Evangelical Mennonite Conference

The Evangelical Mennonite Conference is a Canadian Mennonite body of evangelical Christians with 62 churches from British Columbia to southern Ontario. It includes people with a wide range of cultural and denominational backgrounds.

The churches of the Evangelical Mennonite Conference are located in five west-central Canadian provinces from British Columbia to Ontario. In 2012 there were over 7,200 members in 62 churches, with roughly 150 ministers serving the churches. The congregations are organized into nine regions. Mission work is established in 25 countries, often working in formal mission partnerships with evangelical interdenominational or Anabaptist organizations.

The EMC has five national boards with wide ranging responsibilities. It, however, is ultimately governed by its churches together, whose delegates are to attend conference council meetings twice a year and whose ministerial members are to meet nationally twice a year (including on retreat).

The EMC archives, offices, and its Steinbach Christian High School and Steinbach Bible College are located in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada. The EMC is linked to the graduate-level School of Ministry and Theology connected with Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Man.

The Messenger, an official publication of the conference, is printed 12 times per year and available on-line. Theodidaktos, Journal for EMC theology and education is published once or twice a year and available on-line. The conference also occasionally publishes a Christian Education Update. In 2006 it published Follow Me, a Sunday School resource on biblical social justice. The conference has also published preaching helps and produced CDs booklets on Peace Sermons (2011, 2008, 2007).

In the 1940s an evangelical revival in the EMC was led by Rev. Ben D. Reimer and others. The defining mark of the EMC in recent years has been its missions emphasis. Currently, more half of the Conference's national budget goes to missions. Church planting within Canada is a concern that is reflected within the national budget.

There is a growing emphasis on holistic ministry, not simply on multiplying churches, but on churches reflecting more of Jesus' calling Christians to "obey everything that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:20). This is seen as, in part, a return to the holistic emphasis of Menno Simons, the early Dutch leader, that "true evangelical faith...cannot lie dormant, but manifests itself in all righteousness and works of love" (The Complete Writings of Menno Simons, 307).

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