Peppernuts and anarsa
I 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 I was told that Christians in India normally prepare anarsa at Christmastime as a seasonal and festive treat. I couldn’t help but reflect on the…
When church doesn’t feel safe
There 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 the church with the hashtag #ChurchToo. Most Mennonite churches today have safe place policies that seek to prevent and address abuse. We know about our…
When will we say we need you?
Immediately 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 church’s youth group. One day, the Mexican pastor we were working with—a smiling, mustachioed man who led a tiny Pentecostal church called Jehovah’s Hand—informed me…
‘A neighbour to all who come’
Mennonites 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 eventually to Canada. A significant move mainly in the last few decades, however, has been the migration from rural areas to cities. In 1951, only…
Is belief in Jesus’ resurrection necessary?
It’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 this is not just a modern difficulty. It’s been obvious to humans for a very long time that dead people stay dead. It can also…
Unity of the Spirit
Ephesians 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, breaking down walls of hostility through giving his life on the cross, thereby creating a “new human.” Fittingly, the exhortation to recipients of that grace…
Dying well
Every 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 can leave a mess for congregants and their surrounding communities. A ‘stolen’ legacy The story of the Pineridge Christian Fellowship is complicated and still somewhat…
Peace is everyone’s business
The 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 to answer the question “why” things are given to whom, when and how. While peace studies is concerned about the political challenge of stopping people…
‘Serving the Lord with gladness’
When 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, though, that question had been settled years earlier, when he chose, out of the rich Civilian Public Service (CPS) talent pool, the unpresumptuous William Thomas…
Letter to the family: A mother’s treasure
Children 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 in a cultural climate that isn’t always friendly to followers of Jesus. The desire of our hearts Maeyken van Deventers expresses the desire of our…
