Glen Guyton, executive director of Mennonite Church USA, sings “Come As You Are” at the 2019 MC USA Convention in Kansas City last month. (Photo courtesy of MC USA)
Imagine Doug Klassen, executive minister of Mennonite Church Canada, singing a song by an acclaimed ‘90s grunge band at MC Canada’s next nationwide gathering.
It may sound far-fetched, but our counterparts in the United States have a sense of what that would be like.
Campbell Nisbet (right) with his wife, Chris (second from right), and their four children. (Photo courtesy of Facebook.com/HiddenAcresCamp)
After 33 years as the executive director of Hidden Acres Mennonite Camp, Campbell Nisbet is grateful for all the growth he has witnessed. Whether it is the trees he planted on the camp property or the spiritual maturing of young adult leaders he mentored, Nisbet sees it all as signs of God’s blessing. And he is deeply grateful.
The Vine and Table is located in Saskatoon’s Riversdale neighbourhood. (Photo courtesy of Terri Lynn Friesen)
The coordinators of the Vine and Table, an intentional Christian community house in Saskatoon, are inviting you inside.
In a video they posted on YouTube last week, Thomas and Terri Lynn Friesen introduce what the Vine and Table is all about. Later, some of their current and former housemates share about their experiences living in the community.
Christoph Neuhaus, left, Bern canton’s state councillor and director of church affairs, and Lukas Amstutz, the Swiss Mennonite Conference co-president, plant a linden tree as a symbol of reconciliation on April 20 at Église évangélique mennonite Tavannes. (Photo by Raphaël Burkhalter)
It took about 490 years for government officials in Bern, Switzerland, to ask for forgiveness for persecution of Anabaptists in the region. It took less than two to get a response from Swiss Mennonites.
'Being in a new place helps me discover... my own self,' Anna Wiebe says. (Photo by Carly Hunt)
Anna Wiebe is on the move again.
The singer-songwriter from New Hamburg, Ont., released her second album, All I Do is Move, on July 12, bringing her listeners a more complex album complete with a band backing her strong vocals.
Youth from across Canada gathered at Shekinah Retreat Centre last week. (Photo courtesy of Vimeo)
"Shake: Rattled by the Radical," a gathering for youth from across Mennonite Church Canada, wrapped up this past Thursday.
Watch a five-and-a-half-minute video recapping the event below.
Kyle Penner explores his church's approach to membership requirements for volunteer involvement during a presentation at Canadian Mennonite University this past May. (Photo courtesy of YouTube)
What do you do when (1) your church has a rule that people need to be members in order to volunteer in leadership positions, (2) you have an increasing number of people attending your church, (3) these new people aren’t interested in becoming members, but (4) they are still committed to the church and want to get involved?
From left: John D. Roth, César García, Thomas Yoder Neufeld and Reformed Pastor Peter Detwiller cross the Limmat River in Zurich to visit Reformed and Anabaptist sites. (Photo by J. Nelson Kraybill)
“Reformed and Anabaptist are branches from the same tree,” said Hanspeter Jecker, a Mennonite theologian from Switzerland. “Anabaptist convictions that once were controversial—such as the voluntary nature of church membership and rejection of capital punishment—are now accepted by many Christian groups.
Francois Tshidimu of the Democratic Republic of Congo addresses the Anabaptist history symposium while Anicka Fast of Canada translates. (Photo by Laura Miller)
Bock Ki Kim of South Korea (left), Abe Dueck of Canada and Pamela Sari of Indonesia share ideas for the group statement regarding the preservation of Anabaptist history. (Photo by Laura Miller)
More than 30 people from 12 countries gathered at Goshen College on June 17-19 to talk about gathering and preserving the sources that are crucial to the history of the global Anabaptist-Mennonite church.
Participants in the Spirituality and Aging retreat at Conrad Grebel University College choose a pearl at the end of the event, to represent spiritual resources that bring courage and resilience on the journey of aging. (Photo by Janet Bauman)
“Old age is not for sissies,” quipped Celia McBride, one of six presenters at the annual Aging and Spirituality Seminar sponsored by the Schlegel-University of Waterloo Research Institute for Aging (RIA) and hosted by Conrad Grebel University College on June 13-14.
The University of Waterloo Balinese Gamelan in 2017. (Photo courtesy of Conrad Grebel University College)
Over the last two years, Conrad Grebel University College’s YouTube channel has become a go-to source for quality gamelan videos.
This moderate internet fame is spurred on by one performance in particular—a piece called "Hujan Mas" performed by the University of Waterloo Balinese Gamelan at their end-of-term concert in March 2017.
Watch it now:
A shopper admires the wares of Irene Harms at the artisan market, new to this year’s MCC Saskatchewan Relief Sale and Auction. (Photos by Donna Schulz)
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Saskatchewan hosted its 49th annual relief sale and auction at Saskatoon’s Prairieland Park on June 7 and 8. An estimated 750 people took in a supper and concert with Saskatoon bluegrass band, Corner Grass on June 7, while about 2,500 people attended the sale the following day.
Francesco Zuba, coordinator of the Association for Assistance to Orphan Children, stands in front of the damaged preschool in the Munhava neighbourhood of Beira, Mozambique. (Photo by Paul Shetler Fast)
Two broken chalkboards thrown by the 190-kilometre-per-hour winds of Cyclone Idai bake in the sun on what remains of the crumpled tin roof of one neighbourhood’s only preschool.
David Martin, executive minister of Mennonite Church Eastern Canada, speaks about confronting ministerial sexual misconduct. (Photo courtesy of Darryl Neustaedter Barg)
In the midst of the #MeToo movement, in which those in positions of power are being called to account for sexual abuse, a conference hosted by four Manitoba Mennonite organizations acknowledged that it happens in the church, too.
More than 5,400 people volunteered with MDS last year. (Facebook.com/MennoniteDisasterService)
The folks who volunteer with Mennonite Disaster Service are “gettin’ it done.”
Kuri is singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer Scott Currie. (Photo by Rachel Pick)
Almost two years after he started recording it, Kuri has released his new album. Titled No Village, the 10-song collection came out today via Nevado Records.
Walter Paetkau cuts the cake celebrating the release of his book 'It Takes Raindrops to Fill a Lake' at the Reach Gallery Museum in Abbotsford. (The Abbotsford News photo by Dale Klippenstein)
More than 50 years ago, Walter Paetkau founded Abbotsford Community Services (ACS), an umbrella organization bringing various local service organizations under one roof.
Refuge de Paix, an Hispanic congregation in Quebec, provides a safe place for all. (Refuge de Paix photo)
Lucy Roca bundled herself up warmly and made her way through the blustery streets of Sherbrooke, Que., on the way to Refuge de Paix early one Sunday morning. It was the kind of grey, stormy day when Sunday worship services are cancelled because it is too wintry to be outside.
Cellist and composer Cris Derksen grew up in northern Alberta. (Photo courtesy of CrisDerksen.Virb.com)
The bio on Cris Derksen’s website says it well: The “Juno-nominated and classically trained cellist and composer braids the traditional and contemporary, weaving her classical background and her Indigenous ancestry together with new school electronics to create genre-defying music.”
Six young adults stand in front of the Mennonite Voluntary Service unit in Washington, D.C. last year. (Photo courtesy of Facebook.com/MennoniteMission.MVS)
Kansas was not an exotic place to hold annual orientations for Mennonite Voluntary Service (MVS). Yet when MVS was a shared U.S.-Canada program, Brad Reimer and Miles Reimer, two of its leaders living on opposite sides of the 49th parallel, considered the gathering a highlight.
The 2019 graduating class of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary: (front, left to right) Renee Epp Reimer of Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Dustin Finch of Jonesboro, Arkansas; Margaret De Jong of Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada; Tesfaye D. Robelle of Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia; Benjamin Isaak-Krauss of Bammental, Germany; (middle, left to right) Yukino Ohyama of Sapporo, Hokkaido, and Tokyo, Japan; Suzanne Engle Ford of Fort Collins, Colorado; Peter Digitale Anderson, originally from Bremen, Indiana; Naún Lucoer Cerrato of Goshen, Indiana; Nel Warkentin of Elkhart; (back, left to right) Grant S. Miller of Danvers, Illinois; Brian Miller O’Leary of Goshen; Pratik Bagh of Kutela-Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India; James Longley of Sydney, Australia; Scott Micheal Litwiller of Delavan, Illinois. (Not pictured: Jeremiah Buhler of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada; Barbara Krehbiel Gehring of Manhattan, Kansas; Sungbin Kim of Seoul, Kyunggi, South Korea; Anne Perkins Munley of Mundelein, Illinois; and Joel Ray Schroeder of Newton, Kansas.) (AMBS photo by Steve Echols)
GOSHEN, Indiana — Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) celebrated the achievements of 20 graduates earlier this month at its 73rd commencement service.
Rose and Doug Klassen at Foothills Mennonite Church on May 12. The couple is headed to Winnipeg.
Foothills Mennonite Church in Calgary, Alta. recently said goodbye to pastor Doug Klassen and his wife, Rose.
After 20 years of ministry at the church, the Klassens are headed to Winnipeg. Doug will begin his new role as executive minister of Mennonite Church Canada on June 1.
Watch a short video from May 12, the Klassens’ final Sunday in formal ministry at Foothills:
Issa Ebombolo, MCC’s peacebuilding coordinator for Zambia and Malawi, unloads cooking oil in the village of Tomali as part of MCC’s Cyclone Idai flood relief project in Malawi. (MCC photo by Amanda Talstra)
Issa Ebombolo was not expecting the level of malnutrition he encountered among people displaced by flooding in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai. But upon arriving in southern Malawi, where he helped distribute food and relief supplies, Ebombolo was taken aback by the dire need for food assistance.
Author Rachel Held Evans impacted thousands of people. (Photo courtesy of RachelHeldEvans.com)
When Rachel Held Evans died on May 4 at the age of 37, it shocked the thousands of people who follow her work.
Paul Plett is filming a documentary exploring his Mennonite roots. (Photo courtesy of YouTube)
Winnipeg filmmaker Paul Plett has announced his next project: a documentary exploring his Mennonite roots.
