Ugly stories
I don’t like the cover of today’s issue. I don’t want to see it lying on my coffee table. You probably don’t either. At the top, a large uniformed man wields a whip, as armed soldiers ride toward a house below. Red and yellow flames shoot up in the background. The artwork promoted a Nazi…
When will we say we need you?
Immediately after finishing with undergraduate school in 2008, I went down to Mexico to help translate for a mission trip that my mom and younger brother were taking with my church’s youth group. One day, the Mexican pastor we were working with—a smiling, mustachioed man who led a tiny Pentecostal church called Jehovah’s Hand—informed me…
Readers write: April 9, 2018 issue
Feature writer breaks faith with Paul’s word to the Corinthians Re: “Unity of the Spirit,” Feb. 26, page 4. I found the adapted presentation of Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld disappointing and unhelpful. I cannot detect any engagement by him with parts of I Corinthians. This omission severely, if not completely, undermines this piece of…
Ordinary discipleship
How comfortable are you with change? Change seems to be the most consistent “unchanging” reality of our lives. We are always experiencing change. Thankfully many, or even most, of the changes we experience are small or gradual, like the steady change in my hair colour to ever-more grey! However, from time to time life events…
Confession of a ‘road rage pastor’
I’ve had a bit of a road rage problem. It peeves me when I need to throw on the brakes because another vehicle pulled out in front of me. Sadly, too often my reaction has been to tailgate, eventually pass and possibly toot my horn. I tell myself that I’m helping the other motorist see…
Kitchener-Waterloo House Church
Families of the Kitchener-Waterloo House Churches sing hymns around a piano in 1974. This particular house church began services in 1969. North American Mennonites rediscovered the house-church model, first described in the New Testament, in the 1950s. Small groups of believers coming together to experience close relationships have been associated throughout Christian history with times…
Tending and befriending
From time immemorial—as the biblical story of Ruth and Naomi illustrates—developing friendships and tending relationships have often been a woman’s “go-to, our have-to, our live for,” especially during times of stress. In the current season of stressful change within Mennonite Church Canada, tending relationships may be especially important to the health of the church. Drawing…
An eye-witness account of Nazi occupation
At the age of 85, I am probably one of the few survivors of the German occupation of Ukraine/Russia from 1941 to 1943 who still have clear personal memories of that time. When the German army occupied Chortitza, Ukraine, where I lived, we Mennonites were exuberant. I remember vividly the euphoria of being liberated from…
Mennonites respond to Palestinian church
Christians in the land where Christianity started have asked sisters and brothers around the world for help. In response to these pleas from Palestinian churches—with whom Mennonites have long-standing relations—delegates at the 2016 Mennonite Church Canada assembly approved a resolution related to violence in the Middle East. What has happened since that resolution was passed?…
