Peppernuts and anarsa
Categories: Feature ArticlesI recently learned to eat anarsa—a sweet, rice-based treat—while travelling in India visiting with Mennonite women, and learning about their religious lives and food practices. It was late February, but…
When church doesn’t feel safe
Categories: Feature ArticlesThere is a new culture in North America around sexual harassment and abuse. The social media hashtag #MeToo is everywhere, and we are starting to address abusive behaviour in…
When will we say we need you?
Categories: Feature ArticlesImmediately after finishing with undergraduate school in 2008, I went down to Mexico to help translate for a mission trip that my mom and younger brother were taking with my…
‘A neighbour to all who come’
Categories: Feature ArticlesMennonites have always been known as a migrant people, whether moving from Switzerland to North America, from the Netherlands to Prussia and Ukraine, and from Europe to South America and…
Is belief in Jesus’ resurrection necessary?
Categories: Feature ArticlesIt’s a question I’ve heard many times over the years: “Do Christians really need to believe in Jesus’ resurrection?” It is, after all, a pretty difficult idea to accept. And…
Unity of the Spirit
Categories: Feature ArticlesEphesians begins by blessing God for revealing the great mystery, namely, to “gather up all things in Christ” (1:10). Ephesians 2:11-22 then celebrates Christ’s making peace between strangers and enemies,…
Dying well
Categories: Feature ArticlesEvery living thing eventually dies, including churches. Just as people who do not plan for death may complicate things for their families, churches that do not plan for eventual closure…
Peace is everyone’s business
Categories: Feature ArticlesThe political scientist Harold Lasswell once defined politics to be “who gets what, when and how.” If that is politics, peace studies in contrast can be seen as an attempt…
‘Serving the Lord with gladness’
Categories: Feature ArticlesWhen the indomitable Orie O. Miller retired from Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in 1958, there was a lot of speculation about who would fill his big shoes. In Miller’s mind,…
Letter to the family: A mother’s treasure
Categories: Feature ArticlesChildren are among the most important things given to us in our lives. With this gift comes the responsibility of passing on our faith. This can be a daunting task…
God with us with God
Categories: Feature Articles“Are you ready for Christmas?” The question came from Ed, a cheerful clerk at Save-On-Foods, as I was picking up some milk. What kind of response was he seeking? Was…
Which Jesus are you waiting for?
Categories: Feature ArticlesAdvent, according to one definition, is “the arrival of a notable person, thing or event.” Yet along the way, we’ve come to associate Advent not with arrival, but with waiting.…
‘Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory’
Categories: Feature ArticlesUpdate: In October 2020, Mennonite Church Eastern Canada announced the termination of the ministerial credentials of John D. Rempel, on the basis of ministerial sexual misconduct. To learn more, see ‘Credentials…
A hoof and heart both need mending
Categories: Feature ArticlesHe was a welcome sight when his truck and trailer pulled into the yard. Even before the truck stopped moving, he jumped out the passenger side and started walking toward…
Prodigal pastor
Categories: Feature ArticlesSeventy-four-year-old George Ediger rushed out of church during the final song and caught up with the newcomer in the parking lot before the big young visitor with the shaved head…
Jacob’s ‘imaginary’ struggle
Categories: Feature Articles“The same night [Jacob] got up and took his two wives, his two maids and his 11 children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent…
What is the Spirit saying to our churches today?
Categories: Feature Articles“Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches” (Revelation 3:22). These words of John from the Island of Patmos are as relevant…
A community with a sense of ‘we’
Categories: Feature ArticlesI was humbled and challenged when I spent the day with some of my Old Order Mennonite relations recently. My cousin Sarah invited me to a quilting at her home…
Going further together, Part 2
Categories: Feature Articles‘I thought this type of support was normal’ Jeanette and Todd Hanson By Donna Schulz, Saskatchewan Correspondent, Rosthern, Sask. Although they have had other mission partnerships over the years, Jeanette…
Going further together
Categories: Feature ArticlesTo put names and faces to these partnerships, Canadian Mennonite’s correspondents across the country have profiled Witness workers and the churches that support them. Following are stories from B.C. and…
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