Viewpoints

Interviewing guests for more than 100 episodes of Mennonite Church Canada’s radio podcast, Church Matters, has blessed me with the opportunity to learn and grow from the stories of others.

Most of us are not very good at receiving compliments. A friend had just delivered a fine sermon, so I gave him a heartfelt compliment. His deflective, “humble” response was to give all credit to God. I replied, “I could swear I saw your lips moving!”

Demographics play a big role in the future of MCC

Re: “The future of MCC,” Aug. 31, page 11.

I appreciated Will Braun’s attempt to ask this question.

“We’re at war.” These were the words of French President Francois Hollande after the Paris attacks. This Friday the 13th will be remembered like 9/11. Is war the new reality? Or have we just ignored the depressing thought that it’s one of humanity’s constants?

Leis family ‘victimized by tragedy

December 24. Late morning. I am in the kitchen, making a pot of soup, savouring its scents and colours. Lovely Christmas music pours from the radio. I’m hoping this domestic activity will centre me in the wake of the stormy currents that accompany the season. How do we ponder all these things, like Mary did, when we are assaulted by such a crush of busyness?

The weeks leading up to Christmas brought an overwhelming spirit of anticipation to our household when I was growing up. In fact, the intensity of waiting to open our gifts on Christmas morn was too much for my brother and me to bear.

How do questions bring you closer to God?

The Bible includes several hundred instances where Jesus poses a question to an individual, a small group of followers or a large crowd. Rarely looking for information, he often asks questions in order to challenge, encourage, invite or inspire.

My memories of the church I grew up in are good ones. I liked seeing my friends in Sunday school every week and enjoyed singing in the grown-up service. The Halloween game nights, Christmas musicals and Vacation Bible Schools (VBS) were fun. They were also opportunities—at least the musicals and VBS—for people to accept Jesus Christ into their hearts.

This photo is of a men’s quartet singing for a radio broadcast in a Vancouver Mennonite church basement circa the 1960s. Advances in mass communication such as radio were first met with suspicion and in some cases were banned in Mennonite communities warning about worldly influences entering the home and community. Committees were established to consider the best response to these innovations.

Early in the Syrian refugee crisis, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) asked me to be part of a delegation meeting with Chris Alexander, minister of immigration. We indicated that the church was ready to do what it could to respond to the crisis. But as the crisis continued to unfold and governments struggle to know what to do, I pondered further.

This past summer I had my own Diderot Effect moment. The term comes from Grant McCracken, an anthropologist who has studied patterns of consumption. He coined it from an essay written by Denis Diderot, a French philosopher in the late 18th century.