A photo from rural Honduras. (MWC photo by Karen Flores Vindel)
A global survey conducted by Mennonite World Conference (MWC) shows that Mennonite-Anabaptist congregations around the world are being impacted by environmental issues such as climate change in diverse ways, are feeling anxious and sad due to those impacts, and are talking about creation care in their churches.
Mennonite World Conference has released a video highlighting its work around the world in 2021. In this image, young people study the Bible in small groups at a youth event in Indonesia. (Photo courtesy of MWC)
If you’re curious about what Mennonites around the world were up to in 2021, look no further than Mennonite World Conference’s (MWC) year-in-review video.
Released at the end of December, the five-minute video explores the ways the global Anabaptist-Mennonite family strengthened relationships through local gatherings and international webinars.
A virtual choir sings as part a launch event for the Voices Together hymnal in 2020. Mennonite Church Canada is inviting Canadian Mennonites to join a virtual choir for Gathering 2022. (YouTube photo)
Mennonite Church Canada is putting together a virtual choir for Gathering 2022, and you are invited to join.
The choir will record “Greater Things Than These,” a song that Winnipeg pastor and songwriter Phil Campbell-Enns composed for the event.
‘It’s important for all church members, not just number-lovers, to be able to make sense of financial statements,’ says Michael Pahl, executive minister of Mennonite Church Manitoba. (YouTube photo)
Regional churches are preparing to hold their annual gatherings in the coming weeks, and Mennonite Church Manitoba is offering a resource for delegates who are feeling anxious about discussing financial matters.
Doug Klassen, pictured in March 2020, is one of six Mennonite Church Canada leaders who made a statement on Sunday denouncing the white nationalism being expressed at protests across the country. (YouTube photo)
The day after thousands of truckers and other protesters converged on Parliament Hill to call for an end to COVID-19 mandates and other public health restrictions, Mennonite Church Canada’s executive ministers released a statement decrying the white nationalism being expressed at related protests that are springing up across the country.
Tobin Miller Shearer (left) and Regina Shands Stoltzfus are the authors of ‘Been in the Struggle: Pursuing an Antiracist Spirituality.’ (Image courtesy of MennoMedia)
Common Read, an initiative of Mennonite Church Canada, Mennonite Church U.S.A. and Herald Press that encourages Mennonites to engage in a shared reading experience, continues January 2022 through March 2022 with Been in the Struggle: Pursuing an Antiracist Spirituality.
Calixte Bananzaro, president of the Evangelical Mennonite Church of Burkina Faso, preaches in Ouagadougou. (Photo courtesy of Tany Warkentin)
Leaders from the Evangelical Mennonite Church of Burkina Faso, Mennonite Church Canada’s sibling church through Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission, are calling on MC Canada to pray for security and peace in their country.
(Photo by Markus Winkler/Unsplash)
Vaccines, sexual misconduct and defunding the police were the subjects of some of the most popular stories Canadian Mennonite published on its website in 2021. Here are the top stories we published last year, based on the number of page views.
Steve Heinrichs, director of Indigenous-Settler Relations for MC Canada, will co-host a learning series on the climate crisis based on the book, ‘A Good War.’ (Photo courtesy of Instagram.com/heinrichs_steve)
Mennonite Church Canada is hosting a new online community learning series. “Creator’s Call in a Climate Emergency” starts on Jan. 20 and lasts eight weeks.
Ohio siblings Caleb, Bekah and Joshua Liechty, who perform as Girl Named Tom, recently won the NBC singing competition ‘The Voice.’ (Photo courtesy of Facebook.com/girlnamedtom)
Last year was a big one for Girl Named Tom, a sibling band composed of Mennonites from Pettisville, Ohio.
David Troyer, general director of Christian Aid Ministries, addressed the public in a video message on Dec. 20.
After a two-month ordeal in Haiti, the last 12 kidnapped staff members of Christian Aid Ministries made their way to freedom on Dec. 16, 2021.
Meserete Kristos Church leaders visited the conflict region in Ethiopia in June 2021. Left to right: Gelagay Himiru, Tilahun Wase, Desalegn Abebe, Abayneh Anjulo and Addisu Legesse. (Photo courtesy of Mennonite World Conference)
More than 400 Mennonite churches in Ethiopia have been affected by civil strife that started in November 2020. Though information is hard to verify and numbers will likely rise, about eight Mennonite churches have been burned and eight church members have died, including two full-time ministers.
(Photo by Amy Rinner Waddell)
Congregations in Mennonite Church B.C. have been observing Advent in various ways through December.
Yarrow United Mennonite celebrated First Advent, the Sunday of joy, with a bulletin display set up in the church foyer. Church members could write what brings them joy on the display to share with others.
Doug Klassen extends Advent greetings to the nationwide church in a video posted on YouTube earlier this week.
The executive minister for Mennonite Church Canada extends Advent greetings to the nationwide church in a video posted on YouTube earlier this week.
George Heidebrecht, who was instrumental in the early days of Camp Valaqua, fiddles with his slide projector. (Photo by Ruth Bergen Braun)
George Heidebrecht fiddled with the knobs of his slide projector in anticipation of a morning of storytelling.
Kari Miller (back row, far left), pictured at COP26 in Glasgow with A Rocha representatives from across Canada, France, the U.K. and Ghana. (Photo courtesy of Kari Miller and A Rocha Manitoba)
Kari Miller is the environmental education coordinator for A Rocha Manitoba and attends Home Street Mennonite Church in Winnipeg, Man. She attended COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, from Nov. 5 to 12, 2021, as part of the Christian Climate Observers Program.
A home in Princeton, B.C., with damaged possessions piled outside. (Photo by Ross Penner)
Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada is calling for volunteers to help with cleaning out homes in Princeton, B.C. following the catastrophic flood that hit the town in mid-November.
Around 20 volunteers are needed by Dec. 6 to help people in that interior community clean out their flooded homes.
In a new video, musician Steve Bell gives viewers a tour of Freedom Road and shows them the impact the road has had on Shoal Lake 40 First Nation.
“It’s a pretty good story,” Steve Bell says in a new video. That’s an understatement.
In the 12-minute video, published on Bell’s YouTube page earlier this month, the Winnipeg singer-songwriter gives viewers an update on Freedom Road—the 24-km., all-season road that links the once-isolated Shoal Lake 40 First Nation to the Trans-Canada Highway.
The Mennonite World Conference logo is seen here on an MWC global assembly bag from 1990. (Photo by Aaron Epp)
Brethren in Christ church members in Zimbabwe still use their Mennonite World Conference (MWC) global assembly bags from 2003 to carry their Bibles to church.
“The [MWC] logo always reminds me that the whole world is one in Christ despite the many languages,” says Donna Ndlovu, who hosted a couple from India in her home during the 2003 assembly in Zimbabwe.
Indonesia’s strong national commitment to religious freedom has enabled smaller Buddhist, Hindu, Confucian and Christian communities to flourish. (Photo by Karla Braun)
Are you wondering whether or not to attend the upcoming Mennonite World Conference Assembly in Semarang, Indonesia, which takes place July 5-10, 2022?
John D. Roth’s new book, A Cloud of Witnesses: Celebrating Indonesian Mennonites, includes six reasons why you should consider participating.
A man stands next to a house destroyed by recent flooding in rural Nepal. (Photo courtesy of Shemlal Hembrom)
As scientists and world leaders met at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, Anabaptists in Nepal were helping to address the immediate and deadly impacts of the climate emergency.
Joanne Moyer, second from right in the middle row, stands with students from the King’s University in 2019. Hanna Groot, third from left in the front row, and Anna Pattison, second from left in the back row, contributed to the resource “God’s Green Church.” (Photo courtesy of Mennonite Church Canada)
Senior environmental studies students from The King’s University in Edmonton have compiled a creation care resource for Mennonite Church Canada congregations.
John Thiesen, left, archivist at the Mennonite Library & Archives at Bethel College, and Dale Schrag look at Schrag's favourite book in the MLA collection: the third edition of Erasmus’ Greek and Latin translation of the New Testament, which turns 500 years old in 2022. The photo was taken in early March of 2020, when Schrag, working as a volunteer fundraiser, had successfully completed a $1 million endowment campaign for the MLA. (Photo by Taylor Brown)
The Mennonite Library and Archives (MLA) at Bethel College in North Newton, Kan. is inviting the public to view the oldest book in its collection, which celebrates its 500th birthday in 2022.
Jonathan Dueck, vice president academic of CMU, and Adrian Jacobs, Keeper of the Circle at Sandy Saulteaux Spiritual Centre, exchange bundles to honour and formalize the relationship between the two organizations after nearly a decade of connecting and working together.
Last month on Treaty One territory, where the forest meets the river and wild rice grows, Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) and Sandy Saulteaux Spiritual Centre (SSSC) exchanged bundles to honour and formalize their relationship.
Robert J. Suderman is the author of 'The Baby and the Bathwater: Aspiration and Reality in the Life of the Church.'
In his new book, The Baby and the Bathwater: Aspiration and Reality in the Life of the Church, Robert J. Suderman, former general secretary for Mennonite Church Canada, makes a case for the importance of the church at a time when its relevance is in question, even by its own members.
