Indonesian peacemaking
I am frequently asked, “What was it like to be in Indonesia for the Mennonite World Conference [MWC] assembly?” There are many possible answers, but today I want to focus on learning from our Indonesian Anabaptist sisters and brothers on how and why they build strong invitational relationships with their Muslim neighbours. Indonesia has the…
50 years of change
I was in Ottawa recently for the anniversary of the church that my parents started 50 years ago. In 1972, we were five families eager to start a new—and different—church in the east end of Ottawa. I was the oldest child among the five families, sometimes the babysitter for the others, and sometimes with the…
Can we see it?
It’s a summer of church gatherings. It’s a summer of truth-telling about the devastating impact of colonization by the church. It’s a summer of reflection on what it means to be a post-colonial church. I took in what I could of the Pope’s visit to Canada. His language around the impact of the colonial church…
These are our people
We welcomed two babies and their families with words of blessing and commitment into our local congregation today. The wide-eyed babies took in all the people watching them and waving at them, with our pastors saying “Look, these are your people!” We welcomed three adults as new members into our local congregation today, by transfer…
What holds us together?
My father cleaned out his bookshelves recently, and I acquired some more books about Mennonite history. One is a book I read with great interest when it came out in 1988, Why I Am A Mennonite. Almost every chapter is written by a Mennonite with a very traditional Russian or Swiss Mennonite last name. As…
Meetinghouses
I spent my high-school years in a congregation that was proud of our basketball hoops. Greenbelt Baptist Church decided to use public schools for worship and Sunday school, homes for Bible study, and a community centre for weekly youth events. This was a very intentional way of being visible and connected to the local community.…
A difficulty for all of us
War seems close to home for many of us when it hits Ukraine. My paternal grandparents (and my husband’s) fled Crimea as refugees nearly 100 years ago, getting married in Kitchener, Ont., and then moving to Manitoba. Conversations are being triggered in my family and in our congregation on the multi-generational impacts of those traumas.…
Civil disobedience
I smiled seeing a friend post on Facebook, tongue firmly in cheek, that civil disobedience is fine as long as he agrees with the issue. I’ve participated in my share of protest marches: anti-nuclear weapons, anti-war, anti-racism, anti-colonialism and anti-fossil-fuel pipelines. My first adult act of defiance was in the mid-1980s, when the South Africa…
Communion with creation
I’ve been pondering a new-to-me thought in the last few weeks. In reviewing the Scripture texts selected for Anabaptist World Fellowship Sunday this year, from the worship resources produced by Indonesian Anabaptist church leaders, I stayed with Psalm 104. Pastor Antonius from Yogyakarta talks about the importance of creation in revealing God’s glory. Creation reveals…
Dismay or hope?
As we move into 2022, many of us look back at our experience of church last year with dismay and we look forward with hope. Or do you look back with longing, and forward with dismay? Might we look both back and forward with hope? The last two years brought us COVID-19 restrictions, a shift…
