The editors of The Recorder (Evangelical Mennonite Mission Conference), The Chronicle (Chortitzer Mennonite Conference), and The Messenger (Evangelical Mennonite Conference) cooperated to produce a one-time joint publication titled Celebration.

“Through working together, we have strengthened our skills and developed closer friendships,” says Lil Goertzen, editor of The Recorder.

In the opening editorial, Terry Smith, senior editor of The Messenger, said this “special publication…seek[s] to highlight ways in which we three smaller Mennonite conferences work together and how, whether formally or informally, we depend on each other and draw upon common resources in Christ.”

Published in November 2004, Celebration provided many examples of how the conferences work together, including Steinbach Bible College, mission work in Paraguay, Mexico and Africa, Evangelical Anabaptist Seminary Program, and a Tri-Conference church plant in the north end of Winnipeg, Man. A brief write-up on the back page spoke of a Tri-Conference Convention held in July 1994, the first and, so far, only time the conferences have gathered in such a way.

The editors met several times to determine the direction and timing of the publication. The first meeting was in September 2003, and a theme was chosen at the next meeting in October—Reformation and a call to biblical literacy.

What have the editors learned from this experience? Debbie Funk, assistant editor of The Chronicle, says, “Sometimes I feel like a real rookie in my position…. One of the highlights for me has been getting to know editors of other publications and discovering they are not so different from me. Working on the Tri-Conference publication not only taught me a lot of how others put together their publications, but it also made me realize that each one of us had our own gifts that we shared to make the publication work.”—Becky Buhler for Meetinghouse