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I’ve been writing this column for four-and-a-half years, and I’m sure I’ve used the same ideas more than once. In this, my last column, I return to the two core ideas that I get passionate about the most often.
There is plenty of danger in a single story, and yet my story is not dissimilar to many others.
(Graphic by Betty Avery)
Review the confession of faith
In response to “Jewish perspectives” (January 26), I note that Article 22 of the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective states:
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Each year, A Common Word Alberta brings Muslims and Christians together in Edmonton to plan an annual interfaith dialogue.
In Ndebele, my language, we have a proverb that says, Inala kayihambi, kuhamba indlala. It says that times of abundant harvest are not reported, but times of hunger and famine make good news. Too true.
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I’ve been thinking about simplicity. Are today’s Canadian Mennonites committed to faith-motivated simple living? Am I?
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Grace has increasingly become my lens for reading both scripture and other people. I have come to think grace—the wildly undeserved favour dispensed by God—is the most important feature of the gospel.
(Graphic by Betty Avery)
History lesson
Will Braun’s editorial about Di Brandt (“The institution of messiness,” September 22, 2023) is a valuable piece that I hope many people will read.
In the past two centuries, the arts have gone through an unprecedented transition in Western societies, and our institutions—including churches—have often been resistant to that change.
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New Year’s Day is often a time we reflect on the events and experiences of the past year. It is also the time we look forward to what might lie ahead.
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When I first started working out at a CrossFit gym, my muscles ached constantly.
After a few months, I asked one of the trainers, “When does the pain go away?” After clarifying what kind of pain I was referring to, he said, “Oh, that never goes away. This is your new normal.”
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Since Will Braun’s strong editorial in the December 1, 2023, issue (“What kind of peace church are we?”), the pages of Canadian Mennonite have included some passionate responses.
This is a good thing. Perhaps I’ll add one more.
I begin with a story.
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How many sermons do you remember from 25 years ago? Likely not many.
Even the most meaningful and formative sermons from long ago tend to fade and become less a specific memory and more an unrecallable influential moment; a ripple whose impact remains but becomes indistinguishable the further life goes beyond that moment.
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Becoming an intercultural church does not happen by accident or by wishful thinking.
It takes a lifetime to create space in which everyone can gather and be welcomed, celebrated, integrated and reconciled to God and one another.
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The following is adapted from a sermon that Kevin Barkowsky, pastor of Sherbrooke Mennonite Church in Vancouver, preached on January 28. Reprinted with permission.
The question was how churches in North America could directly communicate their support to Palestinian churches. It came during a December 18 call that Mennonite Central Committee convened with four Palestinian pastors and several dozen North Americans.
Pastor Ashraf Tannous unmuted, then muted again; he hesitated and hedged, eventually responding with uncommon candour.
(Graphic by Betty Avery)
Literature saves lives
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“That’s great!”
That is my usual response when I speak with individuals and churches who name a desire to engage their neighbourhoods more actively, or to be a mission presence in their community.
And yet, at some point in every one of these conversations, I need to ask the question, “Why?”
‘I recently became the owner of an orange rotary telephone,’ writes Ryan Dueck.
In this new joint column, the four writers will take turns writing the primary column, with the other three offering replies.
God on the line
By Ryan Dueck
I recently became the owner of an orange rotary telephone. This artifact came to me via a Christmas gift exchange for which guests were instructed to repurpose something from their homes.
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This most recent December terrified me.
Moving to Toronto in the first year of the pandemic and certain events since mean I haven’t made many social connections in this city.
(Graphic by Betty Avery)
Touched by death and life
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Last year was a tough one. Global concerns raged around us, including images of climate crisis and state-led violence that continued to swirl.
I watched my church community formally come apart, by vote, in a deeply divisive scenario.
Arli Klassen and her then-fiancé, now husband, Keith Regehr, in May 1980. Supplied photo.
It will soon be congregational annual meeting season. Do you look forward to these meetings? Are they well attended in your congregation?
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Most of you have heard, and likely agree with, this statement: “You can’t put God in a box.”
Of course, this means you can’t be put in a box either, for you are made in the image of God. If God doesn’t fit in a box, neither do you. Yet we often put ourselves in boxes. We limit ourselves and confine our identities.
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Just as Matthew 7:21 states, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,” not every intercultural church will experience the fullest stage of reconciliation in fellowship with others, which is an ultimate goal of becoming an intercultural church.
(Graphic by Betty Avery)
Advent in light of current events
(Photo: The Canadian Mennonite/Mennonite Archives of Ontario)
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) worker Alice Snyder (right) shows needlework done by rural and refugee women in Jordan and the West Bank to Esther Weber at the MCC Ontario offices in Kitchener in 1964.
The Overseas Needlepoint and Crafts Project would become SelfHelp and later, Ten Thousand Villages.
—With files from GAMEO.org
