Watch and Listen: A 2020 Christmas Playlist
If you’re missing the songs you are used to singing and hearing in church at this time of year, Canadian Mennonite has just the thing for you. We have created a playlist of videos that have been uploaded to YouTube in recent weeks that feature Mennonites from across Canada singing traditional hymns. You can check…
Meditations while sheltering in place
Evan Kreider was scheduled to speak at Point Grey Inter-Mennonite Fellowship in Vancouver in the spring of 2020. But the pandemic put an end to that, as life as we knew it changed. Group meetings were discouraged. The timing coincided with the church’s plan to depart the chapel of the Menno Simons Centre, a student…
‘How can I keep from singing?’
Eric Dettweiler’s Grade 10 music class at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate in Kitchener began the school year drumming every day for the first few weeks, often outdoors. Now the 11 students drum a couple of times a week. It is a safe way to conduct a music class while maintaining physical distance in the reality of…
Copyright matters
Life is funny. When something breaks down in the church, whether an oven or an elevator, we fix it. And if we can’t fix it, we buy a new one. We understand that physical property must be paid for. But what about intellectual property? What if we have no one who can write songs, worship…
Manitoba’s Winter Hour releases debut album
Manitoba musician Mike Wiebe released his debut album, You Made a Shadow, on May 31 under the name Winter Hour. He wrote the album’s 10 songs over a period of five years, starting in 2015. “Those songs all included my experiences in getting to know Winnipeg as a city, getting to know new people in…
Remembering Helen Martens
Helen Martens, Conrad Grebel University College’s first music faculty member, passed away on April 9 at the age of 92, surrounded by family in Winnipeg. She last visited Grebel in 2013 during the college’s 50th anniversary. Grebel staff and faculty remember Helen Martens for her extensive contributions to the music department and the college community.…
MennoMedia: Do not sing together if you are gathering physically for worship
With stay-at-home orders being lifted across much of the U.S. and Canada, churches are thinking about what it will look like to open their doors again. Yet because the COVID-19 pandemic is still very much with us, it is up to churches to consider how to do so safely. While singing is considered vital in…
Watch: Winter Hour debuts “Letters”
Singer-songwriter Mike Wiebe has given the public a taste of his new project. The Winnipeg musician released a video for his song “Letters” last Friday. It’s the first single from You Made a Shadow, an upcoming full-length Wiebe is releasing under the name Winter Hour. If those room dividers in the video look like something…
Sundays without singing
Never thought there would be Sundays without singing. Like churches across Canada, ours has been shuttered as a precaution against the novel coronavirus. I understand why this must be, but I sure miss getting together and joining our voices. ‘Singing solo is lonely,’ writes Carl DeGurse (pictured). We’re a singing church, a trait that is…
Musician offers online singalong
“A little bit of yeast makes the whole dough rise . . . you do your part; I’ll do mine,” sings Bryan Moyer Suderman, using his body as a percussion instrument. But instead of singing at a concert or a worship service, the itinerant musician is at home singing into an iPad propped up on a…
