I wish I could say that people come to church for my sermons. The pews are filled instead because we want to be there to hear the prayers, sharing aloud our joys and concerns, bringing them before God and receiving each voice as an invitation into the body of Christ. Through prayer our lives are mingled, becoming part of one another …
At the delegate session in Pittsburgh last summer, André Gingerich Stoner remarked that many Mennonites “love service, flirt with peace and are allergic to evangelism.” Many felt he hit a home run with that comment. That means we have a ways to go to become a missional church. Service, peacemaking and evangelism are all needed in order to fully proclaim the gospel …
What happens when you are filled with Jesus, when Jesus grows inside your life? When you are full of Jesus, what do you say? These questions take us into the heart of Advent. These questions take us into the womb of Mary, where we find Jesus, filling her body. And we listen to what Mary says when Jesus grows into her life …
As we got to know our neighbors, we decided to invite them over for a weekly Bible study. One evening Michael joined us. I can’t remember which Scripture we were studying, but I do remember the topic that dominated our discussion that week: hell …
Bridge-building and reconciliation formed the theme of Mennonite Church USA’s national convention in Pittsburgh July 4-9. But the thing about bridges is, they don’t move. It is those who wish to cross to the other side who do the moving …
What makes us a church and binds us together as Mennonite Christians? We are not church together because we have a pope …
I was first. I took off my shoes and socks and sat down on a chair. Jen was next in line. She knelt down, took my bare foot in her hand and held it over the basin. She picked up the pitcher, poured some water and washed my feet. In turn I washed Dirk’s feet …
I walk up to the chain-linked fence that surrounds the county prison with a few members of our church. We show our authorized visitor cards and are admitted into the facility …
A few recognized it long ago, soon after our government killed 140,000 residents of Hiroshima on an August morning in 1945 and then repeated the atrocity a few days later in Nagasaki …
A few years ago I started a vegetable garden in our front yard. I was thrilled to see the fruit growing from the long vines—grape tomato vines entangled with large slicing tomatoes, growing into one another, all mixed up and bound together as they reached out their leaves and branches to the sun, reds and yellows, beautiful and delicious …
