Fall 1997 · Vol. 26 No. 2 · pp. 13–25
J. B. as Educator
Through the multifaceted ministries of J. B. Toews, God has blessed both the Mennonite Brethren and the larger Evangelical church.
J. B. has served as a mentor, pastor, conference leader, historian, and prophet. But history may well bear out that his greatest contribution has been as an educator. I believe that most who picture J. B. see him in front of a classroom. His preaching and teaching carry a ring of authority, in part because of personality and a persuasive style, but primarily because his Christ-centered message was rooted in the Scripture and addressed current issues. His ability to interpret history, assess cultural trends, articulate an Anabaptist theology and focus the church in mission, and then to integrate these themes around a biblical theology, was his greatest contribution to a people in constant transition.
The sixty-year contribution of J. B. as educator among Mennonite Brethren can best be understood by reflecting on two overarching themes: his legacy as an educational leader and his core values as an educator.
J. B.’S EDUCATIONAL PILGRIMAGE
Teaching is a spiritual gift of J. B., but it is also part of the Toews’ gene pool (his father was a teacher) and priority of values. During his early years in Russia, J. B. finished high school in Alexanderthal at age sixteen. He attended university at Gnadenfeld (1922-1926) with the intention of becoming a medical doctor. However, in 1926 he left school in his final year after a classroom confrontation with an atheistic professor. {14} This confrontation eventually led to J. B.’s arrest for spreading counter-revolutionary propaganda on campus. During a subsequent eighteen-month interlude in Holland, while en route from Russia to Canada, J. B. also attended the Volks University of Amsterdam. 1
As a new immigrant to North America, J. B. continued to pursue educational goals. Two years after arriving in Canada, he attended Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas, from 1930-1932. In the fall of 1938, J. B. enrolled in Western Conservative Baptist Seminary in Portland, Oregon, and graduated with a Master’s degree in Theology in 1941. That summer he began studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, toward a doctor of theology degree. J. B. was one course short of completing that degree when, at the counsel of Mennonite Brethren leaders, he terminated his studies. The decision was not easy, but the warning was clear: You will not be accepted in the brotherhood if you continue to pursue a doctoral degree in theology. You will lose your simple faith in the Gospel. 2 In 1944, no other Mennonite Brethren leader in North America had attained that level of theological education.
Much of J. B.’s public ministry was invested in educational institutions. The case can even be made that his three brief pastorates (Hepburn, Saskatchewan, 1937-1938; Buhler, Kansas, 1942-1945; and Reedley, California, 1949-1954), and his decade as Executive Secretary of the MB Board of Missions (1954-1963) were marked most by his strong biblical/theological teaching ministry. More than half of J. B.’s sixty years of public ministry have been in teaching/administrative positions in four different institutions. In 1932, J. B. accepted a teaching position at Bethany Bible Institute, Hepburn. After two years he became president, at age twenty-eight, and served for three more years (1934-1937). In 1940, he took a two-year teaching assignment in Bible at Freeman College in South Dakota. From 1945 to 1948, J. B. pioneered the establishment of a new Mennonite Brethren Bible College (now Concord College) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, serving as president.
J. B. responded to a call in 1963 from the U.S. Board of Education to become a faculty member of Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary (MBBS), Fresno, California. One year later he was appointed President. He served in this capacity until his retirement in 1972, always insisting on a half-time teaching load to “remain closely involved with the academic program and the student body.” 3 From 1972-1982 J. B. served as Executive Secretary of the Historical Commission where he concentrated his efforts on establishing The Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, an archival and historical research resource of the seminary, in addition to continued part-time teaching. His interest, commitment, {15} and prayer investment in leadership training at the seminary remains strong to the present.
The sixty-year contribution of J. B. as educator among Mennonite Brethren can best be understood by reflecting on two overarching themes: his legacy as an educational leader and his core values as an educator.
AN EDUCATIONAL LEADER
Since 1969, my life has overlapped with J. B.’s in the seminary context. My three years as a seminary student were his last three as President. In 1969 there were seventy students and eight professors (J. B. Toews, George Konrad, A. J. Klassen, Orlando Wiebe, Paul Hiebert, Dwight Acomb, Waldo Hiebert, and Elmer Martens). J. B. was one of my professors, and my two years as student body president and representative to the Board brought increased personal contact with him as administrator.
As a teacher, J. B. was a good storyteller. His lectures were well organized, precise, informative, motivational, laced with practical application and always delivered with passion. He was demanding in his class assignments and constantly urged students to buy and read more books, e.g., “If you have to sacrifice a meal to buy this book, do it,” or “You can read this book in a few hours, it is only a pamphlet of a hundred pages.”
He also found ways to be creative in afternoon classes when students were drowsy. One day he was annoyed with a student sleeping in class and stated publicly, “If I had a water pistol, I would wake him up.” Several classes later, a fellow student had placed a water pistol beside the podium. When the sleeping scenario repeated itself, J. B. carried out his threat. For never having served in the military, his aim was perfect. The student was awake, and J. B.’s only surprised, half-apologetic comment was, “I didn’t know it was loaded.”
Indelibly imprinted upon the minds of his students, even beyond the content of his lectures, was the person behind the lectures. Who he was and what he represented as a person reflected: commitment to Christ; responsiveness to God’s call; serious discipleship; a spirit of sacrificial service; insistence on the Bible as the ultimate authority; and passion for the church and its mission. For me, four of J. B.’s core values stand out: biblical theology, servant leadership, an historical frame of reference, and the church in mission.
A BIBLICAL THEOLOGY
Choices and timing are two important factors that shape individuals, movements, and the course of history. J. B.’s choice to pursue theology {16} in his post-secondary education significantly influenced him as an educator and leader. The timing for him to rise as a theological leader from within the Mennonite Brethren ranks could not have been better. The church was moving from an agrarian, rural, and homogeneous context, usually featuring a lay preacher, toward an industrialized, urban, vocationally/culturally diverse context featuring professionalized ministry. The times demanded a move from implicit to explicit theology, and J. B. was uniquely prepared, called, and gifted for that task.
Three themes characterize J. B.’s biblical teaching. First, it consistently featured a theocentric rather than an anthropocentric starting point in a biblical theology. He begins his autobiography with the title, “In the beginning,” citing Genesis 1:1, John 1:1-5, and Psalm 22 in acknowledgement of God as the beginning and the end, the first and the last. 4 His class lectures, regardless of the subject, began with the bigger theological questions, “Who?” “What?” and “Why?” rather than the pragmatic questions of “How?” or “When?” Salvation, in J. B.’s theology, did not begin with humanity’s lostness, but rather with an eternal and gracious God who initiated redemption. He sent his son as Lord and Savior to redeem us from sin and self-centeredness, and to restore broken relationships, vertically and horizontally, through repentance and faith (John 3:16; 2 Cor. 5:14).
Thus, conversion was not a ticket to heaven, first and foremost, but was a restored relationship with God and a reordered life in relation to others. And the motivating force in global mission, according to J. B., did not begin with the human predicament, or with the Matthew 28:19-20 mandate to go into all the world and preach the gospel, but with Matthew 28:18, a submission to Christ’s lordship, to whom all authority and power had been given in heaven and on earth. Evangelism had less to do with the “How?” of methods and strategies, but more with an intimate relationship to the “Who?”—Jesus Christ who said, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19).
A second major theme of J. B.’s theological framework was a biblical foundation. For J. B. the issues of the authority of God and the Bible were settled on a personal level during his studies in Amsterdam as he wrestled with questions relating to atheism, which denied the supernatural, and rationalism, which rejected all claims of certainty and limited reality to the intellect. In a midnight crisis experience at the monument of William of Orange, he found his answer in a search for the absolute. In an open Bible, the words of Psalm 119:89 were highlighted by a spotlight: “Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations; thou hast established the earth and it abideth.” {17} 5 For J. B., “What does the Bible say?” became pivotal in his teaching/preaching ministry. God’s Word applied to all areas of life: personal and communal; private and corporate. In his teaching career and public ministry he never became embroiled in the inerrancy debate; because the authority of the Bible was a given, the message need only be proclaimed.
A significant turning point for J. B. also came at age thirty-four during his studies at the Conservative Baptist Seminary in Portland. He was committed to be not only Evangelical, but Anabaptist in his theology. 6 When it came to understanding, interpreting, and applying the Bible to life issues, J. B. believed the principle of a “community hermeneutic” had precedence over individual interpretation. For J. B. and Mennonite Brethren, Acts 15 became the model. It was his conviction that the final application of scriptural truth emerged from the fellowship of the redeemed community as they gathered to study the Word and depended on the illumination of the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:28).
As a result, a third major theme of J. B.’s biblical theology focused on the nature of the church. Few teachers on the book of Acts have been more helpful than J. B. in articulating the biblical principles of a New Testament church. For J. B. the issue of congregational structure, or ecclesiology, was inseparable from the new birth. New creatures form a new kind of body, a body composed of only those who share the same spiritual birthright. The church, the body of Christ, is not a mere organization or an association but an interdependent fellowship, a community of inter-responsibility and discipline, a covenant community (1 Cor. 12). Every member is to be concerned about the welfare of fellow members. Through teaching, encouragement, counseling, discipling, and through rebuke where necessary, the church promotes constructive discipline.
It was expected that the lifestyles, ethics, and values of believing members of Christ’s body would be different from the rest of the world. The church was called to be “salt” and “light.” J. B. taught that the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) was the biblical standard of ethics in terms of expressing love, forgiveness, self-surrender, and even love for enemies. For Mennonite Brethren the issue of consistency in life in following Jesus was often a greater concern than discussing doctrinal issues. 7
A SERVANT-LEADER AND MENTOR
The second of J. B.’s four core values specifically concerns leadership. Robert K. Greenleaf first coined the term “servant-leadership” in his seminal 1969 essay, “The Servant as Leader.” 8 He similarly writes elsewhere,
Leadership was bestowed on a man who was by nature a servant. It was something given, or assumed, that could be {18} taken away. His servant nature was the real man, not bestowed, not assumed and not taken away. He was servant first. 9
Greenleaf believed that more servants should emerge as leaders and that they should follow only servant leaders. He developed two extreme types, “leader-first” and “servant-first.” The difference, he suggested, is the care taken by the servant to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. For Greenleaf the best test of a servant-leader was, “Do those served grow as persons?” and “While being served, are they more likely themselves to become servants?”
Greenleaf’s term “servant-leader” aptly describes J. B.’s philosophy of ministry, educational style, and life of service. His entry in ministry came in the context of a plurality of leadership, discerned from within the church, to serve the church. His philosophy of leadership is most clearly articulated in Chapter 16 of his recent history book under the question, “How Shall We Then Be Led?” 10 In addressing current leadership concerns, he appeals to the servanthood leadership model of Jesus and Peter (1 Pet. 5:2-3). Seven times in the Gospels Jesus emphasized, “He who is greatest among you shall be servant” (Matt. 20:27-28; 23:11; Mark 9:35; 10:43-44; Luke 9:48; 22:26-27; John 13:14).
But in his critique of the single-pastor model, the pastor as CEO, and the inadequacies of centralized autocratic leadership in current Mennonite Brethren churches, J. B. also appeals to Robert K. Greenleaf’s “Servant Leadership” as the most effective style in the corporate world. He muses about why top-down leadership is being rejected in business, but is so readily accepted in the church. While J. B. acknowledges that the functional structure of leadership would vary according to gifts and cultural context, the posture always remains that of a servant. His response to the church leadership crisis was to rebuild the shepherding ministry as the primary assignment. He states, “What is urgently needed is leadership identified with the flock, rooted in the fellowship of the flock, and trusted by the flock to guide them in a path that is consistent with biblical principles.” 11
On a personal note, I am one of many students and pastors who experienced J. B.’s servant-leadership and mentoring. When our family arrived in Fresno in 1969, after five years of pastoring in the Midwest, it was J. B. who welcomed and invited us to their home for dinner. At seminary, faculty and student prayer meetings occurred regularly with
J. B.’s support. Because I struggled with shallowness in my personal prayer life during my seminary experience, I asked J. B. to be my mentor. That weekly hour of prayer together for almost a year has imprinted {19} my life. I learned much about prayer, faith, intercession, and dependence from J. B.’s prayers.
Knowing my interest and commitment to evangelism, it was J. B. who approached me during my second year of studies about anchoring an evangelistic and church renewal constituency ministry in the seminary under joint sponsorship with the U.S. Conference Board of Evangelism. I have not forgotten the Raisin City, California, crusade where J. B. appeared one evening, unannounced, tape recorder in hand. The following week he initiated a breakfast to discuss my sermon. He affirmed some strengths, but the longer conversation was in the category of urgent areas for improvement. I accepted his counsel because I knew his concern was to help me become more effective in ministry.
In my final year of seminary, it was J. B. who drew me into his evangelism class to lecture in his absence. He also opened the door for me to teach the evangelism class at MBBS after I graduated. Most seminary graduates who had him as a teacher/administrator have similar “J. B. stories” about how he impacted their lives through informal contacts, servant-leader modeling, personal interest, counsel, and interaction. This was true both inside and outside of the classroom.
AN HISTORICAL FRAME OF REFERENCE
Every faculty member sooner or later becomes known by certain “pet phrases.” J. B. was no exception. His “historical frame of reference,” a third core value, found its way into most lectures. It was the “question behind the question” in personal introductions and conversations when he would ask, “Who are your parents?” or “What is your family background?” Students knew his oft-repeated line, “A church that forgets the past cannot understand the present and lacks direction for the future.” J. B. was an historian whose concern was to “take from the past the fire, not the ashes.” He cultivated a sense of history because the ideas and events that shaped the present came out of the past.
After all, the Bible is an historical book of God’s revelation and relationship to humanity. Faith is based on actual historical events, as God worked through a chosen people, and decisively broke into history to redeem them. Christianity is an historical religion. J. B.’s grounding in biblical theology causes him to lament that the current generation tends to distance itself from the lessons of history and to seek inspiration from slogans for the future. He writes, “Biblical history is different. The people of God, future-orientated as they are, ‘remember the works of the Lord’ (Ps. 77:11) to equip them for the challenges of the present and the hope for the future.” {20} 12
“An historical frame of reference” for J. B. was a major key in understanding revival movements, denominational identity, conversions, and church growth. It was likewise a means of preventing the church from becoming theologically shallow, spiritually weak, myopic in perspective, and married to its culture.
J. B.’s “historical frame of reference” has also reached far beyond his classroom lectures in two specific ways. His monumental ten-year work of establishing the Mennonite Brethren archives and an historical research center is a major contribution to denominational history and identity. Secondly, his conviction that “a church without the past will soon be a church without a future” also motivated a publication focus during his retirement years. In 1978, the English translation of P. M. Friesen’s, The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia: 1789-1910, was published. In the same year, he released his book, The Mennonite Brethren Church in Zaire. These publications, along with J. B.’s numerous periodical articles and his two most recent volumes, A Pilgrimage of Faith: The Mennonite Brethren Church in Russia and North America 1860-1990 (1993), and J B: The Autobiography of a Twentieth-Century Mennonite Pilgrim (1995), are important contributions to the history, identity, self-understanding, and future direction of Mennonite Brethren.
THE CHURCH IN MISSION
A final core value for J. B. concerned the nature of the church. In describing Mennonite Brethren, he often quoted the words of Emil Brunner, “The church exists by mission as fire exists by burning.” The Mennonite Brethren Church was born in the fire of mission and was characterized by evangelistic zeal. J. B. makes the point that early Mennonite Brethren missionary outreach was spontaneous, without an explicit theology of mission. It was motivated by two basic biblical truths: people were lost and needed to hear the Gospel, and it was the task of followers of Christ to make known God’s salvation.
J. B.’s commitment to Anabaptism was influenced not only by its bibliocentrism, but by the fact that it became a dynamic missionary movement. Along with other historians, J. B. pointed to the Anabaptists as the “real reformers” because they best recaptured the missionary nature of the first-century church. His lectures on Acts made it clear that the purpose and strategy of evangelism were inextricably woven with the mission and character of the local church.
J. B.’s commitment to the church in mission influenced the larger church and educational institutions in several specific ways. First, his mission perspective was holistic and multidimensional. He moved mission {21} theology beyond the typical dichotomies of the mid-century, Evangelical debates. For J. B., the question was not “either/or”—evangelism or social action; demonstration or proclamation; ministry to the spiritual or physical needs; welfare or mission—but “both/and.”
On yet another level it was not mission or education, church planting versus leadership training, but again “both/and.” Mission, according to
J. B., should never be training followers without developing leaders or producing sheep without “calling out” shepherds. In his critique of leadership development in current MB churches, he writes, “It is ironic that amid the strong emphasis on evangelism and church growth throughout the Mennonite Brethren conference, there is also an apparent sterility that prevents men and women from being called forward to the leadership ministries that are basic to healthy growth and maturing the believing community.” 13
Secondly, as a gifted public communicator, his mission message received wide acceptance among Mennonite Brethren and the broader church. Few MB leaders have had a wider hearing than J. B. His Bible and mission conference ministries included: all Mennonite Brethren post-secondary institutions plus many of our churches; Back to the Bible Broadcast; Prairie Bible Institute; Grace Bible Institute; Mennonite World Conference; and international audiences too numerous to mention. In mission theology, J. B. was ahead of his time in terms of direction, methods, structure, and strategies.
J. B.’S ROLE IN MB EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
As a mission executive and at the three MB educational institutions he served, J. B. provided leadership by articulating a clear direction and by courageously navigating the needed changes. At Bethany Bible Institute his vision was to offer young people (age sixteen and older) a two-year basic training in Bible; to provide an additional two years of advanced studies for older students preparing for church or mission ministry; to develop support from the constituency by ministering in the churches; and to bring unity and cohesiveness to faculty that were diverse in theology and personality styles. The school grew under his leadership and experienced strong constituency support.
His call to the newly established Mennonite Brethren Bible College in 1944 again called for visionary and courageous leadership. For Canadians this new college was to train ministers, teachers, missionaries, and other Christian workers at a level beyond what Bible schools could offer. This required careful negotiation and coordination with institutions and leaders. J. B. arrived at the college two months before the start of its {22} second year. What he found was a college with no catalog, no three-year curriculum plan that would take students beyond the Bible school level, no library, no student housing facilities, a preliminary list of prospective students, and one full-time faculty member.
The needs were clear to J. B.: project a study curriculum, write a draft of the catalog, set policy for the new college, recruit additional full-time faculty, promote the college in the churches, and upgrade the facilities. When the college opened on October 1, 1945, there were seventy-five day students, twenty-three evening students, and thirty-eight Sunday school teachers enrolled in special Christian education classes. Five full-time and three part-time faculty were in place.
J. B.’s visionary leadership was strategic in several ways. All of the full-time faculty appointments were trusted church leaders. Several were less qualified academically but were gifted in expository preaching and constituency ministries (A. H. Unruh and H. H. Janzen), while others had stronger academic background (J. H. Quiring and R. M. Baerg). Additional important factors were J. B.’s own teaching and constituency ministries, plus his ability to negotiate with leaders of the Bible schools to gain support for the new college.
THE MB SEMINARY
J. B. initially accepted the seminary’s invitation to teach mission and theology on the condition that he not be involved administratively. 14 What drew J. B. into the presidency was his vision for the development of a joint Canadian/U.S. seminary that was Anabaptist in theology and could help shape a more specific Mennonite Brethren identity. He outlined three conditions to the board in accepting the position: “First, to redefine the seminary’s identity as an institution committed to an Anabaptist approach to the interpretation of scripture and to the life and character of the church. Second, to upgrade the faculty and other academic resources to meet the demands of a graduate-level academic program. Third, to develop the campus to provide adequate facilities for a graduate institution with the prospect that it could become the permanent location of a joint seminary with Canada.” 15
This represented radical change in an institution whose first ten years had been oriented toward an Evangelical, Dispensational theology. The 1964 Statement of Purpose, drafted by J. B., called for a graduate level theological education committed to a bibliocentric curriculum, an experiential faith, an Anabaptist concept of a disciplined church, and a New Testament understanding of mission and evangelism. The name was changed to Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary to identify the {23} core character of the institution. The curriculum changed to include a required course in Anabaptist history and theology. New faculty appointees were committed to an Anabaptist theology, being members of a Mennonite Brethren Church, and were academically qualified in a particular discipline. Campus development included classroom renovations and new construction of ten student apartments, a prayer chapel, and an office/classroom facility.
The seminary attained associate membership with the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) in 1969 and full academic accreditation with the Western Association of Schools in 1972. In 1973 the seminary received full academic accreditation with ATS. By 1972, when J. B. resigned from the Presidency, the process for a joint U.S./Canadian seminary was in the final proposal stages, although not finalized. He felt his task had been completed. He had, in fact, reshaped an institution and, with it, future Mennonite Brethren leadership training.
J. B.’S LEGACY: MENNONITE BRETHREN IDENTITY
J. B.’s leadership as educator came at a time in history described by Life magazine as “an era of breakneck changes” (1936-1986). This era, as J. B. quotes in the preface to his autobiography, was
the most troubling, unsettling, costly, adventurous and surprising time ever. More has changed and faster, more has been destroyed, more accomplished than in any comparable interval in five thousand years since recorded history. 16
Much was also changing in the Mennonite Brethren Church during this time. The additional internal transitions for an immigrant people must have felt like a tidal wave. They experienced transitions from: Russia to North America; cultural isolation to exposure and accommodation; German to English; rural to urban; ethnic and vocational homogeneity to diversity and heterogeneity; lay preachers to professional pastors; educational isolation to public institutions; agrarian work to the professions; clear religious boundaries to shifting values; poverty to affluence; and political disengagement to participation.
J. B. not only lived through all of these transitions, but his educational leadership played a major role in that process. As we reflect upon the leadership style he modeled, the core values he taught, and his particular contributions to three MB educational institutions, it is also significant to note the ways in which he shaped Mennonite Brethren identity as a whole. No one has addressed the issue of Mennonite Brethren identity with greater frequency and clarity.
Our identity crisis is linked to cultural transition and accommodation, {24} and a failure to articulate a theology of change in an era of cultural upheaval. And yet, J. B.’s strongest critique is leveled not at the culture, but at denominational institutions and leaders. His critique focuses on, first, our implicit theology, reaction to creedalism, and failure to articulate our history and beliefs in writing, which made us vulnerable in a new culture.
Second, our Bible school, college, and seminary teachers in earlier years were trained in Fundamentalist, Dispensationalist, Evangelical schools. We imported their theological and educational models and textbooks into our denominational institutions. Third, and most important, Mennonite Brethren schools in their earlier years made little or no effort to provide in their curriculum any systematic study of the historical and theological distinctives of the Mennonite Brethren. Commitment to an historic Anabaptist faith has been peripheral in many areas of our conference. 17
Over the years J. B. has dared to ask not only the hard questions, but the right questions about Mennonite Brethren identity: “Who are we?” “What makes us different from North American Evangelicalism?” “Has our lack of New Testament (Anabaptist) ecclesiology clouded our selfunderstanding?” “Have Pietism and conservative Evangelicalism left us with a gospel that does not impact our neighbors?” 18 J. B.’s denominational identity questions are haunting, not only for today, but for succeeding generations.
CONCLUSION: A PERSONAL POSTSCRIPT
J. B.’s legacy as servant-leader and educator among twentieth-century Mennonite Brethren will continue to shape this movement far beyond his life span. At age ninety-one, J. B. is weak in body, but strong in spirit. He is concerned about leadership training and the denomination’s future. When I visited him in the hospital on my return from the Waterloo ’97 convention last July, he asked for a report on the discussion and decisions concerning the future of the North American conference. On January 4, 1998, my phone rang. It was J. B. calling to express his ongoing support, through intercessory prayer, for my leadership and for the seminary in the new year.
The words of Hebrews 13:7 came to mind: “Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.” When he has gone to his eternal home, J. B. will always be remembered with gratitude by those of us who had the privilege of knowing him. {25}
NOTES
- J. B. Toews, J B: The Autobiography of a Twentieth-Century Mennonite Pilgrim (Fresno, CA: Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1995), 8-9, 34-51.
- Ibid., 123-24.
- Ibid., 176.
- Ibid., 1.
- Ibid., 48-49.
- Ibid., 108-9.
- J. B. Toews, A Pilgrimage of Faith: The Mennonite Brethren Church in Russia and North America 1860-1990 (Winnipeg, MB and Hillsboro, KS: Kindred, 1993), 202-3.
- Robert K. Greenleaf, “The Servant as Leader,” reprinted in Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness (New York: Paulist, 1977), 7-48.
- Robert K. Greenleaf, “Servant-Leadership,” in Insights on Leadership. Ed. Larry C. Spears (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997), 16.
- Toews, Pilgrimage of Faith, 217-37.
- Ibid., 237.
- Ibid., 1.
- Ibid., 233.
- Toews, J B, 168-70.
- Ibid., 170.
- David McCullough, “Extraordinary Times: Living in an Era of Breakneck Changes,” Life (Fall 1986): 189.
- Toews, J B, 170.
- Toews, Pilgrimage of Faith, 196.
