One final step I think of the immense willpower Jesus needed to be fully human, to take that final step toward a painful, humiliating, slow death on the cross, and …
“Pastors start with ‘I had to come,’ but end with ‘I’m proud to be MB and excited to learn this is bigger than me or my church,’” says Canadian conference event planner Michelle Penner.
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Hyderabad: How one cynic changed his mind about missions
I must have been about ten years old, sitting in one of the front pews of East Chilliwack (B.C.) Mennonite Brethren Church, probably on a Sunday evening. The young woman on the platform was reporting on her missionary trip to India. She’d worked in Hyderabad.
Ecclesial Repentance: The Churches Confront their Sinful Pasts
Author: Jeremy M. Bergen
Church apologies have made headlines of late. Catholics and Protestants have said sorry for (among other sins) racism, persecution, and sexual abuse….A reunion between a former student and his teacher at the ICOMB higher education consultation last June resulted in a teaching and encouragement trip to India for Winnipeg’s Centre for MB Studies (CMBS) director Jon Isaak. Last decade, Isaak, then professor at MBBS Fresno, facilitated a reading course for E.D. Solomon, now professor at MB Centenary Bible College, Shamshabad, India, as part of Solomon’s doctoral studies in the U.S.
“Wasn’t it beautiful that we didn’t just talk about prayer? We actually took time to pray,” said MB Church of Manitoba (MBCM) executive director Elton DaSilva. “Wasn’t it awesome to hear all those voices lifted up before the presence of God?”
Goya: The Disasters of War and Los CaprichosPeace symposium by MCC and The Reach Gallery MuseumGoya: The Disasters of War and Los Caprichos, organized and circulated by the National Gallery of Canada, ran Jan. 26–Mar. 25 at The Reach. Columbia Bible College students Erin Martens and Justin Koop reflected on the exhibit as an artist and theology student, respectively.
Conflict – whether it’s a disagreement with a spouse, a personality clash with a co-worker, or a church split in the making – fills most of us with anxiety. Avoiding conflict preserves an uneasy peace, but it’s a stifling stillness, like a long-shut room, air heavy with mildew and dust. Unresolved conflict goes underground, where it brews and festers until it erupts like a volcano, spewing molten hatred and bitterness, ruining relationships, ministries, workplaces, families, and lives.
One of the responsibilities of leadership is risk management. We have to ask, what risks do our actions create? What risks must we work to minimize? Which risks are appropriate for us to take as an organization?
When screenwriter Paul Boge attended the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, God “put it on his heart” to give Winnipeggers the opportunity “to see great films they’d never see anywhere else.” In its second year, the Winnipeg Real to Reel Film Festival boasted 160 percent more independent feature, documentary, and short film submissions than the previous year from as far away as Germany and Israel, and a gate admission of 2,039 viewers – up from 1,422 in 2011.