Resourcing the Anabaptist church

Over 500 years, the Anabaptist community has grown to be a diverse and global expression of faith. The resources of Anabaptism reflect this diversity.

Mennonite World Conference (MWC) represents most Christian churches rooted in the Anabaptist movement. In addition to the ongoing resourcing work of its commissions and networks, MWC has several significant resource titles: “Shared Convictions of Global Anabaptists,” the Global Anabaptist/Mennonite Shelf of Literature, and the Global Mennonite History series. Other notable global Anabaptist resources include The Global Anabaptist Wiki and Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All these are wonderful places to begin a journey into the wider Anabaptist story.

I offer additional resources from within a Canadian Anabaptist Mennonite perspective. For a relatively small family of faith, we have produced many resources and have many authors and institutions whose materials we generate, distribute, occasionally translate and preserve.

Different kinds of Anabaptist writers have left indelible marks on our identity and faith: historians, diarists, theologians, scholars, poets, biographers, preachers, cooks and others. Our regional and national archives and historical associations hold many of these treasures (see Mennonite Archival Information Database).

In many cases, resources were published as apologetic accounts for the basic understandings of Anabaptism. Recent titles include Radicals and Reformers, Anabaptist Essentials, The Naked Anabaptist and Living the Anabaptist Story.

Mennonites have written novels and poetry that express an insider’s view of Mennonite life (see On Mennonite/s Writing). Through the art of literature, another window opens into the complexities of our identity and faith.

Other writers have profoundly shaped our ethics around the kitchen and the table (e.g., More-with-Less Cookbook, Extending the Table and Simply in Season). Indeed, we are what we eat and how we eat.

Our institutions offer rich resources on who we are as Anabaptists and who we are becoming. Our denominations have vision and identity statements, confessions of faith and a wide spectrum of ministry resources in formation and witness, on topics as diverse as Indigenous relations, climate action, international ministries, education and peacebuilding.

CommonWord curates and makes accessible these and related resources for users to buy, borrow or access online.

Our universities and colleges are important incubators of foundational and emerging thought, expressed through public lecture series, academic writing (e.g., The Anabaptist Dictionary of the Bible), blogs (e.g., Anabaptist Historians), and journals (e.g., Vision, Anabaptist Witness).

Mennonite Central Committee, Community Peacemaker Teams, and many others offer service opportunities, provide eye-witness accounts and encourage calls to action while also resourcing the church. News and faith stories are explored through Canadian Mennonite.

Through social media or other media, Anabaptists connect as affinity groups or support networks to plan worship (e.g., Together in Worship, Anabaptist Worship Network), offer parenting support (e.g., Anabaptism: The Next Generation), navigate post-Christendom (e.g., Anabaptist Collective), and more.

Networks extend our reach into other important conversations and call us to action. These include Anabaptist Climate Collaborative, Palestine-Israel Network, Mennonite Action, and The Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, among others. Each provides resources that are reflective of our faith and help shape Anabaptism going forward.

Finally, MennoMedia, our binational denominational publisher, makes available key titles that shape our faith community: hymnals (e.g., Voices Together); curriculum (e.g., Shine); biblical studies (e.g., Believers Church Bible Commentary), in addition to Herald Press titles on specific themes. Hundreds of self-publishing efforts augment the Anabaptist collection.

In celebration of the 500th anniversary, MennoMedia prepared an entire suite of new Anabaptist publications, including devotionals, children’s books and the Anabaptist Community Bible, to which hundreds of small groups around the world contributed.

This wide array of materials is representative of the hopes, commitments, activities and learnings of the local, regional and nationwide faith communities across the globe. The challenge moving forward will be to produce more resources that give voice to the many voices that have been unheard, and for materials to be available in languages that reflect our linguistic diversity. May the Anabaptism of the future seek to reflect the full family of God. 

Arlyn Friesen Epp serves as director of Mennonite Church Canada’s CommonWord Bookstore and Resource Centre. This piece first appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of Leader.