Participants at Mennonite Church Saskatchewan’s continuing education seminar, ‘Faith and literature,’ held recently at First Mennonite Church in Saskatoon, explore the transformative nature of literature through Toni Morrison’s novel A Mercy.
“I’m hoping it’ll be like a three-day book club,” said one participant of the continuing education event offered by Mennonite Church Saskatchewan recently.
All of the instruments played by members of Paraguay’s Recycled Orchestra are made from garbage, including this upright bass fashioned from a discarded oil drum.
The Recycled Orchestra boasts violins made of cake pans.
Recycled Orchestra conductor Favio Chavez doubles on guitar.
Pastor Ben Pauls of Zoar Mennonite Church in Waldheim, Sask., examines one of the Recycled Orchestra’s trumpets.
What do cake pans, candy tins, bottle caps and wooden pallets have in common? They were all found in a landfill, and they’ve all been made into musical instruments for Paraguay’s Recycled Orchestra.
In 2010 Todd Burpo, a Wesleyan pastor from Nebraska, told the “astounding story” of his four-year-old son Colton’s “trip to heaven and back.” Heaven is for Real (Thomas Nelson Publishers) tells the story of the tribulations of the Burpo family: too little pay, Todd’s kidney stone emergencies, a business that was barely making ends meet, and finally Colton’s ruptured appendix, following
Those who miss the days of Hollywood biblical epics will be happy to see that one of the first stories we hear in Sunday school has come to the cinema as a grand, big-budget spectacle. Darren Aronofsky’s Noah has opened to widespread critical acclaim and blockbuster status, defying the expectations of those who thought it was too controversial to succeed.
Five Core Media, a video production firm in Goshen, Ind., has produced an American Sign Language (ASL) version of Who Are the Mennonites?, a DVD/video originally produced by a predecessor agency of MennoMedia. The production company worked with a translation team organized by Sheila S. Yoder, long-time deaf ministries advocate.
In the middle of the most violent places in Guatemala, music is a healing presence.
While recording their most recent CD, Even in the Smallest Places, in Guatemala and El Salvador, Kim Thiessen and Darryl Neustaedter Barg had opportunities to interact with local musicians and talk about peace.
Ian Willms’s provocative photo of a young girl walking away through the windblown grasses towards a small Russian village on a lakeshore was part of his winning entry in the 2013 Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival.
Having just become a mother several months ago, I was intrigued to learn that Mothering Mennonite had recently been published, and once the sleepless fog of the early weeks of my new endeavour wore off, I was eager to get my hands on a copy.
Zealot is a popular presentation of scholarly research on the historical Jesus, read through the lens of Jewish resistance to Roman imperial domination.
For God and Country is a bit of a surprise for a Mennonite publisher. Although non-Mennonite readers may find the questions it raises about the role of Christian soldiers thought-provoking, it does little to promote the idea that followers of Jesus should not participate in war or military service.
Before Malcolm Gladwell signed copies of his newest book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, for a gathered crowd at Floradale Mennonite Church, he spoke at a fundraiser there for the Woolwich Counselling Centre in nearby Elmira, which was founded by the author’s mother Joyce.
The board and staff of MennoMedia, the publishing agency for Mennonite Church U.S.A. and MC Canada, has issued a statement regarding the continued publication of John Howard Yoder books in light of ongoing discussion of Yoder’s long-term sexual harassment and abuse.
The statement approved by the board of directors reads:
Directed by Frances Lawrence. Written by Simon Beaufoy and Michael deBruyn (screenplay); Suzanne Collins (novel). Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutherland. A Color Force/Lionsgate Entertainment release, 2013. Rated PG.
Logan Mehl-Laituri, a veteran of the war in Iraq, has written a new book, For God and Country (In That Order): Faith and Service for Ordinary Radicals, the first book written by such a recent war veteran published by Herald Press.
Sharing a meal is an important part of the day program offered by the Mennonite Benevolent Society in Ukraine. Several of the clients are blind, and this is a safe outing for them and one of the only times they get to socialize and talk.
Louis Sawatsky
I once read a quote describing the purest form of ministry as "everything believers do to honour and glorify God. " That's a broad definition. It gives us opportunity to do ministry with every breath we take. But while honouring and glorifying God, ministry also benefits both the giver as well as the receiver.
Markus Poetzsch
There are some verses in the Bible that we studiously avoid thinking about, let alone discuss publicly. They are like repressed memories or family secrets that threaten to cast us back into shame and confusion, to undo the semblance of peace, fellowship and orderliness that we have so diligently cultivated for ourselves.
Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, as astronauts Ryan Stone and Matt Kowalski in Gravity.
“Houston, I have a bad feeling about this mission,” says Matt Kowalski as he dances circles around the space shuttle Explorer, which is in orbit around the Earth. His words come early in this fall’s blockbuster film, Gravity, an awe-inspiring work of cinematic art.
(Shirley Hershey Showalter)
Born into a plain-dressing, plain-speaking Mennonite farm family in Lancaster County, Pa., Shirley Hershey Showalter was named after Shirley Temple, a movie star she was forbidden to watch.
Creating a CD is both simple and complex. The proliferation of digital recording equipment and the ease and non-expensive nature of producing CDs has led many local musicians and congregations to produce their own music recordings. But music and its recording is complex.
‘Book,’ a 2007 painting by Winnipeg artist Seth Woodyard.
Michael Boss began creating icons, including this 1998 image of St. Michael, as a way of tapping into an art tradition larger than himself.
A copper crucifix, created in 2000 by Michael Boss.
Today, when people think of the word “icon,” images of computers and technology come to mind. For centuries, though, the icon—derived from the Greek eikon or ikon—has referred exclusively to images of the divine or sacred.
English professors Monika Hilder and Stephen Dunning together bring more than 40 years of research on the Inklings’ authors. They head the newly formed Inklings Institute of Canada at Trinity Western University.
Trinity Western University has established a new research unit dedicated to the study of a group of popular British authors and thinkers, the Inklings. While the name may not be immediately familiar to many, the most famous members—C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien—are certainly household names, conjuring memories of favourite childhood fantasy stories.
A smoke-filled hookah bar in Syria. A tense meeting with Israeli soldiers on a “Jesus Walk” in Nazareth. A classroom in the deep south of the U.S. in the 1970s. Standing by a hospital bed. On the streets of Calcutta. In a park full of playing kids.
Mark Vuorinen rehearses with his 250-voice mass choir in preparation for the performance of the War Requiem.
At a time when the world is once again gearing up for war, its horrors will be dramatized and brought home in Waterloo Region through an annual three-day international peace conference ending Oct. 19 with a rousing rendition of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem by a mass choir and symphony.
If all the texts in the Bible are important, how do we decide which texts are the most important, the ones that deserve our utmost attention, discernment or devotion?
Hans Werner uses his father’s stories to reflect on questions of autobiography and Mennonite identity in the 20th century. The stories of his father’s (and mother’s) experiences of growing up in difficult circumstances in Stalinist Russia, and their harrowing experiences during World War II, are told from the perspective of the son who is trying to understand his parents.
