Advent and idolatry
The first Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of the Christian year, so it would be appropriate to greet each other with the recognition that a new year has begun. Advent is the most Jewish of Christian seasons. Yet we are accustomed to approaching Advent in a way that strips it of its Jewish character,…
Tending the cairn
A public apology is one of many ways that a church may address past wrongs and those persons who have been harmed. Right now, for example, even following the apology by the Canadian Catholic bishops, there remains a strong call for an apology by Pope Francis for residential schools in Canada and abuses that happened…
The great Mwenezi cook-off
All of Joseph Gudo’s hard work was summed up in one small plate of food. He’d laboured for months in the field and uncountable hours in the kitchen all in service to this dish—a neat pile of mashed cowpeas (black-eyed peas), buoyed by a bold pinch of cayenne pepper and dressed up with pops of…
Defund the police?
On March 11, 2020, the day before Manitoba reported its first infection of the coronavirus, Bronwyn Dobchuk-Land stood up in a multipurpose room at First Mennonite Church in Winnipeg to give a lecture exploring the question: How is it that Winnipeg has so many police, and so little justice and peace? Over the course of…
Meeting on the common ground of God’s love
Do Mennonites believe there is something intrinsically, inherently important about our denominational institutions? If you think not, then you can skip this article and pick up another article instead. I believe that there is something important here—within the pages of Canadian Mennonite, within Mennonite schools, our sending bodies, and our relief and development agencies. I…
Three chairs: In, out and up
When I was taking part in the Ontario Jubilee program in soul care and spiritual direction, one of the principles that guided our time together was that everything we did as a whole group happened in a circle. While some of the focal elements at the centre of our circle changed with the themes of…
Learning fluency step by step
Recovering a lost language or learning to speak a language doesn’t happen overnight. But a desire to learn will unbolt the door—swinging it wide open—and fill our lungs with sparkling morning air. We can learn to talk about faith in ways that are honest. We can recover winsome beauty that was lost. We can salt…
Creating a cultural shift
Abuse. It’s one of those topics that can stop a conversation dead in its tracks. Yet those who work in the area of abuse response and prevention say that talking about it—before it happens—is precisely what the church needs to do. When there are no known cases of abuse demanding a church’s attention, it may…
All will be well!
Last September, at the school where I teach, the director noted the many restraints and restrictions staff and students were experiencing because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It seemed that everywhere we turned, we were told we couldn’t do something. Many excellent teaching practices were out of reach because we needed to maintain social distancing. I…
Toward Antioch
By Doug Klassen During times of crisis or struggle, I study Scripture, praying that the Holy Spirit nudges me with a word, a phrase . . . anything. A few months ago, I came upon Acts 11:19-26 and I knew that I had received an answer to a question I had wrestling with: Where is…
