How We Work

Vision: Healing and Hope

This statement, Vision: Healing and Hope,** declares our understanding of who God wants us to be. We commit ourselves to working toward it.

We believe that the whole congregation is responsible to discern God's will and to hold one another accountable as we seek, individually and corporately, to be faithful to God's will. Persons who are called to leadership responsibility must solicit and heed the wisdom and counsel of the whole congregation in discerning the voice of God's Spirit. Information and conversations should flow freely in all directions, for while the Spirit may speak through any member, perceptions of God's will must be tested by others. Discernment is clear only when it happens in an atmosphere of mutual respect, trust and openness to all voices in the congregation. A fuller discussion of how we discern God's leading is outlined in the congregational paper entitled, "Congregational Decision-making."

All people in the church are called to minister to one another and to the community outside the church. To help them fulfil this task, congregations call persons and appoint them to particular leadership roles as servants of the congregation. There is mutual accountability between leaders and the congregation. The following pages describe how we have organized ourselves to respond to God's call, and set out the relationships and responsibilities of various components within the body of the congregation.

As our understanding of God's intention continues to unfold and circumstances change, it is understood that continuous adjustments will need to be made and the entire model here described will need to be reconsidered within five years.

A congregation does not exist alone. Waterloo North Mennonite Church (WNMC) is a partner with other congregations in the Mennonite Conference of Eastern Canada (MCEC) and the Conference of Mennonites in Canada. Through MCEC, WNMC is a member of the Mennonite Church; it is also an associate member of the General Conference Mennonite Church.

Click on the Position to see a Job Description

**Adopted by the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church, with attached priorities, at Wichita, Kansas, July, 1995 as a denominational vision for the next decade.