Leading with Hope in Anxious Times

February 5–6, 2024

Throughout the Old and New Testaments, people have turned to God for hope when they were anxious or disquieted (Psalm 42:11). Today, we live in disquieting times. As pastors, church leaders, and congregations, we may feel a vague sense of guilt over our inability to right wrongs of the past. We may also be disquieted by apprehension that we won’t adequately address problems ahead of us.

When we probe the sources of our anxieties, and allow ourselves to be re-formed by the God of hope (Romans 15:13b), we will discover hope-filled responses to the anxious disquiet of our age.

On February 5 and 6, renew 2024 will help pastors and church leaders lead with hope in these anxious times. The conference will provide theological thinking about what the scriptures show about God’s ways of hope. As well, the conference will invite leaders of diverse Christian ministries to tell how they address complex issues with hopeful reliance on God, instead of with drivenness fueled by guilt and fear. Worship, storytelling, and fellowship will also be part of renew 2024.

In the coming months, watch this webpage for more conference details (click here for a longer description of the theme). If you have topics or speakers to recommend to the planning committee, contact Andrew Dyck, at adyck:@:cmu.ca.

May God strengthen us for non-anxious ministries of hope.

Keynote Speakers

Dr. Paul Doerksen

Associate Professor of Theology and Anabaptist Studies, CMU

Rev. Bonnie Dowling

Rector, Saint Margaret's Anglican Church

Dr. Michael Pahl

Executive Minister, Mennonite Church Manitoba

Renee Willms

Student Dean of Student Life, CMU

Keynote Presentations

KEYNOTE 1: Looking for Hope at the End of the World: Working with Young adults in an Age of Anxiety (Renee Willms). This talk will explore the unique dynamics of working with and supporting young adults in an age of intense uncertainty and anxiety, and how Christian hope can provide a useful framework for these interactions.

KEYNOTE 2: Urgent Patience, Extravagant Hope: The Uncontrollability of Renewal (Paul Doerksen). I will invite us to embrace the practice and connectedness of patience and hope. Since both patience and hope are fundamentally grounded in God, the Christian practice of these virtues should not be understood as passive or possessive.

KEYNOTE 3: Visions of the Young and Dreams of the Aged: Preaching Hope to the Anxious (Bonnie Dowling). I will look at the various pastoral needs of an intergenerational community, and chart ways that pastors and preachers might communicate the promise of the Gospel to those looking for a word of hope in anxious times.

KEYNOTE 4: 'Be Joyful in Hope': Finding Joy in Anxious Times (Michael Pahl). Diving into Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we will explore how hope for God’s good future can prompt us toward joy even in the midst of our anxious present, and as we lead our congregations through anxious times.

Interactive Workshops (two will be available by livestreaming)

1. Indigenous Christian spirituality: draw the circle of community wider still (Tanis Lynn Kolysnik). Hear about the local grassroot work happening at Epiphany Indigenous Anglican Church in Winnipeg, and the national work of Sacred Circle: The Covenant and Our Way of Life.  We will end in a worship time based on the theme of Respecting Covenant: Risking the Journey toward Reconciliation.
2. Practicing hope in times of ecological crisis (Scott Gerbrandt). We will explore the critical components of Christian hope and will workshop practices that will best serve you and your church in this time of ecological crisis.
3. In Extremis: Hope in the farthest reaches (Ryan Dueck). Pastoral ministry often places us in extreme contexts—whether depression, addiction, suicidal ideation, poverty, relational breakdown, violence, existential despair, intellectual doubt, illness, and ultimately death. Reflecting on prison ministry (among other things), this workshop will explore the need for hope that often emerges in extremis, and the nature of the hope the church is called to proclaim.
4. Relationship of church and university: what for? (Cheryl Pauls with John Boopalan, Associate Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies). This workshop is inspired by the centring question, “What are people for?” from the CMU course Ways of Knowing. We will consider what the relationship of church and university is for, with sidebar conversations on what your congregation is for and what CMU is for.
5. Considering our buildings… (Melanie Neufeld). I will expand the conversation about how our church buildings can work for us instead of against us and will invite local pastors and leaders to lay out creative, practical options for our church buildings.

Presenters

Sunder John Boopalan (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is Associate Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at CMU. John is the author of the book Memory, Grief, and Agency, which explores the positive place of redressive grief over structural wrongs, and is an ordained minister in the progressive Baptist tradition.

Paul Doerksen (PhD, Western Religious Thought, McMaster University) is Associate Professor of Theology and Anabaptist Studies at CMU. He is a member of River East Church, where his wife Julie is pastor of worship arts and children’s ministry.

Bonnie Dowling (MDiv, Wycliffe College) is the Rector at St. Margaret’s Anglican Church, Winnipeg.

Ryan Dueck (MA, Regent College) serves as pastor of Lethbridge Mennonite Church. Ryan maintains a longstanding blog called “Rumblings,” with reflection and conversation at the intersection of faith and culture. He is husband to Naomi and father to twenty-two-year-old twins, Claire and Nicholas.

Scott Gerbrandt joined the A Rocha Canada team in 2017 as the Manitoba Director and enjoys (most days) winter cycling and nurturing our fledgling micro-food forest in our front yard.

Tanis Lynn Kolysnik (MA, University of Winnipeg) is an ordained deacon at Epiphany Indigenous Anglican Church, Winnipeg, and St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church, Winnipeg Beach; and the coordinator-advisor of University of Winnipeg’s Aboriginal Student Services Centre. With Metis roots in East Selkirk and area, she is married, with 4 adult children and 5 grandchildren.

Melanie Neufeld (MDiv/MSW, Andrews University) is the Director of Mission Engagement for Mennonite Church Manitoba. She spent 15 years in Seattle as pastor of community ministry working with a congregation using an old theatre building.

Darryl Neustaedter Barg (BTh, CMBC; BComm, U. of Manitoba) loves the church and its music. While employment is with Mennonite Church Manitoba and CMU in communications and digital media (incl. Adjunct Professor of Communications and Media), leading singing in the context of worship is a passion. Fortunately, vocation and passion meet on a regular basis. 

Michael Pahl (Ph.D., New Testament studies, Birmingham University) has served in a variety of academic and church ministry contexts in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., and currently serves as Executive Minister of Mennonite Church Manitoba. He is the author of several books with one upcoming: The Word Fulfilled: Reading the Bible with Jesus (Herald Press, 2024).

Cheryl Pauls (DMA, piano performance, UBC) currently serves as president of Canadian Mennonite University.

Renee Willms (MA, Regent College) is the current Dean of Student Life at Canadian Mennonite University, where she has worked extensively with students in all walks of life. 

Living Call Stories: Dynamics of the Pastoral Vocation

Dr. Kathleen Cahalan

Monday, January 30 – Tuesday, January 31

"Am I called to be a pastor?" "What is your call story?" Questions like these imply that, to become a pastor, a person first needs a clear calling from God. Churches have varying expectations for how this call takes place—through a deep inwardly felt desire, after volunteer ministry and/or seminary training, by invitations from church leaders, by drawing lots. Each of these questions and expectations focuses on a person's calling prior to entering pastoral ministry.

Discerning one's ministry calling is not, however, a one-and-done event. Instead, pastors and church leaders ask questions about their calling throughout their ministry—just as Christians face questions about their calling or vocation no matter their age and stage of life. Pastors revisit their calling when their job descriptions change, when they leave a church or ministry, when they retire, when illness or burnout set in, or when conflicts arise. Churches face questions about calling pastors when a ministry role goes unfilled, when they can't afford to pay a pastor, or when their demographics and needs change. Compounding these questions, declining numbers of students are enrolling in ministry studies at many Christian theological schools.

ReNew 2023, a resourcing conference for pastors and church leaders, will focus on the dynamics of the pastor's callings—that is, their vocations. Dr. Kathleen Cahalan—a professor of practical theology at St. John's School of Theology and Seminary—will draw on her years of ministry and research to provide three stimulating addresses on how ministers experience calling and vocation throughout their lives, and on practicing Christian discernment faithfully.

In addition, the conference will feature worship sessions, Bible studies, pastors' stories, and workshops. Throughout, attendees will have ample time for discussions and conversations during the sessions, and over coffee and meals—including a banquet.

Bring your questions and insights to this two-day event, which promises to encourage, inspire, and resource everyone who attends.

Cahalan is Professor of Practical Theology at Saint John's University School of Theology and Seminary. She is also Director of the Collegeville Institute Seminars, a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and ecumenical research project that includes seminars on vocation across the lifespan, vocation and faith in the professions, and interfaith perspectives on vocation.

Cahalan's books are available for purchase at CommonWord, CMU's campus bookstore. [ link ]

Worship, Workshops, and Bible Studies

Worship

Martha Dyck and team will be leading us in our worship over the two days. Martha enjoys inviting people to worship God in an experience that is rich in word and melody.

Your Congregation Has a Calling (John Neufeld)

Churches do not exist in a vacuum; they are set in a particular place and time. And the context in which they exist points to their specific call from God.

Pastoral Searches: What I Wish I Knew! (Rick Neufeld)

Hiring a pastor is not for the faint of heart. In light of pandemic realities, burnout (of pastors or lay leaders), unexpectedly long pastoral searches, declining finances (making it difficult to hire or hire full time), and the seeming reticence of people to consider pastoral ministry at all, the task of searching for a pastor can be arduous and challenging. What wisdom might we share?

Mentoring and the Vocation of Pastor: Stories to Lead the Way (Cheryl Pauls)

We'll tell stories of how mentoring factors in our ministry; through these stories we'll work to understand and address decreasing interest in vocational ministry.

Discerning Call in Times of Uncertainty—a two-part workshop (Jan and Jeff Steckley)

Part 1 (Monday): Receiving Wilderness Experience as Crucible for Call. When we find ourselves in a wilderness of uncertainty because our call has been disrupted from within or outside, God invites us to let go of what we thought we knew so we can receive the freedom and possibilities of a new future already coming toward us.

Part 2 (Tuesday): Living in the Wilderness with Intention. When we find ourselves in the wilderness, practices and life rhythms provide the pillars of cloud and light that make it possible to hear and follow God's call.

Bible Teaching: Moses and Elijah: Call and Re-Call (Dan Epp-Tiessen) 

Just as God speaks words of calling and encouragement into the lives of Moses and Elijah, so God may do for us as we face the challenges of our ministry.

Bible Teaching: Call and Response: Paul's Story and Our Stories (Sheila Klassen-Wiebe)

The story of Paul's call is told three times in the Acts of the Apostles, each time with a slightly different "flavour". What can the church today learn about Jesus' call to follow by attending to this familiar yet still compelling story, and how might Paul's story-in-triplicate shape our own "call and response"?