Category: Web First

  • ‘Vice’ director Adam McKay talks about Mennonites on popular podcast

    ‘Vice’ director Adam McKay talks about Mennonites on popular podcast

    Filmmaker Adam McKay recently revealed that when he was growing up, he attended a Mennonite church for a time. During his appearance on the March 20 episode of the podcast You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes, the writer-director shared that after his mother became a Christian, they attended a number of different churches. “She…

  • Mennonite World Conference general secretary relocates

    Mennonite World Conference general secretary relocates

    General secretary César García and executive assistant Sandra Báez Rojas of Mennonite World Conference (MWC) have relocated to Canada as of last month to work out of the Kitchener, Ont., office. Given the demands on the general secretary to connect with Anabaptist churches around the world and to represent global Anabaptists among other Christian world…

  • Renowned peacebuilder receives award

    Renowned peacebuilder receives award

    Internationally renowned peacebuilder John Paul Lederach, who has committed his life and work to nonviolent approaches to conflict for more than 40 years, has been awarded the 36th Niwano Peace Foundation Peace Prize. Lederach, currently a senior fellow at Humanity United, is a co-founder and the first director of the Eastern Mennonite University’s (EMU) Center…

  • ‘She was ahead of her time’

    ‘She was ahead of her time’

    Before #MeToo and #ChurchToo—before there even was the Internet—there was Winnipegger Peggy Unruh Regehr. Unruh Regehr, a member of River East Church (a Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba congregation) died September 27 last year at the age of 89. She was a pioneer in championing the cause of women in leadership in Mennonite denominations in…

  • Advocating for change so women can flourish

    Advocating for change so women can flourish

    There’s a meme making the rounds on social media lately that I find telling. It depicts three women and three men lined up for a race. Everything looks equal at the starting line. But look up and the women’s lanes are strewn with obstacles: a wash line, ironing board, stove and so on. The cartoon…

  • Church growth stretches Ethiopian resources

    Church growth stretches Ethiopian resources

    Challenges accompany the joys of growth as tens of thousands of people new to Ethiopia’s Meserete Kristos Church (MKC) swell the denomination. Now with more than 600,000 participants, the world’s largest Anabaptist conference struggles to train enough pastors, find adequate meeting spaces, and keep vehicles maintained for its teachers, who travel to distant outposts on…

  • AMBS trains Sudanese-Canadian to make a difference

    AMBS trains Sudanese-Canadian to make a difference

    Thousands of miles from their homeland, a group of about 30 South Sudanese women gathers on Tuesdays in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont. Meeting in each other’s homes, they pray for their war-torn country and its people, share about their lives and study the Bible together. Rebecca Riek, who came to Canada from South Sudan 16 years ago,…

  • CPT closes Indigenous solidarity team

    CPT closes Indigenous solidarity team

    In order to address a $265,000 deficit, Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) will close its Winnipeg-based Indigenous Peoples Solidarity team at the end of March. While CPT hopes to maintain relationships with its Indigenous partners, three full-time and one half-time positions devoted to the work will end. CPT teams in Columbia, Palestine and Iraqi Kurdistan will…

  • Voices Together visual art chosen

    Voices Together visual art chosen

    Visual art for the Voices Together hymnal has been chosen by the Mennonite Worship and Song Committee. The 12 visual art pieces selected will appear in the forthcoming hymnal—including the pew, worship leader, digital app and projection editions. These pieces will be placed throughout Voices Together, inviting worshippers to encounter God creatively in ways that engage…

  • Remembering Margaret Loewen Reimer

    Remembering Margaret Loewen Reimer

    “A student of literature and a Mennonite journalist with a special passion for the arts,” is how Margaret Loewen Reimer introduced herself during a lecture series entitled “Mennonites and the artistic imagination” at Canadian Mennonite Bible College, in Winnipeg, in 1998. That self-introduction rang true back then, and still does as I reflect on Marg’s…