Debora Prabu, from Indonesia, sings during one of the nine worship services at Mennonite World Conference Assembly, held July 21 to 26, 2015. She was part of the 17-person... Read More
Features
Members of the Mennonite-Anabaptist family from around the world gathered July 21 to July 26, 2015, in Harrisburg, Pa., U.S.A., for the 16th assembly of Mennonite World Conference. To learn more about the event, click on the links below. (Jim Cheng photo)
Walking with God and each other (overview) Video series: Charting Walks with God Worship services MWC PA 2015 opens with celebration, call for walking together Speakers share... Read More
August 12, 2015 | Feature |
Morning and evening worship services featured songs from various cultures and countries. Many people found the music inspiring. (Photo by Jim Cheng)
In his friendship group at the Mennonite World Conference assembly, Francis Ojwang found that getting to know fellow believers from distant places brought an unexpected blessing... Read More
August 12, 2015 | Feature | Paul Schrag
Marcy Hostetler, led the international music ensemble. (Photo by Dale D. Gehman)
Worship rises to the rafters as Mennonites and Brethren and Christ join their voices in music from around the world at PA 2015 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Differences exist in... Read More
August 12, 2015 | Feature | Laura Kraybill
Natasha Neustaedter Barg gets some tips on playing a gamelan instrument from player Andrew Beltaos, as part of an evening youth event. (Photo by Doreen Martens)
Megan Breidigan may be only 16, but she’s already figured out there’s nothing quite like a Mennonite World Conference assembly. The Douglasville, Pa., high school student says... Read More
August 12, 2015 | Feature | Doreen Martens
Participants in the Global Youth Summit wrote messages of encouragement to Lee Sang Min, a conscientious objector under detention in South Korea. (MWC photo)
The three-day Mennonite World Conference (MWC) Global Youth Summit (GYS) concluded Sunday, July 19, with a strong call to young adults to impact the world by sharing their gifts... Read More
August 12, 2015 | Feature | Elina Ciptadi-Perkins
Roland Yoder (centre) puts his own thumbprint on the three-dimensional sculpture of the MWC logo that he designed. Vikal Rao (left) from India was the overall creator of the Global Church Village and Lowell Jantzi (right) helped to carry out the concept. (Photo by Dale D. Gehman)
“This seems like an innocent form of community graffiti,” Roland Yoder said with a smile as he watched the hub of activity around the three-dimensional sculpture of the Mennonite... Read More
August 12, 2015 | Feature | Connie Faber
Left to right: Lesly Henriquez (Honduras), Albita Castillo (Guatemala), and Aurora Pereira (Honduras) work at a communal art project titled, “Women in Conversation.” Artist and pastor Audrey Kanagy (far right) designed the four panels, depicting women from different continents. (Photo by Dale D. Gehman for Meetinghouse)
For the first time Anabaptist women gathered from across the world to consider forming a global Anabaptist women’s network. The Mennonite World Conference (MWC) assembly, provided... Read More
August 12, 2015 | Feature | Virginia A. Hostetler, with reports by Harriet Sider Bicksler and Elina Ciptadi-Perkins
Danisa Ndlovu (left) of Zimbabwe and Janet Plenert of Canada have completed six years as president and vice-president of Mennonite World Conference.
In four days of meetings just prior to the July 21-26 Mennonite World Conference Assembly, the General Council gathered with about 120 representatives from MWC member churches... Read More
August 12, 2015 | Feature | Ron Rempel
Three Mennonite women from different countries share together during a Mennonite World Conference gathering in Ethiopia. (Photo by Merle Good)
The last in a five-part series leading up to Mennonite World Conference Assembly in Harrisburg, Pa. When someone asks you to use a few words to describe yourself, what words do... Read More
July 22, 2015 | Feature | Arli Klassen
The Sermon on the Mount is the thorn in our side and the rainbow in our sky, discomforting and comforting by turn, but always calling us beyond our perspective to a more joyous and loving existence.
I was down in Mississippi, at a small African-American church. My parents were volunteering there with a ministry that had many different programs going. They had a farm, a clinic... Read More
June 30, 2015 | Feature | Mary Schertz
‘Which of you, if your children ask for a moon cake, will give them a stone?’ (Matthew 7:9, paraphrase) (Photo © iStock.com/Voraorn)
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?” (Matthew 7:9-10). I have never eaten a stone, but if given a... Read More
June 17, 2015 | Feature | Brian Quan
Pressure is increasing once again. The violent and repressive imagination created by apartheid still dominates. Recent violence directed at African foreign nationals is but one example of this. (Photo by Karen Suderman)
The journey towards reconciliation is not easy. Attempts to repair wrongs involve time and intentionality. Healing broken relationships takes longer still. In 2009, Canada began a... Read More
June 3, 2015 | Feature | Andrew Suderman
On April 18, Karen and Andrew Suderman and at least 18 others protest recent eruptions of xenophobia by wrapping about 100 trees in the downtown core of Pietermaritzburg with yellow fabric and a statement from South Africa’s Freedom Charter: ‘South Africa belongs to all who live in it.’ (Photo courtesy of Karen and Andrew Suderman)
What do you do in the face of hatred, a hatred so immense that it drives people to pillage, beat and even kill others? What do you do when that hatred is simultaneously “out there... Read More
June 3, 2015 | Feature | Karen Suderman
Palmer Becker and J.T. Masih (centre) in a teaching mission in India. (Photo courtesy of Palmer Becker)
Just as there are Lutheran, Baptist and Anglican Christians, so there are Mennonite Christians. The name “Mennonite” is most appropriately used as an adjective rather than a noun... Read More
May 20, 2015 | Feature | Palmer Becker
“Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come . . . . Rise up... Read More
May 6, 2015 | Feature | Muriel Bechtel
My grandmother’s church is, like all Old Order Mennonite churches, plain. The white walls are bare. There are no stained-glass windows, no gilded altars and no images of saints or... Read More
April 22, 2015 | Feature | Robin A. Fast
“A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the... Read More
April 8, 2015 | Feature | Anita Fast
Matthew 10:37 reads, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” These verses have... Read More
April 8, 2015 | Feature | Anita Fast
For many people, the Christian faith and poverty are deeply interconnected. Acts of charity are widely viewed as a key aspect of the Christian life, and the church has a long... Read More
March 25, 2015 | Feature | Derek Cook
Anneken de Vlaster, an Anabaptist woman, is thrown into the fire in 1571, as pictured in Herald Press’s Martyrs Mirror.
Sometimes, a single act can have enormous consequences. In the religious ferment of 16th century Europe, a small group of Christians in the Swiss canton of Zurich gathered in a... Read More
March 11, 2015 | Feature | Valerie G. Rempel
Indigenous students and their families arrive by plane for a Mennonite-run Bible school at Stormer Lake in northwestern Ontario in 1981. (Photo by Martin Frey)
“History,” wrote American poet Maya Angelou more than 20 years ago, “despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” Canada’s... Read More
February 25, 2015 | Feature | Elaine Enns
The term “settler” for Canadians of European descent was popularized by Roger Epp in his 2008 book, We are all Treaty People. This term acknowledges—rather than ignores—the... Read More
February 25, 2015 | Feature | Elaine Enns
In an appendix to Ambassadors of Reconciliation, Vol. II: Diverse Christian Practices of Restorative Justice and Peacemaking (Orbis Books), which I co-wrote, I explored the... Read More
February 25, 2015 | Feature | Elaine Enns
