Resourcing the Anabaptist church
Over 500 years, the Anabaptist community has grown to be a diverse and global expression of faith. The resources of Anabaptism reflect this diversity. Mennonite World Conference (MWC) represents most Christian churches rooted in the Anabaptist movement. In addition to the ongoing resourcing work of its commissions and networks, MWC has several significant resource titles:…
Binding and loosing in an age of division
For the past three years, the United States has been my home, and in the U.S., division is impossible to ignore. Liberals on the left, conservatives on the right. Of course, Canada is not immune to these divisions, and neither is the church. In this context, what hope does the church have of discerning the…
Let’s agree to disagree
In my Zimbabwean African culture, elders are so revered that they are never seen as doing anything wrong. It is considered very rude to argue with one’s elders, even when we are certain that they are incorrect. Young people must bow their heads and make peace by being acquiescent. I vividly remember a time when…
Can’t we all just get along?
Are you losing hope in the possibility of everyone getting along? Division in the church is nothing new for me. I grew up in a harsh, conservative fundamentalist church that judged everybody. Especially liberal Christians. In my early 20s, I became agnostic and relentlessly judgmental toward conservative Christians. I returned to Christian faith and church…
Big tent, small centre
Here in British Columbia—the West of the West, where West and true East meet in North America—we sometimes tend to look more toward the traditionalist faith of the church in Asia than to the progressive, whiter, older Mennonite lands of eastern Canada. We also continue to be influenced by the neo-reformed fundamentalism of our dear, and…
Living in peculiarity, embracing Anabaptism
In the history of Ethiopia, Christianity was first introduced into the royal court around the 4th century, gradually spreading among the common people from there. Unlike the spread of Christianity in the Greco-Roman world, which remained confined to the lower levels for three centuries, the introduction of Christianity as a state religion marked a significant…
Making connections
Hello to everyone from the new Mennonite Church Alberta moderator. I believe that who I am influences my approach to serving as moderator, so let me introduce myself. I am, first and foremost, a follower of Christ. Beyond that, I am son, husband, father, brother, uncle, engineer, manager and now, moderator. I grew up on…
A view to worldly culture
“You’ve given in to the culture.” I’ve heard this plenty as a Christian – in churches, schools, on social media. From what I can make of it, it is ultimately an allegation of compromise or failure. One Christian party charges another with abandoning the faith to embrace “cultural” (“worldly”) ways. Accusations of giving in often…
Pressed into the ground
“It’s nice to get to choose our humility,” my father reflected recently. Sometimes, however, we don’t get to. What do we do when we feel forced to be humble—what we often call humiliated? Our dictionary says the words humble, humility, humiliate, human, homage and humus all share a common etymological root relating to earth and our…
There’s a gift in every day
Erv and Marian Wiens, both 82, have been married for 60 years. Raised in the Mennonite Brethren Church, they worked with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Kenya, Zambia, and Ontario. Erv also pastored in Breslau, Ontario; Windsor, Ontario; Calgary, Alberta; and in South Korea, before serving as an interim pastor in several congregations. Marian’s first…
