Circling back to simplicity
I’ve been thinking about simplicity. Are today’s Canadian Mennonites committed to faith-motivated simple living? Am I? I first encountered the spiritual discipline of simplicity 20 years ago when I read Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline. I had grown up in fundamentalist Baptist churches that were legalistic about what our minds needed to believe and what…
A spiritual covenant with churches and First Nations
A most promising possibility for a tangible response by churches to past injustice in the Six Nations Grand River lands conflict came from a conversation I had after the monthly meeting of the Haudenosaunee Council at Onondaga Longhouse on Saturday, March 3, 2007. At this meeting, Mennonite Central Committee Ontario introduced me as Community Liaison…
Small steps toward reparation
Ten years ago, Adrian Jacobs of the Six Nations Haudenosaunee Confederacy proposed a Spiritual Covenant with Mennonite churches located on the Haldimand Tract. One Kitchener church is now looking closely at that challenge. The Haldimand Tract includes the land six miles (9.7 kilometres) to either side of the Grand River, from Dundalk, Ontario, to…
See all of us
Grace has increasingly become my lens for reading both scripture and other people. I have come to think grace—the wildly undeserved favour dispensed by God—is the most important feature of the gospel. Grace helps me ponder alternative understandings of biblical stories. It reminds me that I may not know someone else’s reasoning or the experiences…
Witness workers provide Thailand overview
Two Mennonite Church Canada International Witness workers are at the centre of an initiative to train, mentor and support church leaders in Thailand. Tom and Christine Poovong, together with Thai colleagues, form the leadership of Friends of Grace, a church planting network. The network opened the Friends of Grace Bible School in Roi Et…
