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To thine own self be true?
Categories: Feature ArticlesBaptism rates among teenagers and young adults who grew up going to church have plummeted. Why? In response to this drop-off in baptisms, I could talk about what faith formation…
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Scar of Bethlehem
Categories: Feature ArticlesWhat will Christmas be like in Bethlehem this year? What can we learn about the birth of Christ from those who live where he was born and where he lived?…
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Called to the work of the church
Categories: Feature ArticlesIt might seem unlikely that young women would be drawn to church leadership and feel compelled to enter pastoral ministry. As young people, they are part of an underrepresented demographic…
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As he lay dying
Categories: Feature ArticlesThere were nineteen beds in the hospice, that’s what I heard, most of them occupied, but I paid no attention to them. When we first arrived, yes, I’d glanced into…
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Holy moments in the midst of grief
Categories: Feature ArticlesThere’s one church service that Fran Giesbrecht makes a special point not to miss: Eternity Sunday. Observed at his Winnipeg church on the last Sunday before Advent, Eternity Sunday provides…
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Memory carrier
Categories: Feature Articles“Sir,” said the man, “you and your family can be very proud of your son.” I could tell the man at the door was important by the way his brass…
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The Beatitudes: Testing a biblical antidote to division
Categories: Feature ArticlesWhen conservative Christians in the southern U.S. were agitating to erect monuments with the 10 commandments on them in front of courthouses, I heard someone suggest that they put up…
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The gift of life, the question of death
Categories: Feature ArticlesRobert Bruinsma remembers the day his friend, Sam, told him he was going to die. It was a few days before Christmas 2017, and Bruinsma was visiting Sam (not his…
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Stepping overboard
Categories: Feature ArticlesFlorence Driedger turns to look out the window before she replies to my question. “Well, we never know from one year to the next who and how many . .…
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Humans and Humus
Categories: Feature ArticlesOn a hundred hilly acres near Mildmay, Ontario, the Wiederkehr family is quietly pushing the limits of human energy, spiritual integrity and disconnection from the consumerist web. The following is…
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Rest and Restlessness
Categories: Feature ArticlesWe asked the Canadian Mennonite community to reflect on rest and restlessness. Where do you find rest for your soul? What do you need rest from? How does Jesus’ promise…
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Broken to serve
Categories: Feature ArticlesIn my mid-30s, two decades after the last time my father beat me, and two years after he died, I broke glass twice in one week. Once, for the first…
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In the current of wavering defiance
Categories: Feature ArticlesI want to know how to pray. It’s December 2021. Advent. A season of waiting. Everything is waiting. Waiting for the pandemic to be over. Waiting for our leaders to…
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In the current of wavering defiance
Categories: Feature ArticlesI want to know how to pray. It’s December 2021. Advent. A season of waiting. Everything is waiting. Waiting for the pandemic to be over. Waiting for our leaders to…
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Commerce, church and belonging
Categories: Feature ArticlesI was delivering a sermon on the story of Zacchaeus last October when I realized that when I talked about Zacchaeus, I was actually thinking about, and picturing, my father.…
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Dispatches from the front lines
Categories: Feature ArticlesI’m basing the form of this final missive on the last book I read, Dispatches—a harrowing and sometimes hilarious memoir by Michael Herr, who covered the insanity of the Vietnam…
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An assumption of grace
Categories: Feature ArticlesAfter the Vatican’s recent repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, I spent two hours speaking with three Indigenous people about the 500-year-old church doctrine that is as much the bedrock…
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Crossing guard of hope
Categories: Feature ArticlesWhen I was first called to church planting work in 2004, I prayed and sought God’s will. I also read Ray Bakke’s book, Hope for the City. It invited me…
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The spiritual resurrection
Categories: Feature ArticlesReading words written nearly 500 years ago and translated nearly 70 years ago takes some effort, especially when the message is that death precedes resurrection. We trust the Spirit will…
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Easter reflections
Categories: Feature ArticlesWe asked 10 people for their most meaningful Easter memory, or an image that best captures the essence of Easter, or what Easter makes them wonder. Holy Week turtle soup…
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