God on the line
Categories: OpinionIn this new joint column, the four writers will take turns writing the primary column, with the other three offering replies. God on the line By Ryan Dueck I recently became the owner of an orange rotary telephone. This artifact…
On loneliness and lifelines
Categories: OpinionThis most recent December terrified me. Moving to Toronto in the first year of the pandemic and certain events since mean I haven’t made many social connections in this city. My few good friends here all had major life changes…
The state of community in 2024
Last year was a tough one. Global concerns raged around us, including images of climate crisis and state-led violence that continued to swirl. I watched my church community formally come apart, by vote, in a deeply divisive scenario. Of course,…
Linking membership and participation
Categories: OpinionIt will soon be congregational annual meeting season. Do you look forward to these meetings? Are they well attended in your congregation? In my congregation, the number of people who participate in voting meetings is small compared to the number…
Beyond boxes
Categories: OpinionMost of you have heard, and likely agree with, this statement: “You can’t put God in a box.” Of course, this means you can’t be put in a box either, for you are made in the image of God. If…
Becoming an intercultural church
Categories: OpinionJust as Matthew 7:21 states, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,” not every intercultural church will experience the fullest stage of reconciliation in fellowship with others, which is an ultimate goal of…
A Prayer for Peace — Advent 2023
Categories: Web First – OpinionOut of the depths I cry to you, Lord. Save us, God our Savior, gather us and deliver us from the nations. From north to south, nowhere is safe in Gaza. For unto us a child is born and the…
Needlework from the Middle East
Categories: OpinionMennonite Central Committee (MCC) worker Alice Snyder (right) shows needlework done by rural and refugee women in Jordan and the West Bank to Esther Weber at the MCC Ontario offices in Kitchener in 1964. The Overseas Needlepoint and Crafts Project…
The church cannot be silent
We have entered the days of Advent. It’s usually one of my favourite periods in the church calendar, but this year, the waiting is heavy. The candle is a tiny flicker in a world of darkness, and Christmas music rings…
The gift of Greg
Categories: OpinionIt’s that season where gifts are received, admired, beheld. When thinking about gifts, my thoughts turn to my friend, “Greg.” Greg is interesting for many reasons. He has spent close to 30 years incarcerated and will be on parole for…
The best non-Christmas Christmas song
Categories: OpinionChristmas is the celebration of the Incarnation. Christmas says that Jesus became a human; a baby who went through the terrible twos, puberty, the teen years and a carpenter’s life. In the words of what might be my favourite song…
A strange act of fealty
Categories: OpinionI was on the cusp of starting a family, engaged to an honorable girl. It is one of the commands of scripture to “be fruitful and increase in number,” so marriage and then children (in that order) are a critical…
Part VI: Stories of hope
Categories: OpinionThis six-part series draws on Kara Carter’s PhD studies, for which she conducted five focus groups with Mennonite Church Eastern Canada pastors. Advent celebrates the coming of light, the light of love that “darkness cannot extinguish” (John 1:5). This light…
Ambassadors of God’s kingdom
Categories: Opinion“But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). These words of the apostle Paul are part of a letter addressing a church audience that likely…
Readers write: December 1, 2023
Categories: OpinionDon’t ignore pain and rage I was encouraged to see Canadian Mennonite give space to understanding the conflict in Palestine that is currently so front and centre (“Palestinian voices,” October 20; “Attending to war,” November 3). I was especially pleased…
Bethlehem Bible College
Categories: OpinionBishara Awad stands outside Bethlehem Bible College in Bethlehem in 1985. Awad, a Palestinian Christian, founded the school in 1979. He had previously served with Mennonite Central Committee in a Palestinian school and attended Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary in Fresno,…
False unity vs. true unity
In B.C. we’ve heard stories of churches in at least two denomina- tions choosing to use secondary or tertiary doctrines and opinions as litmus tests for belonging. These groups are doubling down on the wrong ways of trying to maintain…
Cultural or biblical?
Categories: OpinionIt is exactly 100 years ago that my congregation, First Mennonite Church in Kitchener, divided over the issue of women’s head coverings. Two-thirds of the congregation left because they did not want women to be forced to wear head coverings.…
The rally call
Categories: OpinionCuriosity is a powerful spiritual discipline. Curiosity has blessed me with many opportunities to spend time with kind, intelligent and reasonable people, in many different social, political and theological camps. I’m grateful for the privilege of hearing the typically calm…
Open communion and intercultural church
Categories: OpinionOne of the contradictions I have observed in intercultural churches in North America is that, while they intentionally strive to welcome all people, almost all of them stubbornly adhere to the “closed” communion tradition, which allows only baptized participants to…
Opinion/columns
