Onward Together: Next steps toward one Canadian Mission Centre

By John Hamer, Director of Outreach and Innovative Mission

At their back-to-back September conferences, both mission centres — Canada West and Canada East — approved complementary resolutions to come together to form a single Canadian Mission Centre. Over the next few months, the governing bodies at International Headquarters charged with Mission Centre organization will go through the necessary procedures to implement the resolutions, so that the new Mission Centre will come into existence on January 1, 2026.

The resolutions call for an initial conference of the new Mission Centre to be held before February 28. We anticipate this conference will be held in January; we will announce dates as soon as they are finalized. Everyone whose memberships are currently housed with the Canada East or Canada West Mission Centres will have their memberships automatically transferred to the new Mission Centre. All members of the new Mission Centre will have the right to participate and vote in the initial conference, which will be conducted online. (It will not be necessary for congregations to elect delegates.) The budgets enacted by the Canada West and Canada East Mission Centres in the past two weeks will be “subsumed” into the new Mission Centre’s 2026 budget, which members will review and approve at the online conference.

The current Mission Centre President Team in Canada West: Shannon McAdam, Kat Goheen, and Becky Middleton, will continue to lead CWM until December 31. In Canada East, Mary Jean Belrose retired from the Mission Centre President Team effective September 21. The remaining two presidents, Vonda DenBoer and Dawn Dawson, will continue to serve in their capacity until December 31.

The Onward Together plan envisions a Canadian Leadership Team consisting of five directors led by our Field Apostle, Shannon McAdam. The directors include our two core support functions: (1) director of shared services (Sam Smalldon), and (2) director of communications (Leandro Palacios); and the directors of the three core strategies: (1) outreach & innovative mission (John Hamer), (2) camping & campground sustainability (Vonda DenBoer), and (3) leadership development (to be announced). The search committee has interviewed multiple candidates to fill the leadership development director position. We will announce the name as soon as the position is filled.

The Onward Together plan recommends that the Field Apostle will recommend that the First Presidency appoint the three directors of our core strategies to serve as the initial Mission Centre President Team for the new Mission Centre. All five directors, under the leadership of the Field Apostle, will continue to constitute the Leadership Team for Community of Christ in Canada.

See the Onward Together Plan here