Is Future Directions a First-World problem?
The Future Directions process is moving slowly and surely forward with a specific restructuring proposal and a timeline for downsizing proposals. Meanwhile, the notion of refocussing on the local congregation, which is central to the transition narrative, is generating vital questions about the importance of global perspectives in an increasingly nationalistic world. First, the proposal.…
An historical treasure
Jake Buhler knows an historical treasure when he sees one. That’s why he’s so excited that the Saskatchewan Valley News is donating all of its back issues to the Mennonite Historical Society of Saskatchewan Archives in Saskatoon. The Valley News, as it has been simply known, quit publishing after 114 years. The final edition rolled…
Biblical response to colonial legacy
Last November, Vic Bartel and John Ilg pulled into the northern Manitoba Cree community of Cross Lake with a thousand Bibles. The Bibles had been requested by the local Pentecostal church and supplied by Canadian LifeLight Ministries. Neither Bartel nor Ilg had made such a delivery before. Upon arrival in Cross Lake, the two men—both…
Talking with our cousins
A public panel discussion on the relationships between the three Abrahamic religions couldn’t have come at a more opportune time, occurring as it did on the heels of the opening of the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery’s showing of “Synagogues in Germany: A virtual reconstruction” and the recent Quebec City mosque shooting. (See more on the…
Matt Epp helps ‘grow hope’
The soulful voice of Matt Epp serenaded a crowd at Foothills Mennonite Church in Calgary on Feb. 3, 2017. Epp partnered with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Alberta and Canadian Foodgrains Bank for a fundraising concert to launch the Grow Hope campaign. Richard and Esther Goerzen will plant, nurture and harvest 100 acres of their land,…
A kidney for a guitar
Gerald Neufeld of B.C. and Russ Sawatsky of Ontario have several things in common: they both served as missionaries in Japan, where they met their wives; and they both attended Canadian Mennonite Bible College in Winnipeg at the same time. But the donation of a kidney for one and the receiving of a kidney for…
Saint or sinner?
“There’s a crack in everything / that’s how the light gets in,” is often quoted by Christians as hope that God will “get in” to any situation. But the quote has a strange source, penned and sung as it was by Canada’s own beat poet, Leonard Cohen, that Jewish? Christian? Buddhist? lady’s man, from the…
Silver Lake takes steps to deepen faith formation
How can we deepen Christian faith formation at camp? In wrestling with this question, the leadership team at Silver Lake Mennonite Camp, located near Sauble Beach, Ont., launched a new initiative last summer to take its longstanding faith-building tradition to another level. The team created a new position called “spiritual life coordinator” and hired David…
A special faith-based community
Attending Ontario Mennonite Music Camp at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ont., has benefitted me in ways that I never could have imagined when I registered in 2012. I made some incredible friendships and developed important life skills in my two weeks at camp. I was pretty nervous going into Music Camp, being a…
A front-row seat
A highlight of each summer at the Shekinah Retreat Centre near Waldheim, Sask., is the coffee house during our senior-teen camp for ages 15 to 18. Campers come out of their shell and display talents that we didn’t know they had. It is a special time of vulnerability. Coffee House 2016 was highlighted by a…
