Living with paradoxes
In a blog post a year ago, The Mennonite’s Tim Nafziger references John Paul Lederach’s book The Moral Imagination, in which the author describes what he calls “paradoxical curiosity.” It’s an attitude toward conflict, writes Lederach, “that has an abiding respect for complexity, a refusal to fall prey to the pressures of forced dualistic categories…
Encountering the vulnerable Jesus
Lent is a 40-day season on the church calendar that brings the story of Jesus into the nitty-gritty of community life. It brings the story into everyone’s own particular time and place. Lent is a time that commemorates the 40 days Jesus spent in solitude, silence and fasting in the wilderness. During this time in…
Readers write: March 14, 2016 issue
Church leaders thanked for naming Vernon Leis I want to publicly say thank you to Mennonite church leaders for speaking up against sexual misconduct in the case against Vernon Leis, even if it is decades after the fact. There is never a good time to reveal the misconduct of a church leader. This is true…
The church as ‘choir’
Recently I discovered Apple Music. This is an amazing deal in which I give the good folks at Apple a few dollars every month and they give me access to more than 30 million songs. Well, I went on a bit of a listening binge. I would think of a song and then look it…
To whom do we listen?
The real driver of our lives—and even our churches—is whose voice we hear and obey. We make decisions to listen to and give authority somewhere. We quote, footnote and reference. We point to a source, and usually one that agrees with us. “As you have lived, so have you believed,” said philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. Our…
Ripples and waves
On Feb. 27, 2016, I attended a talk given by Seth Klein, director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives B.C., about The Leap Manifesto, an initiative out of the This Changes Everything movement begun by Naomi Klein and her book of the same name. The manifesto’s subtitle reads, “A call for a Canada based…
Native awareness
Freeman Simard is pictured in traditional indigenous regalia in the front of a church in Manigotogan, Man., which is about 200 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg. A small portable record player is helping Freeman as he participates in an event called ‘Native awareness’ around the Christmas season in 1979. Manigotogan is one of the communities where…
Volunteering: Is it still part of our DNA?
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms” (I Peter 4:10 NIV). Many times over the years I have been asked to volunteer here or there, but at the same time I have also been asked, “Why do you do…
Worship warms the human soul
Christine Longhurst believes that the style of worship and its elements—songs, music, liturgy, readings, sermons, sharing and prayer—is of least importance for congregations, pastors and worship planners. Longhurst, who teaches at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg and leads workshops and weekend seminars on worship in churches across Canada, told participants at this year’s Mennonite Church…
