The Mennonite provides Anabaptist content and is a publication of Mennonite Church USA.
Daily News
Where are the leaders?
In trying to understand the first Christian communities mentioned in the New Testament, we see that God placed leaders in the Church—people called to guide and direct believers, based on obedience to instructions which Jesus left for these communities. Likewise, my attention is powerfully gripped by how vulnerable human beings are against the attacks of […]
Avoiding avoidance: Why I assigned Yoder’s ‘Body Politics’
Editor’s note: This was originally published in the May 2014 issue, Vol. 68 of Mennonite Life, an illustrated online annual published by Bethel College that is devoted to exploring and developing Mennonite experience. In the Spring 2014 semester, my co-teacher colleague and I decided to put Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World […]
No more milestones on Facebook
I stopped posting my children’s developmental milestones on Facebook. I come from a large close-knit family, who I never get to see. Imagine my excitement when I realized that Facebook would enable me to keep my family updated on how my first child was growing and developing. My family could watch her grow through pictures […]
The earth is the Lord’s (and guns are for zombies)
I’m fascinated by zombies. I’m also fascinated by guns and gun culture in the United States. I can’t justify these fascinations of mine, and that is not my goal here. I am concerned that both guns and zombies seem to be growing in prevalence and popularity in my rural community–for the wrong reasons. I recently […]
Serving cookies at a laundromat
Amber, Hildalejandra and Doug serving cookies and coffee at a laundromat in Wichita, Kan. Photo provided. Recently, a Mennonite church plant in Wichita, Kan., asked, How can we be missional in our city? Four local Mennonite congregations joined efforts in this missional endeavor. They began to engage with their community serving complementary coffee and homemade Mennonite cookies—their version of […]
Not ‘based on a true story’
You’re at the cinema, and a movie comes on. After the title appears, you see the words “Based on a true story.” Anymore you have to wonder what this means. Every year, it seems, we encounter in the media a debate about the veracity of certain dramatic film portrayal of historical events. This year is […]
Coming to church
Church is a place for the vulnerable, not just those who have it all together This is the aftermath of the disaster that spread throughout the service. My 2-year-old son was talking loudly about “playing soccer ball outside” throughout the prayers. My 5-year-old daughter, overtired and bored, took several illicit trips to the bathroom and […]
Mennonite Mecca in the rifted rock
Like the early Anabaptists, we are called to follow the rule of Paul. During a wintry trip to Switzerland, my friend Erik and I decided to take the train southeast out of Zurich, hop a bus to the end of its route, then walk a few miles into the foothills of the Alps to our […]
How I pray: A journey of faith in the absence of certainty
A bestseller in the year 2000, The Prayer of Jabez quotes 1 Chronicles 4: 10, where Jabez cries out to God, “ ‘Oh, that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!’ And God granted what […]
Praying with Jesus for unity
The difference praying for unity can make in our lives and congregations Silence, prayer, work, worship. Mennonites living like this? We tried it. Thirty years ago we were guests for 11 weeks of the Community of Grandchamp near Neuchâtel, Switzerland, whose sisters live by the Taizé rule of life as a part of the Swiss […]
The woman behind ‘Mennonite Community Cookbook’
February cover story: A look at the life and influence of Mary Emma Showalter (1913-2003) Many Mennonites today know Mary Emma Showalter Eby as the brainchild and compiler of Mennonite Community Cookbook. It was the first Mennonite cookbook ever published by anything more than a local congregation or a small regional printer. People have referred […]
An ‘earth keeper’
Jon Zirkle weeds outside in the Goshen, Ind., area. Photo provided. After a long day of feeding the chickens, mixing soil, and monitoring produce, Jon Zirkle can finally sit down and enjoy a well-made meal of produce grown on his own farm. Zirkle is a young farmer living in Goshen, Ind., and the farm manager at […]
Doctrine of Discovery series: My Commissioning
From Mennonite Church USA blog At convention in July, I will be presenting a series of workshops on the Doctrine of Discovery together with a working group of other Mennonites from around the country. This doctrine defines many aspects of my life as an Indigenous woman in North America; it likewise defines the context for […]
Life with dignity
“…and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But their words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” (Luke […]
6 takeaways from a debilitating bike accident
On April 18, 2013, I was involved in a bike accident resulting in a broken neck and a severe spinal cord injury. The accident left me lying in a hospital bed, unable to move my body below my neck. Since that time, with excellent medical care, the prayers and emotional support of family and friends and […]
Ways to address and prevent sexual abuse
As a convener of the discernment group on sexual abuse, I read, along with many of you, “The failure to bind and loose” (January 2015 The Mennonite) and the much longer “’Defanging the Beast,’: Mennonite responses to John Howard Yoder’s Sexual Abuse” (January 2015, Mennonite Quarterly Review). Historian Rachel Waltner Goossen has done the church […]
New Voices: Precious or Poisonwood?
In many circles these days, mission is an unpopular subject. It evokes images of Nathan Price, the arrogant, insensitive protagonist in Barbara Kingsolver’s bestselling novel The Poisonwood Bible. In the book, Price uproots his family from Georgia to resettle in the Belgian Congo, intending to “bring salvation to the heathen.” He proceeds to commit every […]
MC USA: A dream for following Jesus
God calls us to follow Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, to grow us communities of grace, joy and peace, so that God’s healing and hope flow through us to the world.—Vision: Healing and Hope statement for Mennonite Church USA I’m a Mennonite Christian today because I am drawn so deeply […]
