Mennonite Weekly Review

Articles : Spread the Word

March 16, 2009 issue

• 

  Benner

  Farewell and benediction

  As I write these farewell words, a flood of reflections overwhelms me. Has it really been almost 10 years since I was given the privilege to Spread the Word — a euphemism for congregational development, particularly how we present ourselves to our neighbors?

  Ten years now seem like a lifetime. Since then, part of the Mennonite landscape has changed in a merger of two cultures — the “old” Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church (or, as we called them in my eastern U.S. conference of origin, “new Mennonites”). This merger also produced a separation of north and south: Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada.

Feb. 9, 2009 issue

• Ready for the new localism?

  A societal trend Mennonites should welcome is a new localism driven by a faltering economy, a new political order, changing demographics, new technologies and rising energy prices.

Jan. 12, 2009 issue

• A look at faith from outside

  “Everyone in my church gave me advice about how to raise my son, but a lot of the time they seemed to be reminding me that I have no husband — and besides, most of them were not following their own advice. It made it hard to care what they said. They were not practicing what they preached.”

Dec. 8, 2008 issue

• Lessons from the Depression

  Don Burkhart, 77, a child of the 1930s and a member of my congregation, remembers eating “pap soup” — a combination of flour, butter and milk topped with brown sugar — during his growing up years in Lancaster County, Pa.

Nov. 17, 2008 issue

• New order from the margins

  I studied his face and demeanor closely — tousled hair, closely cropped beard and mustache, an open shirt collar, granny glasses, a friendly, almost whimsical smile and clear eyes. A fun-loving, yet serious guy I would want to engage.

Oct. 13, 2008 issue

• Politicking from the pulpit

  Christians are called to speak truth to power, but not by the methods of Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

Sept. 8, 2008 issue

• Making faith rise like bread

  Peggy Landis, our missions commission chair, closed our two-hour goal-setting meeting last month in an unusual way. Recognizing the long-term service of three of our members, she gave them each a loaf of homemade bread.

Aug. 11, 2008 issue

• We track with ‘The Shack’

  “I’m not too big on religion,” Jesus tells Mack in The Shack, an unconventional novel that has enraptured Christians of all stripes in the last 12 months, “and not very fond of politics or economics, either.”

July 14, 2008 issue

• Our own ‘best generation’

  Looking back, Tom Brokaw wrote in his book The Greatest Generation, “I can recall that the grownups all seemed to have a sense of purpose that was evident even to someone as young as 4, 5 or 6. Whatever else was happening in our family or neighborhood, there was something greater connecting all of us, in large ways and small.”

June 16, 2008 issue

• Counsel from Episcopalian

  For a Reformation-born denomination struggling in the 21st century with its identity and voice, Mennonites could receive important instruction from Barbara Brown Taylor in her most recent book, Leaving Church.

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