Speaking with one voice
Participants at the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC)—held last month in Kingston, Jamaica, to celebrate the end of the Decade to Overcome Violence—released a message expressing their unified experience of a week-long exploration of a just peace and ways to navigate a path forward as they return to their homes and churches around the world.…
A different sort of challenge
A few months ago our four-year-old daughter was overheard singing a song with only one line, which she repeated irritatingly till my patient wife didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Our little fireball of estrogen was singing a song of her own creation ripe with ironic truth: “I’m a different sort of challenge.” Amen,…
An uncomfortable place to be
Mennonites are in a unique position in this era of mission. Arthur Boers, author and seminary professor, notes that we sit in that uncomfortable place between the mainline and the evangelical church traditions. I work with a number of new churches and church planters. Some are “newcomer” congregations; others are steeped in the culture of…
Readers write
In search of a ‘relational’ theologian Thank you very much for your editorial, “Habits of Repair,” May 2, page 2. Your report of the three-day conference on attachment theory, relationality and the integration of love and spirituality was insightful and provocative. Sue Johnson, whom you refer to as the keynote speaker at the conference, is…
For discussion
1. What has been your congregation’s experience with divorce? Does the church respond differently to divorce than it did in the 1970s? Has divorce lost its stigma? Are those who are divorced still discouraged from taking positions of leadership in the church? 2. When is the break-up of a marriage a sin and when is…
Divorce ministry resources
Becoming a National Church by Adolf Ens. CMU Press, Winnipeg, Man., 2004. Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce by Elizabeth Marquardt. Three Rivers Press, New York, N.Y., 2005. The Children of Divorce: The Loss of Family as the Loss of Being by Andrew Root. Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, Mich., 2010. Practices:…
Who gets the church … when a couple divorces?
When a couple divorces, lawyers help decide how jointly held possessions are divided. There are many things, however, such as church attendance, that the couple are left to negotiate on their own. One divorcee, when asked who gets the church, replies vehemently, “Who wants it?” In spite of continued committed involvement in her congregation, she…
