I love adventures. In 2016, I went to Panama City as a guest at the annual ICOMB summit. After several days of meetings in a hotel, we stepped into an…
James Toews
James Toews
James Toews is senior pastor at Neighbourhood Church, Nanaimo, B.C.
Title: The Upside-Down Kingdom, 40th anniversary edition
Author: Donald KraybillThe 40th anniversary edition is not just a reprint Kraybill explains in the preface. Keeping the core intact, he updated scholarly research and attempted to respond to the changing times.
Title: Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church
By Preston Sprinkle (Editor), Stanley N. Gundry (Editor), William Loader (Contributor), Megan K. DeFranza (Contributor), Wesley Hill (Contributor), Stephen R. Holmes (Contributor)
ZondervanShrink: Faithful Ministry in a Church-Growth Culture
author: Tim Suttle
I should love this book. I’ve been the pastor of a small church for the past 28 years and I’m intimately familiar with the weariness that comes from hearing megachurch stories. So when Tim Suttle writes…The mustard seed “You probably don’t know me but my Daddy started this church.” I looked up at the young woman standing in the door of my office and against…
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” As August: Osage County was coming to an end, I envisioned the inscription Dante placed over the gate to hell as this movie’s true title.
A Guide to Governing Charities
Author: Ted Hull
“Charities are not entirely unlike owning a dog.” With a little editorial help Hull’s thesis statement could have avoided the double negative, but he does bring his point home: “There are stark similarities between the breeding, birth, and ongoing health of a family dog and looking after a registered charity.”Last words are interesting things. I vividly remember my mother’s stern admonition, after a fight with my siblings, that my hurtful words could prove to be their last memory of…
Gathering 2012 in the scope of history Come gather ’round people Wherever you roam… For the times they are a-changin’. It was 1963 when Bob Dylan first sang that song.…
Those words burned into my heart during Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) B.C.’s Palestine-Israel learning tour, Mar. 17–28, 2012. They had exploded at us from the lips of Ardie Geldman, a representative of the Israeli settler movement in the West Bank. “We will never leave.”
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How a girl changed my worldview
by James ToewsIt’s a girl?!” I blurted out. Three pairs of eyes peered over their masks and fixed themselves on me. Those were not the right words for the moment.
Defending ConstantineAuthor: Peter J. LeithartJesus inaugurated Christianity; Constantine inaugurated Christendom. This is a story that needs telling again.
The trip was one I had dreamed about for nearly a decade, ever since my cousins Walter and Anne Willms had begun working with the Mennonites in the village of Apollonovka. Until then, the Siberian Mennonites had been far below my radar.
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Getting back into the boat
by James ToewsEven if it is at Jesus’ command, there are few places as miserable as being in a crowded boat during a storm. That is where the disciples would soon find themselves. The terror of a storm at sea is bad enough, but combine that terror with a tightly crowded mix of personalities struggling to stay afloat, and you have something you will give anything to escape.
“Button.” It was the only word I understood as I leaned over the battered young man. He was asking for help and his broken body left him helpless – helpless to push a button.