Interim International Witness director to begin on Aug. 1
Jeanette Hanson, associate director for Mennonite Partners in China, will begin as interim director of Mennonite Church Canada’s International Witness program on Aug. 1. Jason Martin. (MC Canada photo) Hanson will ensure ongoing support for Witness workers and give appropriate attention to new and emerging initiatives. She replaces Jason Martin, who will conclude his service as…
Learning as we go
Gathering 2019 starts next week. From June 28 to July 1, several hundred attendees from across Canada will meet in Abbotsford, B.C., for the first major event since the re-structuring of the Mennonite Church Canada. Thank you, MC British Columbia, for hosting this gang! While getting together to worship and be inspired, to enjoy mealtime conversations…
Four decades of welcome
Toronto United Mennonite Church was the first church in Canada to receive privately sponsored “boat people” who were fleeing Vietnam and Laos during the chaos of the Vietnam War. Early in March 1979, an adult social-issues group meeting during the Sunday school period took the first step. The story of Southeast Asian refugees fleeing by…
Readers write: June 24, 2019 issue
Where is the ‘just and redemptive path forward’ for Dalton Jantzi? Re: “MC Eastern Canada apologizes for causing pain to abuse survivors,” May 13, page 16. It appears to me that this article is all about Mennonite Church Eastern Canada protecting itself due to its publication errors and not about the victim or Dalton…
Building resource connections
CommonWord is just over four years old. In that short time we have doubled our sales (reaching more than 10,000 retail customers last year), more than doubled the number of website users, and have continued to circulate half of our loan materials outside Manitoba—and increasingly to people outside our immediate Mennonite Church Canada and Canadian…
Cayuga church
From halfway across the world, a loyal MAID watcher noticed an error. This was not the Rainham church in 1965, as originally labelled by the photographer, but South Cayuga Mennonite Church, Dunnville, Ont. Comparing it to another photo of South Cayuga, he urged us to “look at the west end of this meetinghouse. Exact same…
Passionate about front-yard living
My pastor husband co-preached about living a front-yard life at a large joint worship service at the park last weekend. With three churches gathered together and probably half of our town at the park, the message of interacting with our neighbours in the front yard, instead of keeping isolated in a fenced-off backyard, rippled through…
202 columns later
Some years ago, I screwed up my courage and sent off an email to the editor of Canadian Mennonite. I offered to write a column on family relationships. Proposing the column was one of the hardest things I ever did. I mulled over the idea for months, and when I actually sat down to contact…
Reaching out requires letting in
A recent CBC news article projected that 9,000 Canadian churches will close over the next 10 years. That’s approximately one-third of Canadian churches gone in a decade. It’s not news that the church in Canada is dying, but it is shocking how fast it’s happening. Many denominations are responding to this current crisis by adopting…
