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"I have been looking for a book like this for a long time. From the first essay, I knew that the fire in Unsettling the Word would be for everyone who wishes to decolonize what they've learned of the Bible in the white church." -- Kaitlin B. Curtice (Citizen Potawatomi Nation), author of Glory Happening: Finding the Divine in Everyday Places"

Unsettling the Word helps Christians take responsibility for the damage our sacred texts have done to Indigenous peoples and Creation. More importantly, it empowers us to read those texts--and act on them--in a profoundly different, restorative way." -- Sara Stratton, Reconciliation and Indigenous Justice Animator for the United Church of Canada

This page is an extension of the Mennonite Church Manitoba Working Group on Palestine and Israel. We aim to bring awareness about the ongoing situation in Israel-Palestine to the Manitoba Mennonite community, and to work towards justice in the region.

A Facebook account is required.

Great Big Beautiful World is a one-week Vacation Bible School curriculum. The five Bible stories in this curriculum lead children on an adventure through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. Through worship and drama, Bible study, nature-themed art projects and snacks, active games, and science explorations, children will discover God’s love for all of creation, including each child.

Great Big Beautiful World invites children to see the ways God cares for the earth and challenges them to care for God’s world in tangible ways—both during the unit and at home.

Great Big Beautiful World is the first VBS unit produced by Shine Curriculum and incorporates the same approach to Christian faith formation as the Shine: Living in God’s Light Sunday school curriculum.

You can also preview the VBS curriculum on the Shine website.

Mennonite Church Canada leadership recognizes the difficult situations in which many congregations now find themselves as they take measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 in their communities. To meet federal and provincial public health recommendations, it is expected that many of our congregations will not meeting this coming Sunday and for several Sundays afterwards.

We know that the leadership of many churches across our denomination are working hard to come up with alternative options for worship services. Churches in large cities are choosing to video stream their sermons so congregants can view them at home. In an effort to help congregations that aren’t able to do the same, this week, Mennonite Church Canada will post a sermon preached by Executive Minister Doug Klassen for congregations to view this coming Sunday, March 22, 2020.

Klassen will preach on John 9, which is the lectionary text for this Sunday. The sermon will be recorded later this week at a church in Winnipeg. Musicians leading worship music will also be recorded. The video will be no longer than an hour.

“The beauty of John 9 is that while healing happens, other complications are introduced,” says Klassen. “The COVID-19 crisis is immensely complicated, but where is Jesus coming to us in the midst of it all? Let’s explore together.”

The video is a resource for congregations to use, if they would like, as part of their alternative worship practices. The video will be uploaded to the Mennonite Church Canada YouTube Channel and available on this page. Regional church communicators will e-mail congregations the links once the video is up and ready for viewing.

After 5 years of development, Mennonite Men is pleased to provide this important resource to the dialogue on healthy masculinity.

While there are plenty of books by men, for men, on the topic of “Christian masculinity,” these books generally fail to address men’s propensities for violence and the traditional inequity between men and women, often endorsing inequity and sanctioning aggressive behaviour as an appropriate “manly” response to conflict. Peaceful at Heart cuts through this conversation by offering a uniquely Anabaptist Christian perspective on masculinity.

Much has been written describing the characteristics of masculinity and the impacts of patriarchy. Instead, this volume moves the dialogue in the direction of building a vision of discipleship, community and peace as an alternative for men's lives. Rather than supporting the patriarchy and nationalism commonly advanced in traditional Christian thought, this volume draws on an Anabaptist perspective of faith which invites men to experience God's call to live at peace and be peacemakers.

The vision of masculinity presented in this book is more peaceful, just, caring, life-giving for men, and more sensitive to women and children than both traditional images of masculinity and the hypermasculine images promoted by contemporary popular culture and wider evangelical Christianity. Peaceful at Heart addresses men and masculinity using Anabaptist theological themes of discipleship, community, and peace.

As a collaborative project by men, for men, this book demonstrates through personal narratives, theological reflection, and practical guidance the importance of collective discernment, accountability, and mutual encouragement regarding how to live as a peaceful man in a violent world.

Also see related book launch video.

“Much of the literature written in men’s psychology/spirituality is ensnared in wild/aggressive/warrior/conquer language. Like a beacon of light, this book reveals a vision of peace for men and shows how to embrace a peacefulness within male humanity. . . . Most certainly, this book will be one that I loan to men who are not satisfied with what our cultures are asking of them.” —Doug Klassen, Executive Minister, Mennonite Church Canada

“By bravely, intelligently, and compassionately wrestling with what it means to be a man who loves Jesus, this book invites men to invert their ideas of strength and power, living into deeper connection, sacrifice, and dependence on God. This book is a sorely needed gift for the contemporary church.” —Kristyn Komarnicki, Director of Oriented to Love, Evangelicals for Social Action

“I am grateful for Mennonite Men and their willingness to take on this project. I am also grateful for their commitment to give voice to a diverse group of men and their experienced masculinity from outside the typical white heterosexual narrative of North American society.” —Glen Guyton, Executive Director, Mennonite Church USA

“My hope for this project is that it will not only get men talking but also get women and men talking together. . . . Together we can overcome this toxic reality of masculinity and create healthy norms of masculinity and femininity.” — from the Afterword by Cyneatha Millsaps, Executive Director, Mennonite Women USA

"This book is for men who want to explore alternatives to the dominant but tired and harmful mythological types of men as warriors, kings, or wild ones. Teenage through senior males will be challenged by stories and models of masculinity marked by honesty, interdependence, and faith. Maleness in the twenty-first century is complex, but, as this book demonstrates, it is both possible and life-giving to reconcile with ourselves and with all humanity." —Andy Brubacher Kaethler, Associate Professor, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary

Children and youth will just "catch" the faith of their parents, right?

Not necessarily. Talking with kids about Jesus no longer comes naturally to many Christian parents. In Raising Disciples, Natalie Frisk helps us reconnect faith and parenting, equipping parents to model what following Jesus looks like in daily life. Filled with authenticity, flexibility, humour, and prayer, Frisk outlines how parents can make openings for their children to experience God in their daily lives.

As a curriculum pastor, Frisk calls parents who follow Christ to ask the big questions about the spiritual formation of children and teens. In practical and thoughtful ways, she equips parents to disciple their kids in various stages of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. Raising Disciples will awaken parents to the possibility of Jesus-centred parenting and encourage us to engage in the lost art of discipling our own kids.

Also see MB Herald review.

Do you ever think you’re forgetting how to talk about God? Or never learned how?

Theology is nothing more—and nothing less—than speaking together about God. Still, a lot of us don’t know where to start.

In Speaking of God, pastor and theologian Anthony Siegrist helps readers recover a basic language around Christian theology. The sweeping epic of Scripture serves as the scaffold for this accessible book. In vivid and even humorous writing, Siegrist introduces us to scholars and pilgrims and traditions that disclose essential truths about God and Jesus Christ, as well as concepts like creation, sin, redemption, the church, and discipleship. By plumbing the works of theologians such as Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Antonia Gonzalez, and Kazoh Kitamori, Siegrist offers readers an introduction to Christian theology throughout the ages, emphasizing common threads of thought and practice across traditions.

Learning to talk about God requires courage and humility; this handbook of Christian theology will help you gain both. Join the deepest, longest conversation in the world.

“Siegrist makes theology come alive. When you finish this book, your mind will be dancing with new words and ideas about faith and God.” - Carol Penner, assistant professor of theological studies at Conrad Grebel University College

The list of global problems is massive and overwhelming. When confronted with such significant problems, our first instinct is to tell the bad guys to stop being bad. Of course, doing so would be on a rigged playing field. And for each person that actually does write a letter or confront the bad guys, there might be a thousand people that simply develop an ulcer.

We think the reason we see so many people angry is because they genuinely care. But they seem to get stuck at being angry. Some people spend a hundred hours a week for 20 years being angry and not much changes. We think that if you spend a tiny fraction of that time doing the things mentioned in this book, your global positive impact will be a thousand times greater.

For nearly every global problem there are solutions we can implement in our backyard that, at the same time, save us money and help provide more luxuriant lives. If a few of us do these things and bask in the glow of the opulence and extra cash, others will observe and think “I want extra luxury and money too! Not fair!” So they emulate. And on and on it goes. Then the global problems sorta just dry up and blow away. That’s what this book is all about.

Available to pre-order. Release date is mid April.

Cancer, hurricanes, hunger, suicide: suffering is the most profound challenge to faith that many people will face.

Valerie G. Rempel leads readers into a gentle meditation on the many questions surrounding why we suffer. How can God be all-loving and all-powerful? Why don’t prayers seem to work? Is pain always redemptive? And what do the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus reveal about suffering? We may not find answers to all our questions, but we can lean into the God big enough to absorb all of them.

Includes questions for reflection and discussion.

(5 sessions)

Is nonviolence irresponsible? Is peacemaking naïve?

In Speak Your Peace, Ronald J. Sider, author of the Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, plumbs Scripture, building a persuasive case that Jesus meant what he said when he commanded us to love our enemies.

With candour and logic, Sider takes on enduring questions about violence and nonviolence, showing how the contemporary church in a warring world has largely set aside Jesus’ call to love our enemies and traded its birthright in Christ for a stew of nationalism and militarism.

Ignoring what Jesus said about killing is a huge theological mistake. Returning us to the inescapable call of the Son of God, Sider reminds the church of its true vocation in a world of hatred and war.

Includes questions for reflection and discussion.

(14 sessions)

Hardcover

Harmony with nature is an Amish art.

From photographer Danny Graber comes Seasons of Amish Life, a vibrant photographic collection of an Amish community through the year. Through remarkable photographs and sensitive prose, visit a snow-covered pond at dawn, when men and boys cut blocks of ice and load them onto wagons. See Amish women planting gardens in spring and children helping fathers thresh oats in high summer. Autumn brings together the whole community to raise a barn in two days.

Watch and learn from a community that works with nature’s calendar, not against it. See the beauty of traditions carried forward in time.

Available to pre-order. Release date is mid April.

How is the one God also three persons? How is Jesus fully God and fully human? Who in the world should we pray to? And why does any of it matter?

Steve Dancause offers a succinct and profound investigation into how what we think about God as Trinity matters in our faith, our work, and our love. It matters because the walls of our churches are cracking around us. We can keep patching things up, but it is better to go to the foundation and do the hard digging. With the right foundation, the structure holds, and it stands the test of eternity. And it is only in Jesus, and the Trinity he reveals to us, that we build our lives on solid rock. Let’s dig down together.

Includes questions for reflection and discussion.

(5 sessions)

In 1975, Mennonite Central Committee Canada established the Ottawa Office to monitor and interpret government policy for its Mennonite and Brethren in Christ constituency, and to undertake advocacy to government on behalf of its national and international programs. William Janzen was the first director of MCC's Ottawa Office, a position he held for thirty-three years. In this volume, he shares a rich collection of stories from those years of "advocating for peace."

In February 2019, when he was honoured in the Senate of Canada for his role, in 1979, in crafting the first Master Agreement for the Private Sponsorship of Refugees, the government's representative in the Senate, V. Peter Harder, stated, "You may not have realized it at the time, but you were pivotal in making Canada the inclusive and compassionate country it has become. Few are those who can call themselves nation builders. You, Bill, are one who can."

Also see the book launch article from Conrad Grebel University College.

During the season of Lent, God’s children reflect on the life and death of Christ. This year, we are invited to prepare by asking God to show us how to find our hidden God as well as our own safe hiding place, how to remember God’s faithful, loving presence, how to reconnect with the Rock of our salvation, how to really see. As we do so, our Lenten journey will help us remember God’s power over death and help us learn how to balance joy and sorrow from Jesus on the hard but worthwhile path to resurrection.

This resource for the home is adapted form the congregational worship resources for Lent, printed in Leader magazine published by MennoMedia.

Use this At Home worship guide whenever and however it fits into your home’s routines and life stage realities. If your family has younger children, feel free to simplify, shorten and paraphrase the prayers and pondering thoughts. To use this booklet for daily worship times, repeat the litany for each day of the week and read the daily scripture recommendations which have been divided into seven short readings.

Available to pre-order. Release date is mid May.

Can a barren city lot become a church?

This is the story of an audacious journey. It’s the story of what happens when people garden, worship, and eat together—and invite anyone and everyone to join them. In This Is God’s Table, writer and pastor Anna Woofenden describes the way that the wealthy and the poor, the aged and the young, the housed and unhoused become a community in this once-empty lot. Together they plant and sustain a thriving urban farm, worship God, and share a weekly meal. Together they craft a shared life and a place of authenticity where all are welcome: a kindred vision for a church without walls.

As churches across the Western world wither, what would it take to find a raw, honest, gritty way of doing church—one rooted in place, nurtured by grace, and grounded in God’s expansive love? What would it take to carry the liturgy outside the gates? What if we were to discover that in feeding others, we are fed?

This is God’s table. Come and eat.

Available to pre-order. Release date is mid May.

Are you my enemy? Am I yours?

Violent stories surround us. Brutal beginnings, horror-filled middles, despair-inducing endings. We need better stories: stories forged in the furnace of conflict, narratives that kindle compassion and ignite hope. In the pages of I Am Not Your Enemy, writer Michael T. McRay visits divided regions of the world and interviews activists, peacebuilders, former combatants, and clergy members about their personal stories of conflict, justice, and reconciliation. In Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa, he hears from grieving parents who comfort each other across enemy lines, a woman who meets her father’s killer, and a young man who uses theatre to counter the oppression of his people.

In a time of heightened alienation and fear, McRay offers true, sacred stories of reconciliation and justice, asking what they can teach us about our own divided states. Must violence be met with violence? Is my belonging complete only when I take away yours? Will more guns, more walls, more weapons keep us safe?

We need stories that cultivate empathy and tell the truth. We need stories to save us from our fear.

Select "Order" to register your interest in the book - and we'll be in touch with costs and further details when they become available.

Wandering the Wilderness is a guidebook for individuals who are unsure of their path or are questioning the trails they were taught in the past. Author Ray Friesen is a former pastor and at the same time a life-long "believing skeptic." He's an advocate for "abundant living" and the guideposts that mark it, as outlined by "Wholehearted Living" researching Dr. Brené Brown (The Gifts of Imperfection). This informs Friesen's thoughtful submission for a renewed approach to finding meaning in a life informed by the Bible in a time when the relevance of those Ancient Writings is often thrown into question.

In Wandering the Wilderness, Friesen has us stop, listen, and learn at thirteen "trail posts" along life's pilgrimage. In addition to Brown, he draws on the Ancient Writings (Bible) with the help of scholars like Walter Brueggemann, Eugene Peterson, and Peter Enns. All of this is shaped in the context of his personal life experiences, including his journey with cancer and chemotherapy. The result is a book for all who are looking for a path in their old wilderness. He invites the reader to understand that developing a Chrisitan faith and spirituality can help re-energize a life at times burdened with difficulty or plagued with aimlessness, even, maybe especially, in this post-modern age.

Here is a thoughtful, informed guide for wanderers weary from the journey and skeptics wondering where or if faith still matters. Whether you read it along or with fellow wanderers and/or skeptics wishing to believe, Wandering the Wilderness has the potential to transform your wandering.

Available to pre-order. Release date is late April.

Everything you want to know about the Amish but are afraid to ask.

Do the Amish pay taxes? Are they Christians? Why do they use horses and buggies but agree to ride in other people’s cars? And how can they even survive in the contemporary world?

In All about the Amish, Amish expert Karen Johnson-Weiner answers the most commonly asked questions people have about the Old Order Amish. After more than thirty years of being friends with the Amish and studying their faith and culture, Johnson-Weiner offers authoritative answers to the most common questions about the unique Amish faith and lifestyle.

Got questions about Amish beliefs? Families? Churches? Schools? What they think about the rest of us? Find answers here.

This group is a meetup for pastors, worship leaders, song leaders, and those interested in Anabaptist worship. Ask questions, share ideas and resources, and make connections.

A Facebook account is required.