Taking down our harps
“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps” (Psalm 137: 1-2). These familiar words from the Psalmist, cited by Cindy Wallace as she opened the worship of Assembly 2016 in Saskatoon, persisted as a lament throughout the five-day event that brought…
Hope through lament and loss
“A season of change,” lament, fear, anxiety, confession, uncertainty, safe space, brave space . . . hope. Mennonite Church Canada, which held its biennial assembly, “God~Faith~People,” in Saskatoon from July 6 to 10, 2016, faced two major decisions after years of study and consultation. Both the recommendations from the Being a Faithful Church (BFC) and…
Ready for God’s response?
With poetic grace and an invitational tone, Cynthia Wallace of Warman (Sask.) Mennonite Church challenged Assembly 2016 participants at the July 6 worship service to dream boldly and then asked if they were ready for God’s response. Using the “God~Faith~People” theme text from Jeremiah 31, Wallace characterized the Old Testament story as filled with surprises…
Covenant and law: A matter of relationship
Over two days at Mennonite Church Canada’s Assembly 2016, “God~Faith~People,” keynote speaker Safwat Marzouk addressed the topic of covenant that was central to the theme text, Jeremiah 31:33. During the July 7 worship service, he explained that covenant is an agreement of mutual obligation, in which each party has the ability and responsibility to uphold…
Making a case for community
“Too often Mennonites have focussed on disunity.” With these words, Gareth Brandt began his seminar, “Running towards community,” and he then showed how Mennonite/Anabaptist history is pockmarked with splits and schisms. But Brandt said that he sees these splits as inevitable. “If everybody has a voice, then you’re going to have these splits,” he said…
‘Young adults don’t need the church’
The seminar title started in response to the young adult “problem.” “[‘Young adults don’t need the church’] is not meant to be a defiance statement, but a statement of fact,” said presenter Chris Brnjas, a co-founder of Pastors in Exile (PiE) in southwestern Ontario. “The church is no longer a central force in the lives…
The future lies in the past
Ken Quiring is convinced that the future of biblical literacy lies in video. This may be one reason why he and others like him have joined a growing movement known as “biblical storytelling “We are reading print less and less, but we are doing more and more video,” said the pastor of Grace Mennonite Church…
‘We are all responsible for what happens next’
Although a concrete picture of what Mennonite Church Canada might look like in two years isn’t yet determined, 318 delegates voted to approve in principle the direction proposed by the Future Directions Task Force to develop a more integrated nationwide church body; 21 voted against, and 4 ballots were spoiled. Following General Board moderator Hilda…
A vision for the MHC Archives and Gallery
Did you know that if all of the textual records and photographs in Winnipeg’s Mennonite Heritage Centre (MHC) Archives and Gallery were stacked on top of each other, they would be taller than the CN Tower? That was one of the facts Korey Dyck shared during a seminar entitled “History matters: A new vision for…
