What are they doing with our money?
The annual congregational meeting is moving along with the usual reports and updates. Then it’s time to discuss next year’s budget. Seeing the dollar amount the congregation will forward to the regional church, a well-intentioned member stands up to ask the question: What are they doing with our money anyway? A fair question. When you…
A hymn by any other number
When hymnologist Mary Oyer travelled from Uganda to Oregon to attend the 1969 Mennonite Church general assembly, she was surely filled with anticipation. She arrived in the second week of August to attend the dedication of a new denominational worship book, The Mennonite Hymnal (1969), which the General Conference Mennonite Church would also use. As…
Readers write: February 15, 2021 issue
Readers weigh in on MCC’s research on National Socialism Re: “Committed to seeking a deeper understanding: MCC begins research into historical connections to National Socialism,” Feb. 1, page 13. Kudos, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), for beginning to face part of our history that may be quite shameful. —Craig Anderson (online comment) Thanks, MCC leadership, for…
Transition in leadership
My first season of a church in an intentional pastoral transition process was as an associate pastor with my home church in Surrey, B.C. I joined the church when it was first planted and was called to be the youth pastor in its 12th year of existence. The church’s planting pastor heard God’s call to…
Gary Snider
In 1984, a local reporter interviews Gary Snider, dressed in clothes his grandfather wore when he arrived as an immigrant from the Soviet Union 60 years before. Three hundred people took part in this commemorative walk, retracing the route of a group of 1924 Mennonite immigrants from a railway siding in Uptown Waterloo, Ont., to…
‘Our framing story’
The Jan. 10 bulletin at Tiefengrund Mennonite Church included the following church family news: “Ed Olfert has officially retired and is now living the good life! In other news, Ed was taken to hospital on Wednesday and was subsequently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and now has to alter his diet and take pills/insert needles…
The practice of Lent
I like Lent. I wonder how many Mennonites practise this season in the church calendar. And if so, what they do. For western Christians, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17 this year, and lasts for six weeks (just over 40 days, since Sundays are not included). For Roman Catholics, that is through Thursday of…
Living in the middle
Life is full of spectrums, and I often struggle to find my place on them. Some spectrums, like the light spectrum from infrared through the visible colours to ultraviolet, although fascinating, aren’t highly controversial. Other spectrums, like our political or theological views, can harbour very passionate and divisive lines. Spectrum has been employed to allow…
Liberating and recovering Anabaptist theology
The two most influential attempts at Mennonite self-definition in the 20th century were Harold Bender’s Anabaptist Vision and John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus. Both legacies have come under scrutiny, with Yoder’s more pointed due to the abuse he levelled personally. Both theologies acted as a sort of marinade in which Mennonite churches, schools…
