Seeking to Be “A Flourishing Community of Congregations, Grounded in God’s Love”

This is the fourth in a series of reflections from Executive Minister Michael Pahl on our new MCM Vision & Mission Statement, approved at our 2026 Gathering.

In the Gospel of John’s telling of the Last Supper, Jesus spent a good bit of time talking with his disciples about his impending departure and the coming, comforting Spirit. In the middle of this conversation, Jesus painted a picture for his disciples using a familiar metaphor from the Scriptures: God’s people as a vineyard, with God as the vine grower.

In Jesus’ use of the metaphor, found in John 15:1-17, God the Father is the vine grower, Jesus the Son is the vine, and we, Jesus’ followers, are the branches growing from the vine and bearing the fruit of love.

Fruitfulness is indeed the goal: every branch will be pruned to bear more fruit, and those who do not bear this fruit, Jesus warns, will be cut off and burned up. And the fruit God desires is indeed love, flowing from God through us: God the Father loves Jesus and Jesus abides in God’s love, Jesus loves us and we abide in Jesus’ love, and in doing so we bear the fruit of love, fulfilling Jesus’ commandment to love one another.

This image from John 15 is behind the opening statement in the Vision portion of MCM’s new Vision and Mission Statement: “Mennonite Church Manitoba seeks to be a flourishing community of worshiping, learning, and serving congregations grounded in the faithful love of our Creator.”

“Flourishing”—healthy, vigorous, thriving—calls to mind a vine with fruitful branches, laden with grapes plump and delicious. And, to follow Jesus’ metaphor, this isn’t about numbers—a flourishing congregation isn’t measured primarily by attendance or size of budget, and a flourishing regional church isn’t measured by the number of congregations in its fold. This fruitfulness is about love: growing in love in the way of Jesus, following his example of foot-washing servant love, giving oneself for the good of others, so that they, too, might flourish in love.

How do we become this flourishing community of flourishing congregations in which people can flourish? Ultimately, by grounding ourselves in God’s love—or, as Jesus puts it, abiding in his love as he abides in the Father’s love.

This is a mystical union, to be sure. There’s a personal experience of Christ’s love that’s necessary in this “abiding,” both individually and communally. But in the New Testament love is never merely mystical, never solely spiritual; it is also embodied in practical action. We abide in Christ’s love as we experience the concrete acts of love given and received within the community of Jesus-followers and out in the world.

And so we are “grounded in the faithful love of our Creator,” becoming a “flourishing community of [flourishing] congregations,” through our “worshiping, learning, and serving.” This is where the “pruning” so often happens, and this is where the life-giving sap of God’s love in Christ so often flows through to us: as we gather together in worship of our loving and faithful Creator, as we come together to learn and grow in our faith through the Spirit, and as we serve one another and those around us in the love of Jesus.

I love that this image of the church is an organic one. Ultimately, the church is not an organization, but more of an organism. We are the living body of Christ in the world, to use the Apostle Paul’s imagery. And living organisms have a tremendous capacity to change, to adapt, to survive and even thrive in all kinds of environments. There’s also something beautifully messy about living organisms—and that’s certainly true of the church, as well. The church can’t be confined to or defined by its organization and structures. These will change, but Christ will continue to build his church.

Nevertheless, this organization and these structures are important for the church to flourish—much like a trellis supports a vine and enables it to be more fruitful. The trellis is not the vine; the organization and structure is not the church. But these are needed for the church—whether an individual congregation or a regional or nationwide church—to fully flourish, to superabundantly bear the fruit of love in the world.

May your congregation, and our community of congregations, ground ourselves in the love of our Creator revealed in Jesus. May we be pruned and nourished through our worship, our learning, and our service. May our organization and structures support us and not constrict us. And may all this result in our flourishing in love for one another, our neighbours, our enemies—for all people and all God’s creation.