{"id":5439,"date":"2015-11-27T16:10:31","date_gmt":"2015-11-27T22:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/?p=5439"},"modified":"2015-11-27T16:09:49","modified_gmt":"2015-11-27T22:09:49","slug":"2015s-pastor-in-residence-reflects-on-his-week-at-cmu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/2015\/2015s-pastor-in-residence-reflects-on-his-week-at-cmu\/","title":{"rendered":"2015’s Pastor-in-Residence reflects on his week at CMU"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kevin Derksen, a 2007 CMU graduate serves as pastor at St. Jacobs Mennonite Church<\/a> (SJMC) in St. Jacobs, ON. He was on the CMU\u00a0campus from November 2 to 6 as\u00a0CMU\u2019s Pastor-in-Residence, a program designed to encourage out-of-province pastors to live in residence and participate in the life of the CMU community.<\/p>\n

Derksen’s reflection on his week at CMU appears in the Winter 2015 issue of SJMC’s newsletter, Life Together<\/em>. Republished with permission is Derksen’s excerpt below.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Pastor-in-Residence for a Week: Canadian Mennonite University<\/h3>\n

by Kevin Derksen, SJMC Pastor<\/em><\/p>\n

During the week of November 2-6, I\u00a0had the opportunity to turn back the clock\u00a0and re-live my student years at Canadian\u00a0Mennonite University (CMU) in Winnipeg.\u00a0I had been invited to spend a week on\u00a0campus as the \u201cPastor in Residence\u201d for the\u00a0fall semester.<\/p>\n

The \u201cin Residence\u201d part was quite literal\u2014I was given a tiny bachelor suite in the\u00a0student apartment block, and went for\u00a0meals in the school cafeteria. The head\u00a0cook was still the same from my time\u00a0thirteen years before, and the good\u00a0food\u00a0I remembered hadn\u2019t changed a whole lot.<\/p>\n

The years had been less kind to the\u00a0mattress in my room, however, which\u00a0clearly predated my student days by a fair\u00a0margin. But I was sleeping on my own\u00a0without young children to attend to, so\u00a0the accommodations still felt pretty good.\u00a0There was a fair amount of night-time commotion from rooms down the hall, but\u00a0I decided those students probably didn\u2019t\u00a0need me to find their \u2018blankie\u2019 and tuck\u00a0them back in!<\/p>\n

The point of the visit, however, was to\u00a0spend time with students\u2014not as a parent,\u00a0but as a pastor. CMU invites someone\u00a0to come for a week in each semester as a\u00a0\u201cPastor in Residence.\u201d The idea is to bring\u00a0a fresh face on campus to get to know the\u00a0school, connect with students and initiate\u00a0some good conversations. I was happy\u00a0to accept the invitation when it came,\u00a0especially as a former student with lots of\u00a0connections and memories still there. Even\u00a0though I became a pastor in Ontario, I was\u00a0shaped significantly by my time at CMU.\u00a0So it was fun to bring what I do now back\u00a0to that community.<\/p>\n

They did keep me pretty busythroughout the week. I spoke at three\u00a0chapels and at a student worship night.\u00a0I was a guest presenter in a couple of\u00a0ministry-related classes. And I had lunches\u00a0and meetings with a handful of student\u00a0and faculty groups. In many of these\u00a0settings I shared about my own experience\u00a0as a pastor and invited reflection on topics\u00a0that are significant within our context\u00a0here at St. Jacobs. I discovered all sorts of\u00a0resonances and common interests. It turns\u00a0out that many of our current issues and\u00a0conversations here are happening within\u00a0churches in Winnipeg and beyond, too.<\/p>\n

I also spent a whole lot of time in campus\u00a0coffee shops visiting and talking with\u00a0people. There were a couple of mornings\u00a0where I was assigned to sit with a box of\u00a0cookies to share with students who stopped\u00a0by for conversation. But I also spent lots of\u00a0time visiting with staff and faculty, as well\u00a0as community folks who happened to be\u00a0around.<\/p>\n

On one day I had \u201ccoffee\u201d with six\u00a0different people over the course of five\u00a0hours, as I held court in one of the cafes. By\u00a0the end of the week, I was pretty chatted\u00a0out! But it was really interesting to hear\u00a0what was going on at CMU and make\u00a0some connections with where I was coming\u00a0from as a pastor. Hopefully students and\u00a0staff and faculty at CMU found something\u00a0valuable in what I shared as well.<\/p>\n

Part of what I took from\u00a0the week was also a renewed\u00a0appreciation for what a place\u00a0like CMU can be and do as a\u00a0branch of the church. So, here are\u00a0a few quick reflections on what I\u00a0noticed as the vibe at the school\u00a0right now:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. CMU has just completed\u00a0a building project that created\u00a0a new library, coffee shop\u00a0and student space called the\u00a0\u201cMarpeck Commons.\u201d The new\u00a0space is connected to buildings on the other\u00a0side of Grant Avenue by a fancy indoor\u00a0bridge that saves the need for risky street crossings\u00a0in the winter. The bridge and\u00a0the Commons have transformed the CMU\u00a0campus. It has connected the buildings\u00a0on both sides of the street, and created a\u00a0natural crossroads for the community. I\u00a0have never experienced a building project\u00a0that has had such an immediately positive\u00a0impact on the culture of a place. Kudos to\u00a0the vision that lay behind it.<\/li>\n
  2. When I began as a student at CMU\u00a0thirteen years ago, there were still growing\u00a0pains in the integration of the partner\u00a0colleges. In particular, some of the church\u00a0culture distinctives between the Mennonite\u00a0Brethren and Mennonite Church Canada\u00a0were still being negotiated. My sense\u00a0fifteen years into this experiment in unity\u00a0is that these divisions are less of an issue.\u00a0In part, because the school has grown to\u00a0encompass a much greater diversity of\u00a0students. These days, less than half of\u00a0students come with any sort of Anabaptist\u00a0or Mennonite background. CMU remains\u00a0committed to providing education from an\u00a0Anabaptist perspective, but there is a wide\u00a0and beautiful diversity in those who come\u00a0to learn.<\/li>\n
  3. Finally, I was struck by the wealth of\u00a0thoughtful and committed student leaders\u00a0that I met \u2013 many of who are and will be\u00a0leaders for the church. It was encouraging\u00a0to receive their passion and to share my\u00a0story in the midst of it. God is at work at\u00a0CMU, as in many other places of learning\u00a0and formation that we are connected with.I\u2019m grateful for the opportunity to see that\u00a0again.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Kevin Derksen, a 2007 CMU graduate serves as pastor at St. Jacobs Mennonite Church (SJMC) in St. Jacobs, ON. He was on the CMU\u00a0campus from November 2 to 6 as\u00a0CMU\u2019s Pastor-in-Residence, a program designed to encourage out-of-province pastors to live in residence and participate in the life of the CMU community. Derksen’s reflection on his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[156],"tags":[237,59],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5439"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5451,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439\/revisions\/5451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}