the Open Door in Aldergrove was established by women to serve economically deprived single mothers.

In 1970-71 the two major conferences agreed to operate one Bible school. Because attendance at Bethel Bible Institute in Abbotsford diminished in the 1960s, the Conference of Mennonites (GCM) held a special study conference in 1967 on the future of their school. As a result of discussions with the Mennonite Brethren, whose Mennonite Brethren Bible Institute (MBBI) had been growing during the 1960s, it was decided to close Bethel and join forces with MBBI in nearby Clearbrook (now part of Abbotsford). The result was Columbia Bible Institute (CBI), with students and faculty from both conferences. In 1982 the Conference of Mennonites in British Columbia joined the Mennonite Brethren provincial conference as owners and governors of CBI. It was the first inter-Mennonite Bible institute in North America and had as its goal "to actively promote and teach a strong evangelical, Anabaptist (Mennonite) theology...."   In 1985 the school was renamed Columbia Bible College; it is accredited by the American Association of Bible Colleges.

Mennonites in British Columbia also cooperated in ministering to university students. In 1986 the Menno Simons Centre was established near the University of British Columbia campus. The center consisted of a residence for some 20 students with a small chapel. It has served both as headquarters for student ministry for other students enrolled in the province's institutes of higher learning and as a retreat center.

Mennonite Educational Institute in Clearbrook, founded in 1944 by ten Mennonite Brethren congregations, is also a cooperative venture, run by a society of Mennonite Brethren and General Conference Mennonite congregations. It has provided secondary school education for students from its beginnings, and more recently has added elementary classes to its curriculum. In 2000 it was supported by fourteen churches in Abbotsford, Aldergrove, Langley, Mission and Arnold.

Bibliography

Additional Information

BC Conference of MB Churches

Columbia Bible College

Mennonite Educational Institute

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, p. 98-101. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.

©1996-2008 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.

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