In 2009, the high percentage of Canadian participants in the pastoral studies distance education program at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) left program administrators scratching their heads. Ten of the 16 students were from Mennonite Church Canada, with eight of these coming from MC Eastern Canada.
Last year, six of the eight continuing students were Canadians.
Christy Anderson, second from the left, shares her experience at Canadian Mennonite University with fellow students.
“Most universities are good at academics,” says Sue Sorensen, who teaches English literature at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) in Winnipeg, adding, though, “If you turn up on our campus, people are going to care about you, whether you want them to or not!”
Solar Grebel students are thrilled to watch their green dreams take shape as they stand on the roof at Conrad Grebel University College with a partially installed solar thermal collector.
It started as an altruistic dream, but almost two years later a vision for a cleaner and greener Grebel has been realized.
Different people have different problems with the Bible, but what has troubled me the most over a few decades of reading the Bible and preaching regularly is that a lot of the Bible is not practical. Make it relevant, they taught me when I was a seminary student. But most of the Bible is hard to make relevant.
Nolt
The book Through Fire and Water: An Overview of Mennonite History was first published in 1996 by Herald Press and presented the Mennonite faith story within the sweep of church history for youths and adults wanting to learn more about the denomination or their heritage. Now, 14 years later, it needed to be revised and updated to be more globally and ethnically inclusive.
Victoria Neufeldt works on The Historian, a publication of the Mennonite Historical Society of Saskatchewan, from her home office.
If you open the front cover of the Merriam-Webster’s Primary Dictionary, you’ll find acknowledgement of Victoria Neufeldt’s contribution in the preface. Lively illustrations make the book visually appealing and invite children inside where they can learn and discover the joy of words.
Patrons at Sam’s Place in Winnipeg, Man., enjoy coffee, reading and good conversation under the watchful eye of ‘Sam,’ the Komodo dragon. The formerly independent, community-based, non-profit organization is now a part of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Manitoba and the board that ran it now acts in an advisory capacity.
Sam’s Place, a used book store, café and performing arts venue, has developed into a welcoming meeting place for people living in Elmwood, a working class neighbourhood in the northeast part of Winnipeg.
Frank O’Dea, a former homeless panhandler on the streets of Toronto, Ont., who went on to found the Second Cup chain, told MEDA convention participants in Calgary how to ‘unleash’ their entrepreneurship potential.
For Frank O’Dea, a second chance led to the founding of Second Cup, Canada’s first specialty coffee chain.
“The simple and quaint have raised their voices, loudly, on AnabaptistBlogs.com,” says the blog’s founder, Jeff McLain.
Indeed the body does not consist of one member, but of many (I Corinthians 12:14).
Mennonite Church Canada has identified the challenge of growing leaders for the church as one of our main priorities. To find out what kind of leadership development is needed in a world that continues to grow more diverse and complex, we’re engaging in conversations across the church.
In early December, The Globe and Mail reported that the number of Canadians making charitable donations has dropped, the average age of donors has risen to 53, and the total amount donated to charity has fallen in the last two years. Shortly after this, it ran a series on the future of faith in Canada, concluding that Canada is quickly becoming a secular nation.
We live in a complex and rapidly changing world, a world that brings about dramatic changes in family lives.
1. Do you remember comments about physical appearance from when you were young? What attitude did your parents and family have about physical appearance? How did they communicate that attitude? How many mirrors do you have in your house today?
We do have a website, dear readers, a recently re-designed one, in fact.
And we know many of you are reading Canadian Mennonite online. Our Google Analytics tell us that as many as 2,400 unique visitors a month are coming to the website for some 16,000 page views and staying an average of three minutes to read something of interest.
