Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church (Kitchener, ON) urges MCC to “pivot” and “rebuild trust”
[MAST was copied on a letter from the Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church, shared here with permission. Click here to read the original PDF.]
Full text of letter from Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church
Grace and peace to you in the name of Christ, who calls us to humility, justice, and reconciliation. We write to you as a congregation deeply committed to the mission and witness of the Mennonite Central Committee. Our church has long partnered with MCC, supporting its work in relief, development, and peacebuilding. In this spirit of shared calling and accountability, we feel compelled to address the urgent need for transformative change within MCC, as outlined in the recent recommendations of Jes Stoltzfus Buller in her Report, “Opportunities and Challenges of Listening”.
Mennonite Central Committee’s vision of “communities worldwide in right relationship with God, one another and creation,” is front and centre to its view of itself and its purpose in the world. With the public story-telling about experiences of abuse by at least 61 former workers (as of May 2025) reported to MAST (MCC Abuse Survivor’s Together), a petition signed by 1585 people as of June 2025, and the experiences of harm by members of our congregation, we note that many relationships have tragically been broken.
Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church encourages MCC to turn its vision of Restorative Justice on itself and work to repair these harms and the resulting deep pain. MCC has over 100 years of service around the world with over 10,000 workers (“Committed to learning, growing and changing,” p.1) doing grace-filled and generous work. MCC can continue in that spirit if they honestly, transparently, and humbly address the concerns raised by many.
In early 2025, MCC hired Jes Stoltzfus Buller as an “independent contractor… to discern how the organization might listen to and learn from individuals who experienced workplace harm while working with MCC. They asked her for a “comprehensive, trauma-informed and scalable process design.” (“Opportunities and Challenges of Listening: A report on stakeholder voices and the feasibility of a listening space for Mennonite Central Committee,” May 29, 2025).
We at Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church fully endorse Buller’s report. We see it as a call for MCC to address the urgent need for transformative change within itself. We endorse all of the recommendations in the report summarized in the executive summary.
We would emphasize the need for MCC to immediately “Stop and pivot,” even as they thoughtfully plan next steps. This means moving away from self-protection and outcome management in its public communication, and instead adopting a stance of curiosity, humility, and openness. It requires a public acknowledgment of harm, a recognition of lingering pain, and a willingness to listen without controlling the narrative, or apologizing with caveats or in a generic manner. As the report states, “the current posture—marked by defensiveness and guarded communication—stands in the way of authentic engagement and reconciliation.”
Second, the report notes that trust has fallen. To foster trust, MCC must be transparent about potential outcomes, including heartfelt public apologies, training, accountability measures, and policy changes. A publicly available final report at the culmination of the process should summarize feedback and outline MCC's commitments with a follow-up and monitoring plan. There must be a commitment to transparency throughout the process and beyond.
As an example of the kind of transparency and accountability we hope to see, we point to the public response of Mercy Corps to allegations of sexual abuse by one of its co-founders. Mercy Corps commissioned independent, external investigations, published the findings and recommendations in full, and made public commitments to action, including restructuring governance and safeguarding functions. They provided annual updates, published all reports in multiple languages, and detailed how each commitment was fulfilled. Even when the findings were deeply troubling, Mercy Corps communicated openly with stakeholders and the public, modeling a survivor-centered approach and a willingness to be held accountable. This level of transparency, including ongoing public reporting and clear communication about policy changes, helped rebuild trust and demonstrated a genuine commitment to change.
Third, we would like to highlight the importance of third-party management and oversight of the process. The process should first be designed to serve victims which not only involves third-party leadership of the process, but also a commitment to change without preconditions.
Some of MCC’s recent communication indicates that it is putting more restorative practices into place in its HR policies. We strongly encourage MCC to make these changes transparent to the public: What changes have been made and how are they being implemented? It is not clear to us why MCC’s HR policies must be held away from public view. Rather, a platform where they can be accessed would indicate that MCC has nothing to hide in the way it treats its workers.
As a Mennonite church, we are committed to walking this journey with you. We urge you to embrace the call to stop and pivot, to go all in, to move at the speed of trust, to seize this moment, and to increase your reach. These are not merely recommendations—they are invitations to live more fully into our shared values of humility, justice, and reconciliation. MCC can embrace this moment as a sacred opportunity for renewal.
We pray that MCC will have the courage to lament, to listen, and to be transformed.
We stand ready to support you in this sacred work.
Sincerely, Brenda Davis, Church Council Chair
Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church
If your congregation is looking for a way forward, check out these suggestions for congregational engagement by Joanna Harader, an MC USA pastor. Check out statistics about cases of abuse known to MAST on our home page at https://www.mccabusesurvivors.org/. Consider joining our teal ribbon campaign. Review our list of possible additional actions at https://www.mccabusesurvivors.org/get-involved.