More people go to church on Sunday in China than in the whole of Europe.--AFP photo
Many of China's churches are overflowing, as the number of Christians in the country multiplies. In the past, repression drove people to convert - is the cause now rampant capitalism?
It is impossible to say how many Christians there are in China today, but no-one denies the numbers are exploding.
In 2012, the present "blue" Worship Hymnal will be 20 years old. It contains 668 hymns.
Congregations throughout Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada are being asked this fall, winter, and spring to keep track of all the songs they sing. Their research will help determine what the next collection of music for the church will look like.
Should to Shoulder formed following debates over an Islamic center near the former site of the destroyed World Trade Center in lower Manhattan and a Florida pastor's threats to burn the Quran.
Three days before the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, religious leaders gathered to remember the victims, foster interreligious unity and speak out in defense of religious freedom.
The 75,000 square-foot building, once a thriving intellectual nerve center of the Mennonite Church USA (later Canada), employed 175 writers, editors and production staff at its high point in serving the Mennonite Church
The former longtime Mennonite publishing building in Scottdale, Pa., will re-open as a church facility. MennoMedia, the newly merged church agency based in Harrisonburg, Va., sold the landmark building to a local congregation, Wellspring Church, on Aug. 12.
Participants in the SDA-MWC conversations (left to right): William Johnsson (SDA co-chair); Tom Yoder Neufeld (MWC), Robert (Jack) Suderman (MWC); Danisa Ndlovu (MWC); Henk Stevers (MWC); Valerie Rempel (MWC); Teresa Reeve (SDA); Patricia Urueña (MWC); and John Graz (SDA). Missing are: Denis Fortin (SDA); Bert Beach (SDA); Gary Councell (SDA).
Representatives of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and the Mennonite World Conference held the first of several theological conversations June 28 to July 1, 2011 at the world headquarters of the 17 million-member Seventh-day Adventist Church in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Gordon Kaufman was a conscientious objector during World War II.
John Stott was known as "Uncle John" to many in the evangelical circles he traveled.
Two religious giants died within one week of each other recently. One was liberal theologian and mentor Gordon Kaufman, 86, a Mennonite who rose through the academic ranks at Harvard Divinity School and who died of multiple myeloma July 22 at his home in Cambridge Mass., the other John Stott, 90, who died July 27 in England and credited with shaping 20th
An MDS work crew cleaned up a house fire site in Grey Highlands. Former MDS volunteer Les Sheffer (from left), homeowner Stan Baldwin, Mailhoit Trucking driver Chris Beudette, Stayner BIC member and heaving equipment operator Al Avery all helped MDS director Rick Savage with the project.
If watching your house burn to the ground wasn’t hard enough, Carol and Stan Baldwin of Grey Highlands, ON, had to stand and watch a second time while a group of volunteers razed what remained.
Ahada Kusoco Hassan, 23, cooks breakfast for her family in the Dadaab refugee camp in northeastern Kenya. (ACT Alliance Photo/Paul Jeffrey)
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) has surpassed its initial target of raising $1 million for the East Africa drought and is now expanding its response to the continuing crisis in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia.
“We are both elated and humbled by people’s willingness to entrust MCC with their contribution,” said Willie Reimer who directs MCC’s food and disaster program.
Tutu retired from public life in 2010 at the age of 79.
Retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said apartheid had left South Africans suffering from "self-hate" which is partly to blame for the country's vicious crime rate and road carnage.
A simple meal, some change and a jar can make a difference.
When a disaster like the food crisis in east Africa hits the news, how can families with young children respond?
That’s the question we asked ourselves when our children were small. We wanted to respond meaningfully to food needs around the world. But little kids don’t have much money to give. And what does famine, or not having enough to eat, mean to a North American child, anyway?
The drought is most affecting the children.
Religious leaders say they are exploring short and long term strategies for communities to end reliance on food aid in Africa, as relief organizations continue to minister to thousands suffering from drought and famine in the Horn of Africa.
The National Coordinating Council for Mennonite World Conference’s Assembly 16 has decided dates for the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania gathering: July 21–26, 2015.
Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit was elected general secretary of the World Council of Churches in August 2009, and took up his new post in January 2010. At the time of his election, Tveit was the general secretary of the Church of Norway Council on Ecumenical and International Relations (2002-09).
Different faiths around the globe need to do more to promote human solidarity, said Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), in the aftermath of the bomb attack and mass killings in his native Norway.
Canadian Foodgrains Bank partners with 15 church agencies, among them Mennonite Central Committee. --Photo by Christian Reformed World Relief Committee Canada
Two new projects supported by Canadian Foodgrains Bank member agencies, Mennonite Central Committee Canada (MCC) and Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC), have been added to the Foodgrains Bank response to the food crisis in East Africa.
Drought has plunged East Africa into the worst food security crisis Africa has faced in 20 years. More than 11.5 million people are currently in need of food aid in Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia.
An immediate and extended response to the current drought and food crisis in East Africa is essential for limiting the vulnerability of millions looking for enough food to survive, said Bruce Campbell-Janz, director of Mennonite Central Committee’s (MCC) Africa Department.
Justin Zacharias
Fernando Enns
The academic Congress on Just Peace, held June 23 and 24 at the Free University of Amsterdam, marked the official launch of the university’s new Chair of Peace Theology and Ethics.
Dekha Ibrahim Abdi
Dekha Ibrahim Abdi, a former student and instructor in the Eastern Mennonite University’s (EMU) Summer Peacebuilding Institute, died Thursday, July 14, in Nairobi, Kenya, from injuries sustained in an automobile accident. She was 46.
Willie Reimer for MCC Canada
Ruth Kiedel Clemens for MCC USA
As part of Mennonite Central Committee’s (MCC) restructuring process, program directors for MCC Canada and MCC U.S. have been named to jointly administer MCC’s international program.
Art DeFehr
Art DeFehr, a Manitoba business leader and founding chair of Canadian Foodgrains Bank, was inducted into the Order of Manitoba on July 12.
The Order is the province's highest honour, reserved each year for individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the province or its people.
When many people think about Canadian Foodgrains Bank growing projects, they imagine huge combines harvesting hundreds of acres of land.
Rupert Murdoch was summoned by the British Parliament committee investigating his hacking scandal to give evidence next Tuesday, July 19, but it is not yet clear whether he will turn up. --Huffington Post
Church of England's Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG) said it will consider selling its 3.8 million-pound (US$6 million) investment in News Corp. unless the media organization conducts a full and open inquiry into a phone hacking scandal.
Marion Good
Marion Good of Waterloo, Ont. has been named regional director of Resource Development in Ontario for Mennonite Economic Development Associates and MEDA has won a first-place award for a project in Egypt that it has partnered with--Promoting and Protecting the Interests of Children who Work (PPIC-Work).
A new arrival from Somalia looks on as UNHCR chief António Guterres visits the Dollo Ado refugee transit centre in south-eastern Ethiopia. --UNHCR photo
Church leaders in South Sudan expressed their readiness to help secure peace, stability, growth and development in their new nation, which was proclaimed an independent state on July 9.
Sudan's enormous humanitarian needs follow many years of inequitable development, marginalisation and internal conflicts that have displaced over 6 million Sudanese, including 2 million in Darfur and 2 million in the South, and left many destitute.
The government must allow humanitarian access to civilians who have been displaced by the fighting in Sudan's South Kordofan state, Sudanese clergy said, amid reports of continued bombardment in the Nuba Mountains.
