Alastair McKay

Alastair McKay is one of the British staff members at the London Mennonite Centre (LMC). He currently works four days a week as Director of Bridge Builders, and is studying part-time for a Doctorate of Ministry through Spurgeon’s College. Husband of Sue and father of Eleanor (born 1995) and James (born 1997), he spends less time on hiking than he used to – but given a chance he will gladly don his boots and head for the hills. An avid follower of Leeds United AFC since he was 8 years old, he still shares in their fortunes, good and bad.

Born in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1963, Alastair is of mixed Scottish, English and Irish descent, and as a young boy, he wanted to be an army officer, like his father. Ten years at boarding school proved difficult and painful, and during his teenage years Alastair became an ardent atheist. After leaving school, he spent a period in Australia, where his beliefs were challenged by living with a Roman Catholic family. Their love and Christian faith shone out as they faced the death of one of their young children.

When he was 20, and studying English literature at York, Alastair met some Christian students during a time of personal crisis. Drawn by their love and witness, he started following Jesus for himself. He was particularly shaped by three years at St Michael-le-Belfrey in York and he explored the possibility of ordination, before deciding to train as a teacher.

Teaching proved an unhappy experience, and Alastair moved south to join the civil service in 1988. He worked for nine enjoyable years at the headquarters of the (then) Department of the Environment in various policy jobs, including negotiating agreements on international air pollution, and developing policy on composting!

In 1990, Alastair got engaged to Sue Lee, an architect and artist, who introduced him to the Wood Green Mennonite Church (WGMC) where she was worshipping. Having married into the Mennonites, as it were, Alastair then began to explore the Anabaptist tradition and was challenged and excited by what he discovered, particularly the call to see peacemaking as central to faithful Christian discipleship. Learning about the early Anabaptists with Alan Kreider, Alastair formed his own commitment to following the nonviolent example of Jesus, and joined the Mennonite Church in London. Subsequently Alastair accepted a call to serve as part of WGMC’s leadership team, from 1994 until 1997.

In February 1994, while seeking a clearer vocation, Alastair attended a mediation skills training course led by Ron Kraybill, founder of Mennonite Conciliation Service in the USA, and brother to Nelson Kraybill, then Director of the London Mennonite Centre. This course set Alastair’s imagination afire, and he joined with Nelson and a few others in founding a voluntary community mediation service - the original Bridge Builders - to serve disputing neighbours in the London Borough of Haringey.

However, Nelson and Alastair’s hearts lay in serving the church, and helping to transform the way Christians understand and handle conflict. In January 1996, with the support of a grant from Mennonite Central Committee (Europe), in collaboration with Nelson, Alastair started working one day each week with Bridge Builders, which was re-launched as a service of the London Mennonite Centre.

In August 1997, the McKay family (now four) moved to Virginia, USA, so that Alastair could study for an MA in Conflict Transformation at Eastern Mennonite University. The intensive two-year programme included a six-month internship working with Richard Blackburn and Bob Williamson at the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center in Illinois, offering mediation and training for churches of diverse traditions around the USA. In September 1999, on his return to England, Alastair re-joined Bridge Builders as its first full-time Director, and has since overseen its growth and development.

Alastair and his family now worship at Muswell Hill Methodist Church. However, he retains strong Mennonite convictions, and is glad to serve in a Mennonite organisation. Meanwhile, parenting, marriage and family relationships continue to provide the toughest tests on his journey of learning to handle conflict more effectively.

Colin Patterson

Colin Patterson joined the Bridge Builders team in October 2005 and is the only Geordie on the staff of the London Mennonite Centre. As a boy he developed an abiding love of reading, music and outdoor activities, and committed himself to Jesus at the age of thirteen. Once Colin’s mother considered him old enough to possess a Bunsen burner, he started to grow crystals and cause explosions, and ended up teaching chemistry in a school in Bristol for nine years.

In 1980 he married Rosie and instantly became related to about quarter of the population of New Zealand. By 1986 a father of two boys (Jonathan and Campbell), he discovered that raising his own children is more demanding than teaching other people’s - but also more rewarding. Visit the Patterson home in Durham and you trip over musical instruments, books, half-finished paintings, walking boots and cats. You may get sucked into fiercely competitive board games.

Colin describes himself as a reluctant leader. As a self-conscious teenager he found himself up front because he could play the accordion, and pushed into giving talks at Christian Union meetings because somebody had to do it. So began a series of nudges from God, tests of faith that eventually led to ordination in the Church of England.

That brought six years of ministry in deprived areas, first in Blackburn then in Darlington, with important lessons about communicating the Christian faith in a non-book culture, amidst tensions in the church and in the local community. Colin became convinced that the church should put more energy into equipping its members to be ministers of the kingdom of God. He spent twelve years as a diocesan training officer, which involved running a nine-month-long discipleship course, helping churches to set up ministry teams, and training people to manage change.

Having worked with over a hundred different churches, Colin reckons he has seen a fair sample of conflict, much of it not handled well. In the year 2000, aware of a need for training in this area, he discovered Bridge Builders, undertook a five-day course in skills of mediation and facilitation, and learned to stop hiding from confrontation. Since then his ministry has increasingly focused on peace-making and training others to deal with disagreements constructively. He is the author of the Grove booklet How to Learn Through Conflict.

With the rest of his life, Colin wants to learn more about facing conflict with faith and courage, to delight in the family and friends God has given him, and to write music and books.

Dora-Marie Goulet

On the afternoon of September 11th Dora-Marie stepped into her first Peace and Conflict Studies course, “The Roots of Conflict and Violence.” Rather than the planned introduction and course overview, the professor launched into his lecture on terrorism. The next five years of study, and watching the unrolling of world events, confirmed for Dora-Marie that issues of conflict and religion continue to be painfully pertinent and, by extension, deepened her commitment to work for reconciliation and justice.

Ed & Phyllis Shirk

Phyllis and Ed Shirk are the hosts at the London Mennonite Centre. Their aim is to carry on the tradition of welcoming guests in a comfortable, hospitable atmosphere as they answer telephones, cater meals for seminars, manage the guest room diary, serve tea, and tend the garden and facilities. Before coming to the LMC in February 2007 they worked for a year as volunteers at Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp in various capacities including healthcare, food preparation, facility maintenance, hike leading, administration and program staff.

Phyllis is a registered nurse who spent her career in a number of different nursing fields while balancing motherhood of the couple’s three daughters who are now grown. Her interests include gardening, travel, cooking, reading, and watching her favourite sports teams. Ed’s was previously in sales and marketing. His interests include photography, travel, hiking, biking, fixing things, and a good laugh.

They are excited about discovering and living in London and hope to uphold the traditions, mission, and goals of the London Mennonite Centre.

Janelle Thiessen

Janelle is a volunteer at the LMC part-time and is a key member of the staff offering support in administrative services and many other areas.

Kathy Thiessen

I was born in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, a daughter of a school teacher and his wife. During the process of growing up I moved many times with my family of Margaret and Lorne Moorhead and 3 siblings. One of those moves took us back to the Yukon; to Watson Lake where my father was a Baptist minister. The idea of the North still intrigues me, with its extremes in temperature and unpopulated areas.

I attended two years at Winnipeg Bible College (now known as Providence Bible College). Upon marrying Vic in August 1979 I began a two year nursing diploma course at Grace Hospital in Winnipeg. The completion of our studies saw us spending a year in Churchill, Manitoba on the Hudson Bay. I totally enjoyed my year there, working in a 30-bed hospital and watching out for polar bears.

We have two daughters, Janelle and Katrina whom we have home schooled for most of their years of early learning. Now my time as a teacher has drawn to a close, however, I have gained an appreciation for self- learning, especially the studies of French and German.

Our most recent living place before London was in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada where we joined a staff of 9 and up to 30 participant families in a wonderful experiment in community living. We supported and taught parents who needed parenting skills and extra help to raise their children, by living with them and running a center where they could come to learn. Our family came away from this experience with new knowledge about families and ourselves, and we made many wonderful friends. Unfortunately, funding for the project was withdrawn after 5 years.

Now at the LMC I can be found almost everywhere. The garden has great potential for flowers and I love starting them from seed in February and nursing them through the summer. In the library I have been working to get the collection onto the computer database. We have been brainstorming about ways to attract more people to use our great Anabaptist and peace resources. I also have had a lot of fun experimenting with new desserts for seminars and workshops, along with finding ways to accommodate guests with unusual food needs.

In my recreational time I enjoy walking, creating with fabric - especially dyeing my own cotton - and making quilts. I am a part of the London Quilters guild and helped to organise their 2005 exhibiton. I can often be found with my nose in a book and occasionally I join my family for a movie.

Kim Broodie

Kim joined the staff of the LMC in November 2004 as Finance Administrator.

Sharon Kniss

Sharon Kniss is a Mennonite volunteer from the United States who joined the London Mennonite Centre as Bridge Builders Assistant.

Sharon first gained a passion for the Church and its work in high school where she became more involved in church life as an individual. Sharon was baptized into the Mennonite church and raised in a Mennonite family and continues to identify herself with this group. In university, she studied Justice, Peace, and Conflict Studies in hopes to make a difference in the world. Sharon also took Bible & Religion courses to encourage what she saw as an integral bond between Christ and Peace.

As Sharon grew older and began taking more leadership roles in congregations and peer groups which she was a part of, she knew that along with her passion for peacebuilding, she had a passion for the Church and the possibilities of Christ’s work through His body of believers. While very aware of the mistakes the Christian tradition has made in attempting to follow Christ with integrity, Sharon wanted to maintain connection with the Church and speak out from within its structures rather than outside.

This passion for working with the church to make God’s name more fully known along with her passion for peacebuilding has brought Sharon to the Bridge Builders Programme in London. It is here that Sharon hopes to continue both of these passions while working towards God’s ministry of reconciliation.

In addition to her passions for peacebuilding and the Church, Sharon has found time to involve herself in other pursuits such as tennis, choral singing, and various adventures that strike her fancy.

Vic Thiessen

Vic grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, where he was part of the Springfield Heights Mennonite Church until he got married to Kathy in the summer of 1979. Between 1975 and 1981, Vic studied at the Canadian Mennonite Bible College and the University of Manitoba. Both Vic and Kathy worked in Mennonite camps (not the same ones) during the summer of 1977. In the spring of 1978, Vic met Kathy on a cyclathon raising money for those camps.

After graduation in 1981, Vic and Kathy spent a year in Churchill, Manitoba, where the polar bears roam and where, for three months, it never got warmer than -35 degrees Celsius. There Vic began work on his first novel, The Sign of the Manipogo, which was completed in 1987 and published in 1991.

After the far north, it was time to move south to Elkhart, Indiana, where Vic studied at The Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries from 1982 to 1984, graduating with a Master of Divinity.

From 1985 to 1991, Vic and his brother, with the help of their wives, ran a small Anabaptist Bible school and study centre in south-eastern New Brunswick. Then it was off to Germany for a three-year MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) assignment. Vic worked with a German Mennonite church and as the director of the Military Counseling Network, helping American soldiers who no longer wished to be part of the military.

In 1994, the family returned to New Brunswick, where Vic continued working with MCC, doing mediation training and helping the New Brunswick government develop a victim-offender mediation program.

In February 1997, the family moved west again, this time to Edmonton, Alberta, where Vic was the director of the Welcome Home Community (a Mennonite social service agency working with young at-risk families) until the spring of 2002.

On August 1, 2002, Vic and his family moved to the London Mennonite Centre. Vic first visited the LMC for a week as a young backpacker in the spring of 1975, then again in 1978 and in 1993, and gained a growing appreciation for its work. Having felt drawn to the centre for many years, Vic is excited by this opportunity to contribute to the work of the LMC.

Vic is a film buff. He also enjoys reading theology and science fiction, walking, cross-country skiing and playing German board games.

He has also teamed up with his brother to provide a movie blog Vic and Walter Thiessen on Movies

Will Newcomb

Will Newcomb joined the staff of the London Mennonite Centre in 1984. He has handled much of the administration and the book keeping since then, and in 1994 took on the management of the book service.

He grew up in Bedford, England (John Bunyan country), and studied Civil Engineering at Manchester University before practising in South Africa for 3 years.

Taking a year out from the world of work he travelled to the West Indies with 3 friends in a 35 foot sloop. From there he spent 2 months hitch hiking all over the U.S.A. and Canada, and finally accepted Jesus just before flying back to the U.K.

Back in England he joined a large evangelical Anglican church in 1975 where he remained until moving to the Wood Green Mennonite Church in the early 80's.

For 7 years he worked for an international construction company and served as a temporary works design engineer in the overseas department.

His recreational passion is ice skating which he took up in 1991.

Since 1997 he's been singing in the Highgate Choral Society as a tenor. For the next performance see Highgate Choral Society. In 1999 he joined a Gospel Singing Class which puts on concerts several times a year.

In church, he is a regular member of the music group, playing a 12 string Maton guitar. He has served as an elder for 5 years, stepping down in 1994. His vision for the church is one which lives out the teachings of Jesus in every area of life, both personal and corporate. He longs to see others come into the new life and transforming relationship with God and for disciples of Jesus to honour him as King, above all authority and power, the state included. This has led him to help provide music at public acts of Christian witness against injustice and militarism.

His current book recommendations include: Metanoia's book of the year 2004 Post-Christendom by Stuart Murray and Consuming Passion: Why the Killing of Jesus Really Matters edited by Simon Barrow and Jonathan Bartley.

Links:
Mennonite Mission Network Article 2004
Images, Videos and Blog