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
Features
The glass sculpture titled, Imperative Change, is made from upcycled glass by Steinbach, Manitoba artist George Klassen. (Photo by George Klassen)
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
(Design by Betty Avery / Headshots from Mennonite World Conference)
Based on my first-hand experience with the Mennonite church in Canada and the U.S. over the past 18 years, I suspect that far less than 10 percent of primarily white Mennonite... Read More
January 11, 2023 | Feature | Joon Park
An Israeli soldier and Palestinian girls in Bethlehem. (Photo courtesy of Bethlehem Bible College)
Munther Isaac recently published a book that confronts a longstanding problem in Christian attitudes toward the Holy Land—ignorance, indifference and even hostility to the... Read More
December 7, 2022 | Feature | Byron Rempel-Burkholder
This artwork was submitted to the Canadian Mennonite call for student art by Aishel Nag of Bethesda Mennonite Church, Champa, Chhattisgarh, India.
Rahab acts by faith Joshua 2:1-21; 6:22-25; Matthew 1:5; Hebrews 11:29-31; James 2:23-26. Beyond the narrative in Joshua and Jesus’ genealogy, Rahab is mentioned two other times... Read More
November 23, 2022 | Feature | Joanna Harader
‘Saint John the Baptist Pointing to Christ,’ by Carlo Maratta (1625-1713). (Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain Artwork)
At an Anglican church I know, the congregational response after the reading of Scripture is: “Listen to what the Spirit is saying to the church.” This response captures the... Read More
November 9, 2022 | Feature | Johann Funk
Martin So, pastor of Vancouver Peace Church.
A quiet, years-long journey. A voice speaking in a mosh pit full of teenagers. A love for the church. An unexpected second career. These are just some of the ways that Mennonite... Read More
October 26, 2022 | Feature | Emily Summach
In the chapel at Casa Iskali retreat centre in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Ill., 45 people gathered from Aug. 26 to 28 for a working conference to launch the Anabaptist Bible project. (Jace Longenecker photo for MennoMedia)
Anabaptism began in 1525 in Switzerland, when bold young Christians challenged authorities with the radical idea that Scripture spoke clearly to ordinary people who studied the... Read More
October 12, 2022 | Feature | Paul Schrag
CMC-MPS steering committee members meet at St. Charles Retreat Centre, Nov. 1996. The group helped shape the future directions for a churchwide publication. Front, left to right: Waldo Neufeld, Ruth Braun, Sam Steiner, Ron Rempel. Back: Marg Neufeld, Lawrence Burkholder, Jack Suderman, Ted Regehr. Missing: Otto Driedger. (Photo by Aiden Enns)
In the summer of 2003, as I pondered how to say farewell to a 24-year career as editor of Canadian Mennonite and its predecessor, Mennonite Reporter , a friend suggested I reflect... Read More
September 28, 2022 | Feature | Ron Rempel
(rawpixel photo / © istockphoto.com)
He might be the youth leader, enthusiastically singing the loudest, or the young mother protectively watching over her children as they run among the pews, or the strong-willed... Read More
September 14, 2022 | Feature | Bruce Hiebert
Members of MC Canada’s Joint Council, musicians and worship leader Tany Warkentin lead the gathering in words and actions of the ‘We declare’ affirmation. (Photo by Ruth Bergen Braun)
For the first time since 2019, members from across the five regions of Mennonite Church Canada gathered in person for learning, inspiration and decision-making. Meeting at a... Read More
August 17, 2022 | Feature | Virginia A. Hostetler
Mennonite World Conference assembly participants attend the final worship service July 10 at the 12,000-seat sanctuary of JKI Injil Kerajaan, a Mennonite church known as the “Holy Stadium,” in Semarang, Indonesia. (Meetinghouse photo by Kresna Kurniawan)
With its national motto of “unity in diversity,” Indonesia proved a fitting host for the 17th assembly of Mennonite World Conference (MWC)—downsized by COVID-19 restrictions but... Read More
July 20, 2022 | Feature | Paul Schrag
Although Mt. Baker is located in Washington state, traditional Salishan territory, its presence is part of Abbotsford, B.C.’s skyline. Abbotsford is home to the Matsqui First Nation, affiliated with the Stó:lo Nation. (Photo by Amy Rinner Waddell)
In recent years, whether attending church meetings or public or community gatherings, Canadians may have heard opening words similar to these: “We gratefully acknowledge that we... Read More
June 22, 2022 | Feature | Amy Rinner Waddell