Dispatches from the front lines
I’m basing the form of this final missive on the last book I read, Dispatches—a harrowing and sometimes hilarious memoir by Michael Herr, who covered the insanity of the Vietnam War for Esquire magazine during two years in the late 1960s. (How insane is it that Esquire thought it needed a war correspondent in the…
In-house acknowledgment
With this issue of Canadian Mennonite, Ross W. Muir completes his time with the magazine. As managing editor for almost 18 years, he has undertaken a central piece of the work required to put the magazine together every two weeks. Muir has worked diligently and consistently behind the scenes, attending to the finer points of…
Ottawa group uses unique fundraising method
For more than 20 years, a refugee support group at Ottawa Mennonite Church has used an unusual fundraising method that has allowed it to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent subsidy to newcomers. The rising cost of living has made this support all the more important. Since 1979, the church has sponsored, or…
Online church in 2023
From households clustered around computer screens to sanctuaries filled with people, church services have taken a variety of forms since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic more than three years ago. Although the days of holding church services solely by online meetings are firmly in the past for most congregations, the pandemic undoubtedly forced churches…
CPT receives International Peace Award
Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT) was awarded the International Peace Award by the Community of Christ Church and the Shaw Family Foundation on April 22 during the church’s international conference. Honouring CPT’s 35 years of peacemaking, the awarding body said, “We do this in recognition of your significant contribution to peacemaking through nonviolent accompaniment with those…
Kelowna church sells property and moves
Members of Kelowna First Mennonite Church are selling their church building, but that doesn’t mean they are closing their doors. As of May, the small congregation is meeting in a nearby seniors residence. With fewer than a dozen seniors attending Sunday morning services, maintaining a church building was no longer manageable. Last year, the congregation…
Two congregations withdraw from MC Manitoba
In the same year that two congregations joined Mennonite Church Manitoba, adding new member churches for the first time in a decade, two congregations have also withdrawn from the regional church. Carman Mennonite Church will officially leave MC Manitoba on Sept. 1 and Springfield Heights Mennonite Church in Winnipeg will leave on July 1. Both…
MC Alberta hosts first ever Taste of MCA event
When most people think of Mennonite cuisine, they think of perogies and farmer sausage, or perhaps fresh rollkuchen dipped in Rogers Golden Syrup. Yet at A Taste of MCA, a Mennonite Church Alberta event at Bergthaler Mennonite Church near Didsbury, on April 12, the menu featured dishes like chicken biryani, chicken kabobs and roti, injera…
U2’s Mennonite string section
There was nothing unusual about it when Richard, Paul and Adele Armin walked into the recording studio on New Year’s Eve in 1986. It was just another job, really. Music producer Daniel Lanois called Richard the day before and requested that the siblings, all professional musicians living and working in Toronto at the time, come…
