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Canadian Chinese MB churches allocate over $500,000 annually for mission work worldwide. Of these funds, 35% is sent overseas, 18% is used for local missionary work, 13% is given to mission agencies, 29% is used for training and education, and 5% goes to administration. Chinese MB churches support a total of 34 missionaries in various locations around the world: 50% in Asia, 20% in North America, 8% in Africa, 8% in Europe, 6% in South America and 8% in other parts of the world. – Chinese MB Herald
At least 40 successful operations on unborn children between 20 and 26 weeks old to treat spina bifida have been performed in the US. Researchers are surprised at the high rate of success. Plans have been made to expand the program and conduct a nationwide trial involving 200 women and their unborn babies. – Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, Ottawa Citizen
The Canadian Association of Mennonite Schools (CAMS) music festival will be held Apr. 19-21 at Mennonite Educational Institute in Abbotsford, B.C. About 600 elementary and secondary school musicians from 11 Mennonite schools in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario are expected to perform. A concluding choral and band concert will be held Apr. 21 with each school performing pieces from its own repertoire. The concert will culminate with a mass choir under the direction of Tony Funk of Abbotsford and a mass band under the direction of Wayne Toews of Saskatoon. – Mennonite Educational Institute
A new investigation into the Holocaust argues that the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany was not predominately motivated and carried out by Christians. According to US documents on the Nuremberg Trials recently made public on the Internet by Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Christianity was also a target of Nazism. The documents reveal plans to take over Germany’s churches from within and replace Christianity with the doctrine of the Third Reich. The documents include a 120-page US government report, “The Nazi Master Plan: The Persecution of the Christian Churches”, stating that Hitler’s regime tried several tactics to undermine and discredit Christian institutions and clergy in order to replace them with government institutions. – Evangelical Press News Service
The US Mennonite Brethren Conference has launched its new web site: www.usmb.org. – US MB Conference
Canadian churches now have the opportunity to sponsor Colombian refugees fleeing violence in their homeland. The Canadian government has agreed to give Colombian applications “urgent status” and will process their requests within days or a few weeks. Colombia has been mired in civil war for over five decades. According to a letter from the Colombian Mennonite Church, over 200,000 people have been killed and over 2 million people have been displaced as a result of the conflict. Further information can be obtained by going to the MCC Canada web site and clicking on “How to sponsor”. – Mennonite Central Committee Canada
For generations, Mennonites, among others, have enjoyed playing Crokinole, a table game played on a round or octagonal wooden board using small wooden discs. Now there’s evidence it may have been invented by a Mennonite. According to The Crokinole Board web site (www.frontiernet.net/~crokinol), the oldest known board was handcrafted in 1875 in Perth County, Ontario by a Mennonite signpainter/wagonwright named Eckardt Whettlaufer for his son’s birthday. Today it resides in the collection of the Joseph Schneider Haus Museum in Kitchener, Ont. The web site notes that substantial pockets of Crokinole activity coincide with concentrations of Mennonites. The earliest recorded comment on the game was apparently written in 1885 by M.B. Ross: “A new and intensely interesting game for everybody, with no objectional features whatever.” The game was promoted as a game of skill, a healthy alternative to games of chance (gambling). – Mennonite Economic Development Associates
A survey of Protestant senior pastors across the US in late 2001 found a majority rated themselves as doing an “excellent” or “good” job in 10 of 11 common activities they undertake. According to Barna Research Group, 90% said they are “above average” at preaching and teaching; 85% claimed to do well at encouraging and 82% at shepherding. The only area at which a majority did not claim to do well was fundraising – less than one-third of the pastors said they were “above average” in raising money. – Christianweek
A study of more than 500 Protestant pastors in the US found that 34% prefer to use the New International Version of the Bible, 24% the King James Version, 17% the New Revised Standard Version, 10% the New King James Version and 9% the New American Standard Version. Mainline Protestant pastors tended to favour the NRSV (40%), while evangelicals prefer the NIV (49%). Pastors of Pentecostal and charismatic churches tend to use the KJV (45%). – Christianweek
According to the 2002 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, released in February, the five largest denominations in the US based on membership figures for 2000 are Roman Catholic Church (63,683,030 members, up from 62,391,484); Southern Baptist Convention (15,960,308 members, up from 15,851,756); United Methodist Church (8,340,954 members, down from 8,377,662); Church of God in Christ (5,499,875, the same as the previous year); Mormon (5,208,827 members, up from 5,113,409); and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (5,125,919 members, down from 5,149,668). – Evangelical Press News Service
Canadians sent over 713,000 gift-filled shoeboxes to needy children in 22 countries around the world last year through Operation Christmas Child, a project of the relief agency Samaritan’s Purse. The agency delivered the gifts to children who are victims of war, persecution, poverty, disease and natural disasters. Internationally, Operation Christmas Child 2001 collected 5.1 million shoebox gifts that were delivered to 90 countries. In mid-December, for the first time, shoeboxes were delivered to Afghanistan, where 3500 Canadian shoeboxes were delivered to children in two refugee camps. – Christianweek
The Ontario Court of Appeal on Dec. 17 upheld charges of hate mongering against Mark Harding, 46, a Christian who distributed pamphlets calling Toronto Muslims “raging wolves” and “potential terrorists”. The Court rejected Harding’s appeal that his statements have been exempt from the law because they are based on his religious beliefs. Harding had originally been convicted in 1998 on three counts of promoting hatred and sentenced to 240 hours of community service for the Islamic community; his sentence was stayed due to health problems. In 1997, Harding went to Weston Collegiate Institute in Toronto to do “Christian evangelism” and hand out pamphlets criticizing the principal’s decision to ban religious clubs yet reserve a room for Muslim students to hold weekly prayer gatherings and allow them to cut class for religious observances. The pamphlets also listed a litany of brutal acts that Muslims have committed in countries such as Afghanistan and stated: “The Muslims who commit these crimes are no different than the Muslim believers living here in Toronto. Their beliefs are based on the Koran. They sound peaceful, but underneath their false sheep’s clothing are raging wolves seeking whom they may devour.” At his first trial, Muslim onlookers hurled insults and spit at Harding, and a Muslim man was forcibly removed from the court for threatening him. He has received telephone death threats and been heckled on the street on the way to his hearings. Despite the accusations, Harding says he loves Muslims and shared his beliefs in the hope that they will “all go to heaven”. – Christianweek
Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery in Winnipeg is planning for September 2002 an exhibit dealing with the subject of comfort and/or discomfort. Artists may send their slides, scans, digital photographs or prints of their art or ideas, completed or planned, to the Gallery. A jury will select artworks to make up a two-section exhibit, one dealing with comfort and the other with discomfort. Art images should be sent, no later than May 20, to Ray Dirks, MHC Gallery, 600 Shaftesbury Blvd., Winnipeg, Man. R3P 0M4, or to rdirks@mennonitechurch.ca. – Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery
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Last modified April 12, 2002.
© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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