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
(Photo by Andre Ouellet/Unsplash)
“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.
(Photo by павел гавриков/Pexels)
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
Photo: Tara Winstead for Pexels
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?
Photo by Jesse Orrico for Unsplash
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.
Photo by Andrew Butler for Unsplash
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
(Pexels photo by Nothing Ahead)
We have entered the days of Advent. It’s usually one of my favourite periods in the church calendar, but this year, the waiting is heavy.
The candle is a tiny flicker in a world of darkness, and Christmas music rings false with its promises of joy and celebration.
(Unsplash photo by Josh Carter)
It’s that season where gifts are received, admired, beheld.
When thinking about gifts, my thoughts turn to my friend, “Greg.” Greg is interesting for many reasons.
(Unsplash photo by Debora Bacheschithe-mill Christmas music.
Christmas is the celebration of the Incarnation.
Christmas says that Jesus became a human; a baby who went through the terrible twos, puberty, the teen years and a carpenter’s life.
In the words of what might be my favourite song about incarnation, “What if God was one of us?”
(Unsplash photo by Randy Tarampi)
I was on the cusp of starting a family, engaged to an honorable girl.
It is one of the commands of scripture to “be fruitful and increase in number,” so marriage and then children (in that order) are a critical part of being obedient to God and fulfilling my purpose.
(Unsplash photo by Ahmed Hasan)
This six-part series draws on Kara Carter’s PhD studies, for which she conducted five focus groups with Mennonite Church Eastern Canada pastors.
Advent celebrates the coming of light, the light of love that “darkness cannot extinguish” (John 1:5).
(Image by Joe/Pixabay)
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).
(Graphic by Betty Avery)
Don’t ignore pain and rage
(Photo: Kathy Bergen/Mennonite Heritage Archives)
Bishara Awad stands outside Bethlehem Bible College in Bethlehem in 1985. Awad, a Palestinian Christian, founded the school in 1979. He had previously served with Mennonite Central Committee in a Palestinian school and attended Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary in Fresno, California, in 1981-82.
(Unsplash photo by Kelly Sikkema)
In B.C. we’ve heard stories of churches in at least two denomina- tions choosing to use secondary or tertiary doctrines and opinions as litmus tests for belonging.
These groups are doubling down on the wrong ways of trying to maintain unity.
(Unsplash photo by Priscilla du Preez)
It is exactly 100 years ago that my congregation, First Mennonite Church in Kitchener, divided over
the issue of women’s head coverings. Two-thirds of the congregation left
because they did not want women to be forced to wear head coverings. They moved one block up the hill to create Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church.
(Unsplash photo by Mario Gogh)
Curiosity is a powerful spiritual discipline.
Curiosity has blessed me with many opportunities to spend time with kind, intelligent and reasonable people, in many different social, political and theological camps. I’m grateful for the privilege of hearing the typically calm and logical explanations they have for the positions they hold.
(Unsplash photo by CHUTTERSNAP)
One of the contradictions I have observed in intercultural churches in North America is that, while they intentionally strive to welcome all people, almost all of them stubbornly adhere to the “closed” communion tradition, which allows only baptized participants to partake.
(Unsplash photo by lilartsy)
This six-part series draws on Kara Carter’s PhD studies, for which she conducted five focus groups with Mennonite Church Eastern Canada pastors.
