Book reviews
Prophet Song. I don’t think I’ve read a book that articulates as brilliantly as Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song (winner of the 2023 Booker Prize)
If all the earth…
Nature has always been a source of inspiration for Mennonite children’s author, Aimee Reid. Several years ago, she took her dog for a walk while camping at Valens Lake Conservation Area in Hamilton, Ontario. She returned with a phrase in her mind: If all the earth were forests green and you were the nest. “I…
MennoMedia evolves to meet challenges
Joan Daggett, project director of MennoMedia’s Shine: Living in God’s Light curriculum, tracks trends inChristian education as part of her work. We asked her about the challenges and opportunities for faith formation of children in 2024. Over the past number of years, church attendance patterns across North America began shifting away from the model of…
Whatever became of Sunday school
They had forgotten about the kids. It was the 1980s; two major Mennonite denominations had merged, spending five years and a large sum of money to figure out how to bring the various mission boards into the integrated denomination, when suddenly people realized that no attention had been given to where Sunday school would fit…
Getting passionate about the bible
Sunday school has been approached differently by different people. At times, the church has taken a defensive posture: It’s scary out there and we’re going to shelter you and teach you what’s right so you can stand fast. In this approach, the goal is to present answers, remove ambiguity and convince others to think along the same…
Finding a home in the MB conference
Brent Kipfer’s Mennonite Church Canada pedigree is solid: he grew up at Poole Mennonite Church in Poole, Ontario, attended Rockway Mennonite Collegiate, graduated from Canadian Mennonite Bible College and Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and became pastor of a Mennonite Church Eastern Canada congregation. Now, he pastors a Mennonite Brethren church and sits on the board…
Switchers and exiters
Why do people switch or exit a church or denomination? And why do some churches leave a denomination altogether? Chances are you could offer possible reasons from your own experiences or those around you. Anecdotes are helpful to a point, but larger data sets based on extensive surveys or interviews across different populations can offer richer…
Leaving a church that left
Harv Wiebe—not his real name—did not agree with his congregation’s decision to leave the regional church, but still, he hoped things would work out for the congregation he had once pastored. Questions about the conference had been discussed in the small-town congregation for many years, Wiebe says. (Canadian Mennonite is not identifying Wiebe due to…
A recipe to reverse the economy
The Mennonite more-with-less ethic is something I have always connected with. Shopping for clothes at the thrift store, commuting by bicycle and eating simple, tasty food are practices that have defined my life in the Mennonite community. These values ultimately steered me toward work in environmental policy, and today I work at one of the largest…
A slow, simple obedience
My introduction to Anabaptism began with fire. Let me explain. I grew up in a Presbyterian household, but when I went off to the University of Toronto, a roommate introduced me to the Living More With Less book and its companion, the More-with-Less Cookbook. To say I devoured them would be an understatement. In fact, a new world…
