Practising prayer with the Psalms
Categories: OpinionMy kids are old enough to start playing ball, and weekly practices and physically distanced games are a regular part of the Barkman routine. In high school, I was a catcher, and Christina played third base, so we want our…
Musings of a CM board member
Categories: OpinionSince I was a young boy, I’ve been fascinated by words, stories and ideas. So when I heard that I had an opportunity to be a regional representative for Alberta on the Canadian Mennonite Publishing Service (CMPS) board of directors,…
Potluck faith
Categories: OpinionEvery year around this time, the congregation I belong to makes plans for Gathering Sunday. After a summer of sparser attendance at worship services, our gathering on the first Sunday after Labour Day is always a celebration, a reunion for…
Readers write: August 17, 2020 issue
Categories: OpinionDandelion cover inspires flower arranger Re: Dandelion front cover, June 8. I laughed out loud when I saw the dandelion on the cover. Growing up on the farm in Virgil, Ont., we had Italian neighbours. As soon as the dandelions…
‘The long wait’
Categories: Opinion“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: A time to born and a time to die . . . .” (Ecclesiastes 2:1-2). Over the years, I have come to refer to the process…
Volleyball game
Categories: OpinionThe Conference of Mennonites in Canada annual session was held in July 1975, in Swift Current, Sask. Hot weather put participants’ “cool” to the test. The assembly was not only about business but also about relationships and, as such, there…
Why ‘third way’?
Categories: OpinionI’ve been asked recently why my column is called “Third Way Family.” The question has prompted me to share my reasoning behind choosing this title and what it means to me. I first started blogging after we moved to the…
The role of the church today?
Categories: OpinionI am listening these days to stories of how people and their churches are responding to the physical and emotional needs around them due to COVID-19. Every congregation is finding ways to help those around them who need food, assistance…
Antifragile church
Categories: OpinionThe past few months have awakened us to our fragility as individuals, communities and nation states. We’ve observed the fragility of our health-care system, food-supply chain, economies, global trade, international relations, institutional accountability. It seems that everything in our world…
Western Christianity misinterprets Jesus
Categories: OpinionWhen H.S. Bender came out with The Anabaptist Vision in the 1940s, he offered a Mennonite theology that was different from the evangelical fundamentalism widely accepted in the church at the time. The author of Jesus of the East does…
Worship is what I need
Categories: OpinionDuring a Zoom call a month or so ago, a pastor friend mused, “Is worship all we have left?” Our virtual meet-up—all folks involved in congregational leadership—had been sharing various strategies we had tried to carry on with Sunday morning…
Readers write: July 20, 2020 issue
Categories: OpinionToday’s society is a progression of Canada’s colonial past Re: “ ‘Decolonize’ and ‘settler’ meaningless terms” letter, June 8, 2020, page 8. It is a nice idea that “our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers . . . through industry and innovation, built our…
I’m thinking about sparrows
Categories: OpinionI am thinking about sparrows today, about how many of them there are, and yet how little I notice them until they stop for a quick perch on the railing of my deck and I find myself wishing that they were…
Public school teachers
Categories: OpinionPublic school teachers Samuel B. Nafziger, Dick Neufeld, Sara (Lehn) Harder, Martin Goerzen, Grace Harder, John C. Harder and C. Boldt, are pictured in the most northerly Mennonite farm community in the world, at Fort Vermilion, Alta,. in 1958. Their…
‘Lining things up’
Categories: OpinionA recent article in Canadian Mennonite included a story of the closing of Superb Mennonite Church. Superb was my home. I was dedicated, married, baptized and raised a family there. It is the late 1980s, and the Holly and Ed Olfert…
Why I’m not a Canadian
Categories: OpinionI am an immigrant. After serving with Mennonite Central Committee in Canada, I chose to stay in this amazing country. The Canadian way was closer to the “thousand points of light” to which one of the leaders of my left-behind country…
A living metaphor
Categories: OpinionIt’s outlandish really, what God asks Hosea to do. To think that someone known for his holiness and intimate relationship with the divine would take up residence with a woman everyone knew was promiscuous. It would have been one thing…
I am my brother’s keeper
Categories: OpinionMany years ago now—I’m getting a bit long in the tooth—I took what I thought would be a bird course in my second year at what was then known as Waterloo College. It turned out to be anything but, and…
Readers write: June 22, 2020 issue
Categories: Opinion‘A wise investment’ in the future of church camps Re: “Testing the ties that bind,” April 27, page 2. It hit me when I read in the editorial that the financial fallout from COVID-19 may well mean the possible closure…
New CommonWord website launched
Categories: OpinionOn June 1, CommonWord launched a new website at commonword.ca that is mobile-friendly, easily searchable and beautifully designed. Our goal is to make Anabaptist and related resources easily found for the pastor and the parishioner, the student and the casual…
Opinion/columns
