Mennonite World Conference, 1962
In 1962, Canada hosted the Mennonite World Conference for the first time. Twelve thousand delegates attended; 6,000 of these were billeted in local homes. Historian T.D. Regehr notes in Mennonites in Canada: A People Transformed, “The Kitchener-Waterloo area, where Old Order Amish lived side by side with successful Mennonite businessmen, professionals, and academics, provided a…
Hutterites thank John J. Friesen for teaching courses
A new artwork honouring a professor from Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) and commissioned by the Hutterian Brethren Education Committee was unveiled in CMU’s new library on June 3. It honoured John J. Friesen, professor emeritus of history and theology, for his contribution to the Hutterite community. Between 2000 and 2014, Friesen taught a number of…
The Gathering Church celebrates ten years
Two in three church plants don’t make it past the five-year mark. That doesn’t mean they haven’t been successful, but long life is not part of most church plants. The Gathering Church, a full member of Mennonite Church Eastern Canada, celebrated its tenth anniversary quietly in February this year. Pastor Jim Loepp Thiessen left a…
Lebold dinner funds new pastoral training program
A new focus was announced this year at the Ralph and Eileen Lebold Endowment fundraising dinner, because last year it reached its goal of $1 million to fund pastoral training at Conrad Grebel University College (CGUC). This fund, jointly supported by Mennonite Church Eastern Canada (MCEC) and Conrad Grebel, was founded in 1997 and is…
New peace award at Grebel to empower women
Conrad Grebel University College is offering a $10,000 scholarship to a female Master of Peace and Conflict Studies (MPACS) student, thanks to a partnership with Ziauddin Yousafzai, the Global Peace Centre Canada (GPCC) and the Women’s Executive Network. Yousafzai is the father of 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. “Each year we are challenged…
Ride for Refuge to support ministry in Thailand
Northeast Thailand is the poorest region in the country. Democracy is uneven, and peaceful protests can land protesters in barred cells overnight. Since a military coup in 2014, poor and landless subsistence farmers are reportedly being evicted from national reserve lands they have farmed for decades. The region is home to the indigenous Isaan people,…
Jamie Arpin-Ricci a man of surprising contrasts
He pastors Little Flowers Community, a small Mennonite congregation in Winnipeg’s west end neighbourhood that chose to belong to the larger church body through Mennonite Church Manitoba/Mennonite Church Canada. He co-directs Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Urban Ministries Winnipeg. He’s also the director of Chiara House, a new intentional Christian community in Winnipeg, husband to…
Church growth is the wrong narrative
“Church growth strategies are the death gurgle of a church that has lost its way,” is how Stanley Hauerwas describes this book, noting that, “God is making us leaner and meaner.” This insightful analysis of contemporary churches comes from a pastor who wanted to become a great leader by using “successful” pastors as his model.…
A different way of thinking
Imagine these words as pictures with no direct meaning. That’s part of what it’s like to have dyslexia. “Dyslexia is a different way of thinking,” says Mattea Nickel, 19. She was diagnosed 11 years ago, after struggling to understand written words and numbers in elementary school. Now a first-year student at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU),…
Baking cookies for clean water
Tyreese Hildebrandt is a 10-year-old who dreams of helping people to have clean drinking water. A while back, Hildebrandt read a book that touched him deeply. Ryan and Jimmy and the Well in Africa that Brought them Together by Herb Shoveller is about a Canadian boy who raised money to dig a well in Uganda…
