What will Christmas be like in Bethlehem this year? What can we learn about the birth of Christ from those who live where he was born and where he lived? Below, we share... Read More
Features
The ruins of Al Zahra, south of Gaza City, after Israeli airstrikes. (Photo by Mohammed Zaanoun/Active Stills)
December 1, 2023 | Feature |
Selenna Wolfe (Photo by Nicolien Klassen-wiebe)
It might seem unlikely that young women would be drawn to church leadership and feel compelled to enter pastoral ministry. As young people, they are part of an underrepresented... Read More
November 16, 2023 | Feature | Nicolien Klassen-Wiebe
(Photo by Aaron Epp)
There were nineteen beds in the hospice, that’s what I heard, most of them occupied, but I paid no attention to them. When we first arrived, yes, I’d glanced into the room next to... Read More
November 2, 2023 | Feature | Dora Dueck
(Photo by Aaron Epp)
There’s one church service that Fran Giesbrecht makes a special point not to miss: Eternity Sunday. Observed at his Winnipeg church on the last Sunday before Advent, Eternity... Read More
November 2, 2023 | Feature | Aaron Epp
Nelson Groh was a Mennonite killed in the Second World War. (Photos by A.S. Compton)
“Sir,” said the man, “you and your family can be very proud of your son.” I could tell the man at the door was important by the way his brass buttons shone, and the way Father... Read More
October 19, 2023 | Feature | Creative non-fiction by A.S. Compton
Protesters rally in Washington D.C. We altered the placard, which originally read, “Thoughts & prayers don’t save lives / Gun reform will.” (Photo by Lorie Shaull, Used as per creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0. adapted by Betty Avery)
When conservative Christians in the southern U.S. were agitating to erect monuments with the 10 commandments on them in front of courthouses, I heard someone suggest that they put... Read More
October 5, 2023 | Feature | Will Braun
(Photo by Alexander Alexandrov from Pixabay)
Robert Bruinsma remembers the day his friend, Sam, told him he was going to die. It was a few days before Christmas 2017, and Bruinsma was visiting Sam (not his real name) in the... Read More
September 21, 2023 | Feature | Aaron Epp
Curtis Wiens leads a forest church service the first Sunday of every month at Shekinah Retreat Centre. (Photo by Donna Schulz)
Florence Driedger turns to look out the window before she replies to my question. “Well, we never know from one year to the next who and how many . . . whether we’ll still be... Read More
August 24, 2023 | Feature | Josh Wallace
The Wiederkehr family applying compost to a dry corn breeding experiment. (Supplied photo)
On a hundred hilly acres near Mildmay, Ontario, the Wiederkehr family is quietly pushing the limits of human energy, spiritual integrity and disconnection from the consumerist web... Read More
July 27, 2023 | Feature | Andre Wiederkehr
The Hermitage, a place of spiritual rest. (Photo by Kevin Driedger)
We asked the Canadian Mennonite community to reflect on rest and restlessness. Where do you find rest for your soul? What do you need rest from? How does Jesus’ promise in Matthew... Read More
June 29, 2023 | Feature |
The glass sculpture titled, Imperative Change, is made from upcycled glass by Steinbach, Manitoba artist George Klassen. (Photo by George Klassen)
In my mid-30s, two decades after the last time my father beat me, and two years after he died, I broke glass twice in one week. Once, for the first time in my life, in anger. On a... Read More
June 15, 2023 | Feature | Arthur Boers
(Flickr photo by U.S. Department of Agriculture)
I want to know how to pray. It’s December 2021. Advent. A season of waiting. Everything is waiting. Waiting for the pandemic to be over. Waiting for our leaders to start acting... Read More
June 6, 2023 | Feature | Josiah Neufeld
Milo Shantz pictured with a turkey in the late 1950s. Shantz and his brother Ross started a highly successful turkey business. (Photo courtesy of Marcus Shantz)
I was delivering a sermon on the story of Zacchaeus last October when I realized that when I talked about Zacchaeus, I was actually thinking about, and picturing, my father... Read More
May 18, 2023 | Feature | Marcus Shantz
Ross W. Muir, with camera bag in tow, among a Grade 1 class at the Unyama IDP Camp in northern Uganda, 2004. (Photo by Michael Oruni)
I’m basing the form of this final missive on the last book I read, Dispatches —a harrowing and sometimes hilarious memoir by Michael Herr, who covered the insanity of the Vietnam... Read More
May 4, 2023 | Feature | Ross W. Muir
A painting of Christopher Columbus planting his flag in the “New World,” by American artist Louis Prang. (L. Prang & Co., Boston, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
After the Vatican’s recent repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, I spent two hours speaking with three Indigenous people about the 500-year-old church doctrine that is as much... Read More
April 20, 2023 | Feature | Will Braun
Michel Monette and Lyne Renaud. (Photo by Michel Monette)
When I was first called to church planting work in 2004, I prayed and sought God’s will. I also read Ray Bakke’s book, Hope for the City . It invited me back to the city. The book... Read More
April 6, 2023 | Feature | Michel Monette
Art by Nick Schuurman(therainthesnowtheseed.ca)
Reading words written nearly 500 years ago and translated nearly 70 years ago takes some effort, especially when the message is that death precedes resurrection. We trust the... Read More
March 23, 2023 | Feature | Menno Simons c.1536
An Easter turtle in Mampujan, Colombia. (Photo by Anna Vogt)
We asked 10 people for their most meaningful Easter memory, or an image that best captures the essence of Easter, or what Easter makes them wonder. Holy Week turtle soup When I... Read More
March 23, 2023 | Feature |
Evangelist George R. Brunk II with his wife Margaret, and their kids, left to right, George, Conrad, Paul, Barbara and Gerald, at a 1952 revival meeting in Waterloo, Ont. (Mennonite Archives of Ontario photo by David L. Hunsberger)
October 22 was a normal Sunday. I had just arrived at Rockway Mennonite Church in Kitchener, Ont., when Conrad Brunk approached me. He is a fellow Rockway member, a former... Read More
March 8, 2023 | Feature | Carol Ann Weaver
Actors Rooney Mara (left), Claire Foy, Judith Ivey, Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod and Jessie Buckley on the set of Women Talking. (Photo by Michael Gibson/Orion Pictures)
What do we do when we are wronged: Nothing? Stay and fight? Or do we leave? These questions form the backbone of Women Talking , a 2022 film directed by Sarah Polley and adapted... Read More
February 22, 2023 | Feature | Mandy Elliott
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky (in the yellow shirt) pictured in Manitoba Colony in 2013. She is pictured with the family that hosted her and her now-husband Sebastian Malter who joined her for her first couple days in the colony. (Photo courtesy of Jean Friedman-Rudovsky)
After opening in select movie theatres before Christmas, Women Talking received a wide release last month. For Jean Friedman-Rudovsky, it marked 10 years since she interviewed... Read More
February 22, 2023 | Feature | Aaron Epp
The set of Women Talking at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. (Photo by Michael Gibson/Orion Pictures)
Not many farmers walk out of a movie theatre and say, “It’s a lot of fun seeing our farm on the big screen.” But that’s what Chris Burkholder thought after he watched Women... Read More
February 22, 2023 | Feature | Aaron Epp
The church in Pingjum, Netherlands where Menno Simons stood up to Catholic authorities. (Photo by Doug Klassen)
I stand on the very spot where it all began, in a former Catholic church in the village of Pingjum, Netherlands. Here, the priest Menno Simons was called to account by his... Read More
February 8, 2023 | Feature | Doug Klassen
Victor Wiebe and Lorene Nickel with a “Deed of Gift” form. (Photo by Emily Summach)
Through an easily overlooked side door and down two flights of stairs at Bethany Manor Senior Living Complex in Saskatoon one will find the archival rooms of the Mennonite... Read More
January 25, 2023 | Feature | Emily Summach
