Mennonites respond to Palestinian church
Christians in the land where Christianity started have asked sisters and brothers around the world for help. In response to these pleas from Palestinian churches—with whom Mennonites have long-standing relations—delegates at the 2016 Mennonite Church Canada assembly approved a resolution related to violence in the Middle East. What has happened since that resolution was passed?…
‘Fun in the Son’ keeps ’em coming back
Spring break comes and students are home from school. What are parents to do to keep them occupied? Crossroads Community Church of Chilliwack, a Mennonite Church B.C. congregation, has the answer: a week-long day camp. Fun in the Son (FITS), a community service program for youngsters in Kindergarten through Grade 6, has been going for…
Bridging Borders in the ‘City of Bridges’
A new television documentary series featuring the work of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Saskatchewan is currently airing on City-Saskatchewan TV. Bridging Borders is a six-episode series produced by Wavelength Entertainment, a Regina-based production company. Set in Saskatoon, the “City of Bridges,” each episode depicts a relationship formed through MCC’s private refugee sponsorship program. From a…
MC Alberta celebrates a ‘church born anew’
At the last minute, Lethbridge Mennonite Church had to scramble to host the 2018 Mennonite Church Alberta delegate assembly. Already working hard to finish entrance and meeting room renovations, a burst water pipe flooded the church basement just a week before the March 16-17 gathering. The Lethbridge congregation was able to host the March 16…
Different stages
Most people know Johnny Wideman as a playwright and the artistic director for Theatre of the Beat, the social justice-oriented troupe behind plays like This Will Lead to Dancing and Yellow Bellies. Now Wideman has released To Aid Digestion, a collection of 26 original short stories and poems. Canadian Mennonite called the 30-year-old at his…
Converting to Catholicism
It’s not every day you meet a Mennonite whose faith journey has led him to the Catholic church, but that’s James DeGurse’s story. Baptized as an infant in the Anglican church, DeGurse spent his formative years at Douglas Mennonite Church in Winnipeg. After worshipping at an Anglican church for a year or two, he began…
‘Is God still messing with us?’
“Is God still in the business of breaking into people’s lives? Is God still messing with us?” asked Brian Bauman during the opening worship service at Mennonite Church Manitoba’s annual general meeting. Bauman, MC Eastern Canada’s mission minister, called the people of MC Manitoba to discern where God is working in their church and what…
Giving the bucket list a ‘deeper’ meaning
Deepening. The word resonated throughout Mennonite Church Saskatchewan’s 2018 annual delegate sessions. While a budget and elections were most definitely on the table, delegates at the March 9 and 10 sessions also witnessed the culmination of the yearlong Refresh, Refocus, Renew process, in which the regional church engaged consultant Betty Pries to help them set…
Evangelical social justice
I find the Catholic process of declaring saints un-Anabaptist and weird—especially the part about verifying miracles–but the Vatican’s latest candidate for sainthood is someone who has shaped my Mennonite faith. In February 1977, the established powers in El Salvador, a nation of death squads and deep church-state-oligarchy ties, settled on Oscar Romero as a safe…
Psalms of lament in times of violence
What do we do with Psalm 137? While “Sing us one of your songs of Zion” (verse 3) rings in Christian minds as a sign of deep grief, the accompanying “Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!” (verse 9) strikes most as exceedingly difficult. Don E. Saliers,…
