Photo credit: Universal Pops on Flickr Creative Commons
If your congregation cancels the Sunday worship service because of snow and ice, there is no need to stay in bed all morning. Here are some ideas for redeeming the time:
Jeff and Suzanne Becker buried father and husband Gilbert Becker naturally, in a hand-carved log casket after his death in Sept. 2013. (Photo by Sally Morrow, RNS)
Growing up in small-town Georgia, John B. Johnson had family friends who ran the funeral home down the street, so the particulars of a typical American funeral — the embalming, the heavy casket and remarks about how great the deceased's hair looked — were all familiar to him.
When the time came, he assumed, his funeral would look much the same.
A collaboration between two long-time friends and the woodwork of a man with a long history with Mennonite Church Canada are the basis for two exhibitions now showing at the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery (MHCG).
Theda Good
On Sunday (Feb. 2), a Denver congregation of Mennonites licensed the first lesbian in a committed same-sex relationship, the first step toward ordination.
Theda Good’s licensure was celebrated by some Mennonite Church USA clergy and greeted with dismay by others.
When the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is observed around the world this year from Jan. 18 to 25, there will be a special focus on Canada.
In Damascus, a woman accepts a box of food supplied by MCC through its partner, the Syrian Orthodox Church. People in the photo are not identified for security reasons. (Photo courtesy of the Syrian Orthodox Church)
As international efforts are under way to convince warring parties in Syria to gather for peace talks in Geneva on Jan. 22, 2014, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is releasing an additional $200,000 to help Syrian families get through the winter.
The Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery invites artists to submit artworks for consideration for a national exhibition to take place during the Mennonite Church Canada assembly to be held in Winnipeg from July 3 to 6, 2014.
Ex-offender Ryan Grills, who chairs the Forward Step support group, left, chats with Dave Feick, coordinator of the Micah Mission.
Sporting a bright orange T-shirt and a shaved head, Ryan Grills is an imposing presence, but his handshake is warm and his voice enthusiastic as he speaks about Forward Step, a support group for ex-offenders that he chairs. Forward Step is a program of the Micah Mission, an inter-church agency committed to restorative justice in Saskatoon.
Ashley Goff, minister for spiritual formation at Church of the Pilgrims, compares her time in her church’s backyard to making lasagna -- spreading vegetable scraps in one layer, straw in the next. (RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks)
The wheelbarrow outside the sanctuary was overflowing with vegetable scraps; decomposing matter filled the baptismal font; and a pile of rich brown soil replaced the Communion table.
If there is indeed a "War on Christmas," those on the anti-Christmas side of the war have lost — big time.
The television pundits, conservative politicians and talk-radio loudmouths who believe there is a "War on Christmas" should look around, withdraw their troops and quit screaming. Because if there is a war on Christmas, Christmas has won.
