In North American society, where most people have been blessed with an abundance of resources, many see short-term missions as a way to use what we have to help others. But is this actually what we are doing?
A discussion among us thirty-something Mennonites has been heating up online. It’s a discussion that cuts to the heart of nearly everything the church worries about us. The discussion question is the first one you’d guess: “Why don’t we go to church?”
Zoe Matties describes the four months she spent taking groups on tours between Argentina, the Falkland Islands, Georgia and Antarctica with One Ocean Expeditions as “holy moments.”
I was sitting in a theology class during my first year at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) in Winnipeg, when the question first dawned on me: Where does my professor go to church? Where did any of my professors go to church?
Some readers may only know me as Canadian Mennonite’s Young Voices co-editor. Not many know a lot about me. I have a meaningful relationship with Netflix, I’m addicted to Twitter, when I’m not in school I help on my family’s farm . . . and I have a large tattoo on my upper left arm.
It’s not an original idea. Chances are good you’ve either done it yourself or you know someone who has given up Facebook for some length of time.
I have no medical training. Moving among nursing staff and doctors with years of clinical training and experience on my first day seeing patients at Cambridge (Ont.) Memorial Hospital, I felt out of place.
As leaders of the environmental movement are despairing that there is little hope for the future of our world, A Rocha, a national faith-based creation-care organization, saw a need to fill.
In an age when many Mennonite churches worry about losing young people, David Epp has a solution: the church should become their landlord. At Rosthern Mennonite Church’s semi-annual meeting late last summer, he proposed that the congregation purchase a house in Saskatoon to provide a community living space with affordable rent for Mennonite students in the city.
The blue hymnal is nestled in the pew rack, its binding loose from having its spine cracked and pages flipped too many times to count. Now, as technology drives the culture, more and more Mennonite churches are shelving Hymnal: A Worship Book and rolling down screens.
Casa de la Amistad—House of Friendship—is a welcome change for about 140 Bolivian children aged 4 to 18. They are happy to participate in a program that offers them two meals a day, lessons and time to play with other kids in a safe environment.
“So Kyle, are you ever going to be a lead pastor?”
Companions, guides, watchdogs and friends; No matter how you slice it, pets play a huge role in the lives of Canadians. The latest survey by Statistics Canada shows this, too, estimating that 35 percent of Canadian households have a dog and 38 percent have a cat.
Conversation within the walls of the Great Hall once fell on deaf ears, as what is now Canadian Mennonite University was originally built as a school for the hearing-impaired. Today, students from a variety of disciplines sit in what is now called the Blaurock Café talking academics and theology over fresh, fair-trade coffee.
In the basement of Toronto’s Danforth Mennonite Church, two chairs and a laundry basket serve as a makeshift set. Two young actors repeat their lines over and over, practising how to move, when to pause and what to say.
On page 35 of the Jan. 21 issue, Thorpe wrote “Advocating for the orphan” about international adoption. Now she looks at local adoption, and the story of a young couple who adopted two children.
It’s a Wednesday night and there is a good turnout at the St. Clair O’Connor Community, an intergenerational housing project in Toronto, where internationally renowned author Miriam Toews is present to share her experience as a Mennonite author for the Mennonite Heritage Club that meets there.
Dreaming big can be dangerous when you’ve got an obsessive personality. Once you’ve got a crazy idea, you need to make it happen. That’s a lesson Paul Plett learned after he dreamed of making a feature-length film and then found a community to make it happen.
Jesse Krause, 27, spent nearly a year in total fashioning instruments out of whatever he could find and writing music based on biblical stories, all to tell an old story in a new way.
Young Voices is excited to welcome Isaac Friesen and Wanda Wall-Bergen as our newest bloggers. Isaac and Wanda are currently serving in Egypt with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) as foreign-language instructors and peacebuilders.
When I interviewed her in her studio overlooking Winnipeg’s historic Exchange District, artist Chantel Mierau was hard at work putting together materials for her first-ever solo exhibit. The video installation was opening in two weeks (it opened on March 1), and Mierau still had some minor video editing to do. She was also sewing sheets to project her videos onto.
Doubt is common to everyone, but it seems to be especially so for young adults, since we are the ones who are starting our own independent lives and have uncertainties about our future, ourselves, our faith, and so on.
“I want to talk to God, but I’m afraid ‘cause we ain’t spoke in so long.”
(Kanye West, “Jesus Walks”)
“Please talk to me / Won’t you please talk to me? / We can unlock this misery / Come on, come talk to me.”
(Peter Gabriel, “Come Talk to Me”)
“Even in the smallest places can a garden grow.”
This line from Noah Gunderson’s song, “Garden,” captures the essence of a CD recording tour with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Alberta in Guatemala and El Salvador.
“The states, parties to the present covenant, recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions.”
(Article 11, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)
