“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
Features
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)
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
My wife Rachel and I wanted to start practising radical hospitality, but we live in a cosy basement apartment. It would be so much easier if we had our own house with lots of... Read More
February 11, 2015 | Feature | Chris Brnjas
If you find yourself in Victoria Park in Kitchener, Ont., on a Thursday evening in the summertime, wander down the tree-lined path and over the bridge until you reach the island... Read More
February 11, 2015 | Feature | Jessica Reesor Rempel
Mennonite churches are afraid. In fact, Christian denominations all over Canada are afraid. We have felt this, seen it and experienced it. Sometimes this fear leads denominations... Read More
February 11, 2015 | Feature | Chris Brnjas and Jessica Reesor Rempel
1. What acts of servanthood have you seen carried out by church leaders? Do your church leaders take a turn working in the kitchen? What message do they send when they do menial... Read More
January 28, 2015 | Feature |
What to do?” is our anxious impulse. “In the beginning,” God was revealed in creation before there was anyone to appreciate the self-disclosure this represented. It was long... Read More
January 28, 2015 | Feature | Ike Glick
1. How has our society’s attitude toward same-sex relationships changed in the past 20 or 30 years? Who or what has contributed to this shift? How much has the church changed its... Read More
January 14, 2015 | Feature | By Barb Draper
