1. Support Services Report Book Pages 52-54
ED: Good morning. I’m Ed Janzen, chair of Support Services Council and a member of the General Board.
PAM: And I’m Pam Peters-Pries, Executive Secretary of Support Services.
PAM: This morning we want to offer you just a brief glimpse into the rich and varied world that is Support Services. For those of you who worry that we have to slog away at boring administrative details while Witness and Formation get to have all the fun, worry no more. We’d like to give you just a few examples of how our ministry energizes us and directly impacts our church and our world.

2. Putting Our Money Where our Faith Is
Support Services
Putting Our Money Where our Faith Is
ED: What does it mean to put your money where your faith is? That’s isn’t just a catchy phrase that the Ministers Conference borrowed from us to promote this year’s gathering. It’s actually a question that Support Services Council spends quite a bit of time on.
ED: We meet twice a year as the Pension Advisory Committee. We discuss education for pension plan members, we review the financial performance of the pension plan’s investment options, and we talk about the impact the plan’s investments are having on people and the environment. If issues like creation care and the militarization of Canada are important enough discipleship issues for us to consider together as a national church, they are important enough for us to consider when we make investment decisions.
PAM: The Mennonite Church Canada Pension Plan has over $34 million invested on behalf of about 800 members. That’s a lot of money to put where our faith is. The Pension Advisory Committee pays particularly close attention to the plan’s “core option” which holds over 80% of the plan’s assets. Members contributions are invested in the core option if they do not select one or more of the 23 other investment options in the plan, and we take our responsibility as stewards of these investments very seriously.
PAM: As the socially responsible investment industry in Canada matures, and as better research on publicly traded companies becomes available, we are able to more clearly articulate criteria for our investment decisions and more closely scrutinize the companies in which we invest or don’t invest. We are fortunate to have excellent help in this regard from Ardent Financial Services, our broker, from Meritas Mutual Funds, the core option’s primary investment manager, and from Jantzi Research Associates, which provides research that allows Meritas to implement its investment screens. Representatives of all three of these organizations presented at Tuesday’s “Putting Your Money Where Your Faith Is” event.
ED: Our monitoring of the core option’s performance led us to make improvements to the core option’s Statement of Investment Policy at our March meeting. We no longer screen out only companies that benefit directly from providing products and services that we don’t wish to support. We now screen out companies that benefit indirectly from these products and services as well. This puts us in line with the best and most rigorous practices in Canada’s socially responsible investment industry. The Pension Advisory Committee will continue to look to our professional advisors for counsel and consider that counsel carefully as we look for the most effective ways to help our members have the impact on our world that they wish to have by putting their money where their faith is.

3. Support Services: Built to Last!
PAM: But this is just one example of the many ways that Support Services works at putting our faith into practice in very practical ways. By providing the pastor’s salary scales and volunteer screening policies for congregations, we help congregations treat their employees, members and guests with respect and care as fellow children of God. By working with many, many volunteers to plan an Assembly like this – every year – we create an opportunity for our constituency to practice the listening, discernment, and accountability essential to a healthy church. Through stories in the Canadian Mennonite, our web site, Equipping packages and other communication, we keep you in touch with your brothers and sisters in other provinces and nations so that you can encourage each other, forebear with one another, and pray for each other.
ED: It is our privilege to build up the church in these and so many other very practical ways. Like the wise builder of the parable, we take seriously our responsibility to choose the best ground, the right materials and the proper methods to support the ministries of our church through calm and stormy periods. Thank you for your financial support, your encouragement and your prayers which make this ministry possible.

4. Support Services Questions??
PAM: We have a few minutes left in which we welcome your questions and comments on this report and our written report on pages