Sunday school teacher, 103, had lasting influence
Eliesabeth Klassen says she’s three. “Forget the other hundred years,” she says with a laugh, using a magnifying glass to scan familiar faces in old directories from Vancouver’s First United Mennonite Church, a congregation she attended from its humble beginnings in 1937. Klassen is the only surviving charter member, and one of just two woman…
Beautiful and terrible connections
“Know we are connected in ways that are terrible and beautiful.” Last week I lingered over this line in a poem by Lynn Ungar on Facebook as I pondered the COVID-19 crisis. I am living into this crisis in Germany, where the pandemic has struck ahead of North America, and have struggled between hunkering down…
MCC in Canada yesterday, today and tomorrow
On a cold, windy December day in Winnipeg in 1963, 40 men made the decision to form Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada. Exactly 50 years later, a group of people braved another bitterly cold day in Winnipeg to reflect on those 50 years and contemplate MCC’s future. On Dec. 13 and 14, 2013, the Mennonite…
Justice and Love Collide
Yesterday evening I asked the Junior Youth to picture a world in which God’s one and only characteristic was love. “Chaos,” “Hectic,” “Covered in foam” were some of the answers. Okay, so that last one is a little confusing. But I compared it to Jeanette and I letting them into the church, giving them massive…
Happy Easter
This post first appeared on Isaac and Wanda’s blog Life in Egypt Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Peter 1:3 This is our third, and hopefully…
‘O, you gorgeous man!’
I recently sat with a friend for lunch and conversation. I had not seen her for almost three years. At one point she reached across the table, grasped both of my hands in hers, and exclaimed, “O, you gorgeous man!” If your eyes are sliding down to the small photo at the bottom of this column,…
Still believe in peace?
It’s Remembrance Day as I write this. To say that Canadian Mennonites are conflicted on this day is an understatement. How do we respond in a culture that, even in peacetime, glorifies war as a source of national pride, and our soldiers, fallen and living, as heroic and honourable? As a faith communion, we have…
Theology for a climate emergency
Students, scholars and community members alike filled Marpeck Commons at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) on Nov. 13, hoping to lay a firmer hold on one essential subject: Actionable theology for the age of climate change. Just days before the forum, 11,000 scientists from around the world unanimously declared a global climate emergency. The scope and…
Readers write: July 28, 2014 issue
Church should fund prison visitation In Matthew 25, Jesus says, “[A]nd I was in prison and you visited me.” In Hebrews 13:3, the author writes, “Remember those in prison as if they were your fellow prisoners” (NIV). Now Jesus did not make a command of such, but it was a pretty good suggestion that we…
Readers write: February 1, 2016 issue
Evolutionary theory attacks Christianity Some time ago there was a letter to the editor promoting evolutionary theory as strengthening faith. This is not Christian or scriptural. Since evolutionary theory is atheistic, we as Christians do well to believe in God as our creator. True science does not support evolutionary theory, even though evolutionists have hijacked…
