MCEC welcomes five churches at annual gathering
Over 200 people from 75 of the 110 Mennonite Church Eastern Canada congregations attended the MCEC annual gathering at the UMEI high school in Leamington, Ontario on April 26 and 27. During the sessions, MCEC welcomed five congregations as provisional members, marked the 200th anniversary of two churches, discussed a major new study on youth engagement…
Slowing Down
Sometimes I think I need to slow down. What do I mean by this? I mean that life goes very quickly. We rush from one thing to the next, glancing at our watches and depending on the calendar to make sure we don’t forget things that are happening. I’m very guilty of this, and I…
Advent: Waiting for the surprises
Two Advent themes should bring us to our feet this season: surprise and waiting. In our hurried, harassed lives, we are probably prepared for neither. With WikiLeaks heaping a deluge of information on us, another round of surprises is not on our wish list. It’s a little hard to take seriously the gospel writer of…
Forming content in 2013
As one year ends and another begins, the pundits package the highlights of the past and out of that attempt to project something of what lies ahead. It’s as if time stands still for a brief moment while we catch our breath for reflection, a search for some meaning. For people of faith, though, time…
Renewing life on the stage
Mennonites are sometimes associated with their four-part harmony rather than their acting, but one group has been making a name for Mennonites in the theatre for decades. Winnipeg Mennonite Theatre, a not-for-profit amateur community theatre company, is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2022. Created from a love of theatre and value for community service, the…
The view through a prison keyhole
Tony Deik experienced a dramatic return to faith when he was studying at Birzeit University in the Israeli-occupied territory of the West Bank. Raised Roman Catholic in Bethlehem, he had mostly abandoned that faith as he experimented with secular and New Age ideas instead. Still restless though, he decided to read the Gospel of John.…
Tending the in-between spaces
In the midst of significant structural change in Mennonite Church Canada, a group of Canadian Mennonite University students came together in December 2015 around the question, “Do young people care about the future of the church?” This initial gathering generated surprising energy among the participants. Soon a group of 15 of us began gathering over…
Running Blind
(I wrote this as a newsletter article for church. This imagery continues to stick with me and mean a lot to me today.) Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance…
Readers write: November 23, 2020 issue
Responses to termination of John D. Rempel’s ministerial credential Re: “Credentials terminated for theologian-academic-pastor,” Nov. 9, page 18. I am disappointed that this Canadian Mennonite report includes an extensive quote from John D. Rempel, in which he emphasizes his own need for restorative justice rather than the harm he has caused. It is disheartening to…
Mideast dialogue programs fall short
“Deeply rooted in our Mennonite psyche is this idea that peacemaking is as simple as sitting across the table from someone and hearing their story,” says Joanna Hiebert Bergen, chair of the Mennonite Church Manitoba Palestine-Israel Network. But Hiebert Bergen, along with a significant number of Palestinian academics and other former civil society workers in…
