Image: Members of WMF at the 2025 Windsor Pride Parade (photo by Kamryn Cusumano)
Welcoming & Inclusion Statement
(Developed by the WMF Tapestry Committee, and unanimously approved February 5th 2023 at Windsor Mennonite Fellowship’s Annual Meeting Sunday)
“Windsor Mennonite Fellowship is an intergenerational community of Christian believers rooted in the Anabaptist Peace Church tradition. We welcome everyone to full participation, inclusion and membership recognizing that everyone is created in the image of God, inclusive of cultural and ethnic background, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, ability, and other gifts which we share in community.
We confess that the Mennonite Church, including our congregation, has been part of the historic and ongoing exclusion and rejection of LGBTQIA+ persons, families, and communities. Churches have wielded theological rationale and social power in ways that cause suffering, division, and harm. All too often, they have failed to take a courageous stance to love, support, and embrace gender and sexual minorities. We confess this as a form of violence and neglect of our responsibilities as followers of Jesus. We strive to be a safe place for all and encourage all to engage in the ministries and practices of the congregation such as worship, baptism, membership, leadership, marriage, and service.
We are a community that values and respects the tapestry of perspectives and voices among us. We seek to be listeners and humble learners from one another, believing the Holy Spirit is present and at work in us all. Based on the study of Scripture and the teachings of Jesus, we are compelled by the love of God to give freedom and space for all people to fully share and participate in the life of our faith community.”
*Variance on the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective.
Windsor Mennonite Fellowship participants generally accept the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective (Scottdale, PA and Waterloo, ON: Herald Press, 1995), but add some qualifying updates in regard to Article 19.
WMF has prayerfully discerned and chosen to join other MC Canada congregations in amending Article 19 to better reflect our position of LGBTQIA+ inclusion. As written, Article 19, “Family, Singleness, and Marriage,” of the Confession does not reflect the theology and practices of our local church concerning the welcoming and inclusion of all persons. We believe that God intends marriage to be a covenant between two persons for life.
https://www.mennonitechurch.ca/about/confession-of-faith
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WMF is grateful to partner with In This Together: https://inthistogethernetwork.ca/