Every time you walk into the church building, that threadbare carpet stares up at you. Everyone agrees it’s time for a change, but how do you replace a worn-out carpet without... Read More
Features
It’s as if we are on a ship heading straight for the rocks in spite of warning buoys, lighthouses or even the jagged shoreline looming ahead. Individual efforts seem insignificant, a choice between rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and trying to turn the ship with our bare hands. (Photo by Wollox / Creative Commons Licence (bit.ly/3rLhdz4))
March 24, 2021 | Feature | Tim Wiebe-Neufeld
(Image by Albrecht Fietz from Pixabay)
Easter is a time to speak a message of lavish grace, of love personified and of unending hope. This is a day to leave guilt, shame and fear tangled up with the linen strips inside... Read More
March 10, 2021 | Feature | Emily Summach
(Photo by YWAM Orlando on Flickr)
When you consider Jesus’ three-year ministry, which specific events come to mind? Which of his actions inspire you the most? When I was in seminary, one assignment was to pick one... Read More
February 24, 2021 | Feature | Joon Park
Apart from communities in the eastern United States, where the song was previously known, Mary Oyer and her committee colleagues had presumed the song would appeal primarily to church choirs looking for a challenge. (Photo by Merrill Miller)
When hymnologist Mary Oyer travelled from Uganda to Oregon to attend the 1969 Mennonite Church general assembly, she was surely filled with anticipation. She arrived in the second... Read More
February 10, 2021 | Feature | Bradley Kauffman
Photo of Genesis (Photos by Danielle Raimbault)
“And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, ‘In the future when your descendants ask their parents, “What do these... Read More
January 27, 2021 | Feature | Danielle Raimbault
Candles mark the hope many Colombians had when a Peace Accord was signed in 2016. (Presidencia El Salvador Photo / Creative Commons)
Despite a landmark 2016 peace deal that held the promise of ending more than 50 years of violence in Colombia, Mennonites in South America’s second most populated country report... Read More
January 13, 2021 | Feature | Will Braun
Carol Lint speaks to a young girl at a potluck dinner at Holyrood Mennonite Church in Edmonton. (Photo: Helena Ball / Holyrood Mennonite Church)
In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. stated: “We must face the fact that in America, the church is still the most segregated major institution in America. At 11:00 on Sunday morning... Read More
December 30, 2020 | Feature | Amy Rinner Waddell
‘Light,’ by Zoe Fretz, a Grade 8 student at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate, Kitchener, Ont., who attends Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church, also in Kitchener.
Recently, I read a book that unsettled my sense of hope. In her memoir I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness , Austin Channing Brown, a racial-justice leader... Read More
December 2, 2020 | Feature | Janet Bauman
God has got this thing for babies. In the midst of all the immense, complex political troubles of Judah, God kept offering babies as signs, inviting King Ahaz to what Alastair Roberts calls ‘the politics of the child’: politics centred on trust, vulnerability and long-range vision. (istock.com photo by Husam Cakaloglu)
It used to be that the tinsel and lights of Christmas didn’t dare emerge until the black cats and orange pumpkins of Halloween were stripped from the shelves. But this year I saw... Read More
November 18, 2020 | Feature | Judith Friesen Epp
The Mennonite Worship and Song Committee, pictured in Winnipeg in July 2019, from left to right, front row (kneeling): Adam Tice and Anneli Loepp Thiessen; middle row: Mike Erb, Paul Dueck, Darryl Neustaedter Barg, SaeJin Lee, Tom Harder, Allan Rudy-Froese, Katie Graber, Sarah Kathleen Johnson, Bradley Kauffman and Cynthia Neufeld Smith; and back row: Benjamin Bergey. (Photos courtesy of MennoMedia)
It’s the result of an idea proposed over a decade ago and the culmination of more than four years of intense work. It includes close to a thousand hymns and worship resources that... Read More
November 4, 2020 | Feature | Aaron Epp
(Photo © istock.com / lolloj)
This is an unprecedented time. Unprecedented—it’s a word we’re hearing a lot in the last few months. The sense of disorientation has been palpable, from eerily empty streets to... Read More
October 21, 2020 | Feature | Derek Suderman
A ‘specimen’ of the $5 bill to honour decorated Indigenous Canadian war veteran Tommy Prince. (Image courtesy of Tom Kmiec)
Although I’m a pacifist who has never voted Conservative, I support the Conservative-led campaign to put a war hero’s face on the $5 bill. All the more so after speaking about it... Read More
October 7, 2020 | Feature | Will Braun
Musician Darryl Neustadter Barg is MC Manitoba’s director of communications and CMU’s media production coordinator. He is pictured leading worship with Bruno Cavalca at the 2019 MC Canada assembly in Abbotsford, B.C. (Photo by Jane Grunau)
Life is funny. When something breaks down in the church, whether an oven or an elevator, we fix it. And if we can’t fix it, we buy a new one. We understand that physical property... Read More
September 23, 2020 | Feature | Joanne De Jong
(Mennopix Digital Art by Ross W. Muir)
When I am asked what I do for a living, I often say, “I show people how much fun it is to give their money away.” That elicits a better conversation than if I tell them I manage a... Read More
September 9, 2020 | Feature | Darren Pries-Klassen
Marion Regier, left, and Rachel Wallace tie quilts together at MCC’s Great Winter Warm Up in Rosthern, Sask, in January 2020. (Photo by Donna Schulz)
Eileen Klassen Hamm recalls how, as a young adult, she considered a Mennonite Voluntary Service term to be a good and natural thing to do. “It was an earlier era, where the church... Read More
August 12, 2020 | Feature | Donna Schulz
‘The Lord Answering Job Out of the Whirlwind,’ part of a series of paintings on the Book of Job by William Blake, 1805-06, commissioned by Thomas Butts. (Public Domain)
Years ago, I saw a movie about a fishing crew caught at sea when two storms and a hurricane converged to create a “perfect storm.” I have been reminded of this as widespread... Read More
July 15, 2020 | Feature | Derek Suderman
Frank H. Epp was the first radio director for the Conference of Mennonites in Manitoba and led the Abundant Life radio program. (Photo courtesy of the Mennonite Archives of Ontario / The Canadian Mennonite)
Manitoba’s airwaves are full of Mennonite radio. I began to notice this last year when I started hosting a radio program for Canadian Mennonite University (CMU), where I also work... Read More
June 17, 2020 | Feature | Nicolien Klassen-Wiebe
The gospel of dandelions makes a lot of sense. In this gospel, a wild and stubborn counterculture thrives in a world of domesticated lawns. (Photo by D. Michael Hostetler)
I have a problem with dandelions. Late spring is high season for dandelions, when those bright-yellow blooms make their presence in yards and fields abundantly clear. Within a... Read More
June 3, 2020 | Feature | Kevin Derksen
‘. . . that God will open to us a door for the word, that we may declare the mystery of Christ . . .’ (Colossians 4:3) (Photo by Jane Grunau)
When Hymnal: A Worship Book came out in 1992, “What is This Place” was chosen to be the lead hymn in the collection. The first line describes the church building as “Only a house... Read More
May 20, 2020 | Feature | Doug Klassen
People coping with fear and anxiety swing back and forth between responses as the situation, and perceptions of it, change. We panic. We grasp for assurances and control. We deny. We try to understand. (photo © istock.com/wildpixel)
As the effects of COVID-19 grow, I am observing a variety of emotional reactions in myself and others. COVID-19 touches everyone’s life. If it isn’t personal illness or loss, we... Read More
May 6, 2020 | Feature | Lucia Eitzen
Bishop Luis Hernandez baptizes a member of a Brethren in Christ house church in El Cafetal, Cuba. (Photo by Jack Suderman)
Sixteen Anabaptist Christians from Canada and the United States came to Cuba from Jan. 12 to 16 to learn about the church there. I was one of them. Jack and Irene Suderman of... Read More
April 22, 2020 | Feature | Raylene Hinz-Penner
I have the growing conviction that the canon provides us not only roots, but also wings. Not only is it important to be ‘well-rooted’; it is equally important to be ‘well-winged.’ (Photo: © istock.com/ananaline)
For most of us, the biblical canon with its 66 “books” has always been a given, inherited from the past, our parents and churches. We have not concerned ourselves very much with... Read More
April 8, 2020 | Feature | John H. Neufeld
3d Rendering of the Corona Virus In Red Background - Microbiology And Virology Concept (Photo taken from istock.com/RomoloTavani)
Thursday, as I sat down to a board meeting for the Micah Mission, a restorative justice organization in Saskatoon, I got the news that the Juno Awards show was being cancelled in... Read More
March 25, 2020 | Feature | Josh Wallace
'Love’s as hard as nails,' C.S. Lewis wrote. 'Love is nails: / Blunt, thick, hammered through / The medial nerves of One / Who, having made us, knew / The thing He had done, / Seeing (what all that is) / Our cross, and His.' (Graphic by Betty Avery)
I could not have predicted the responses I got when I asked 15 Mennonite Church Canada pastors—all women—how they would explain the meaning of the cross and resurrection to a 12-... Read More
March 11, 2020 | Feature | Will Braun
Christian pilgrims wave palm branches as they enter the Lions’ Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem in the annual Palm Sunday procession, March 24, 2013. (Photo © istock.com/rrodrickbeller)
Soren Kierkegaard once famously said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” So often it’s only after we’ve lived through something that we can... Read More
February 26, 2020 | Feature | Anita Fast