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Digital Tech and Discipleship for Youth
Categories: Feature ArticlesDigital media like videos or artificial intelligence exists in a complicated context, especially for young people. I recently spoke with several Mennonite Church Eastern Canada leaders who work closely with…
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Readers Reflect on Lenten Detox
In February, Canadian Mennonite invited readers to join us during Lent for a digital detox. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of Apple, Insta and Google,” we suggested.…
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Abide in Me
I don’t have a smartphone. Never have. I’ve shied away from the topic for years, which people probably appreciate, but it does offer a perspective I want to share. My…
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Small-Town Saskatchewan Practicality
Categories: Feature ArticlesCurtis Wiens, pastor of Aberdeen Mennonite Church, doesn’t consider himself a heavy smartphone user—“I’ve never downloaded a menu QR code in my life”—but he still limited his screen-time during Lent,…
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Resistance Is (Not) Futile
Categories: Feature ArticlesWhen I began work as a university chaplain in the mid–1990s, a colleague explained there was a new thing called the internet and that I could get something called an…
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Four stories of ministering in prison
Categories: Feature ArticlesGrace Gord Driedger, New Brunswick Since I started coming to Dorchester Penitentiary in New Brunswick as a chaplain in 2017, it has been an incredible blessing for me. I feel…
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‘Mama meets with the people’
Categories: Feature ArticlesAdriana Appleton’s three-year-old daughter knows what her father’s job is—“Daddy works on the choo-choo trains”—but when it comes to Adriana’s work, all the toddler knows is that “Mama meets with…
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Funding cuts don’t stop CoSA volunteers
Categories: Feature ArticlesWhen Mennonite Central Committee Ontario ended its funding of Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA) in Kitchener, Hamilton and Toronto last June, Janet Young thought it was the end. A…
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The state of work with released sexual offenders
Categories: Feature ArticlesThirty-one years ago in Hamilton, Ontario, Mennonite pastor Harry Nigh was asked if he could find a place for a sexual offender to safely reintegrate into society upon his release…
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Visitation
Categories: Feature ArticlesWhen I walk through the door to see Crystal (not her real name) every other Thursday night, she greets me with a warm smile and a hug. She always hands…
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History of Mennonites and prison ministry in Canada
Categories: Feature Articles1966 Man to Man (M2), an ecumenical prison visitation ministry, came from the United States to start in British Columbia. 1969 MCC Ontario supplied Voluntary Service Workers to the St.…
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Growth in dark places
I just hugged a murderer. The thought came to Cheryl Weber Good as she drove home from one of her first evenings volunteering at the Grand Valley Institution for Women…
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The immeasurable power of surrender
When David Fitch speaks about church and power, his starting point is not any big thoughts from the seminary classrooms he’s so familiar with or even his experience as pastor…
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Three responses to the conundrum of conflict
Categories: Feature ArticlesWhen I tell people whom I’ve just met that my job includes working with congregations in conflict, typically they respond in one of two ways. Either, “Really? Churches have conflict?”…
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Pain, apologies and repair following 2017 MC Canada restructuring
Categories: Feature ArticlesJeanette Hanson, director of International Witness for Mennonite Church Canada, began a Zoom call last spring with an apology to members of the Anabaptist Network in South Africa. “I told…
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The edge of meaning
Categories: Feature ArticlesI once read a history of the phenomenon of war. The author said that, though we have archaeological evidence of wars many centuries ago, often we don’t know who was…
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The Sixties Scoop brothers: A conversation
Categories: Feature ArticlesMark: Our parents were extremely loving, amazing people. I remember a time I asked Mom why they had adopted kids. My mom’s response was so simple: because there was a…
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Feature Film Documents Migration
Categories: Feature ArticlesToronto filmmaker Dale Hildebrand has lots on the go. In late November, he was preparing for a hospital series, had just shot a TV pilot for an Indigenous cop show…
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Quilts for Survivors
Categories: Feature ArticlesThe story isn’t about Mennonite Central Committee. That’s what Cam McEachern stresses. McEachern, Indigenous Neighbours program associate at the Mennonite Central Committee Ontario (MCCO) office in Timmins, Ontario, describes MCCO’s…
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Two parents, two kids and an in-law
Categories: Feature ArticlesHalfway up the street in midtown Kitchener, Ontario, is a single, detached home much like the other houses around it, but inside, something unusual is happening. At least the neighbours…
