People & events

Ten Thousand Villages recently received the People’s Choice Award for Green Business of the Year from Co-op America, following consumer online voting on more than 70 nominated green and fair trade companies. Ten Thousand Villages, with a network of more than 100 stores across North America, provides vital fair income to artisans in 32 countries by marketing their home decor and gift items.

—Mennonite Central Committee

The 100th anniversary of the Pentecostal movement in 2006 is the impetus for “Global Anabaptism and Global Pentecostalism: Creating Understandings,” a symposium planned for the Mennonite World Conference councils’ meeting in Pasadena, Mar. 7–15, 2006. The symposium is just one of an array of business, discussion and worship events scheduled for MWC’s “mini-assembly.” For the first time, representatives of churches who are hosting or sponsoring a council member are invited to join the meetings.

—MWC

Fetal pain is “the newest battleground” over legal abortion, with advocates on both sides arguing about whether unborn children feel pain and therefore need medicine for pain during abortions. A Journal of the American Medical Association article claimed an unborn child does not feel pain until the 29th week; the study lost credibility when it was revealed two of its authors have connections to the abortion industry.

—Christianity Today

Yarrow (B.C.) MB Church publicly thanked leaders such as fire chiefs, the postmaster, councillors, and RCMP in their community at an appreciation banquet Oct. 15. A graduate of Teen Challenge and former business consultant told his life story, sharing how God had delivered him from his addictions.

—church report

Ray Bystrom, professor of pastoral ministries at MB Biblical Seminary, will speak on “A new kind of pastor for changing times” at a seminar for pastors, church leaders and laity Jan. 30–Feb. 1 at Canadian Mennonite University. The seminar, “Bridging the Gap: Ministry in Context,” will also include workshops and caucus groups on topics like ministry in small rural churches and leading in a culture of change.

—CMU

Zimbabwe remains in crisis. Danisa Ndlovu, Brethren in Christ bishop from Bulawayo and Mennonite World Conference vice-president, recently met with the International Crisis Group in New York to urge “advocacy actions” for Zimbabwe’s problems of corruption, government illegalities and a crumbling economy with 85 percent unemployment. Ndlovu said international funds pouring into Zimbabwe have not improved life for the ordinary person.

—Mennonite World Conference

Taking sex addiction seriously: Northview Community Church, Abbotsford, runs a Pure Desire program that draws close to 40 men to a weekly meeting and a program of accountability. It also sponsored workshops this fall that drew more than 54 pastors and counsellors to learn about ministering to sex addicts. Another 250 men heard speaker Doug Weiss talk about male sexuality, addiction and healing. Weiss says addiction to porn, especially as carried via the internet, is “an epidemic.”

—Sunday Magazine

Doug Hostetter, a Mennonite pastor and longtime peace activist, most recently of Evanston, Ill., is Mennonite Central Committee’s new liaison to the United Nations. Hostetter served with MCC in Vietnam in the 1960s and has since served in numerous faith-based peace organizations. MCC created the liaison position in 1991 to advocate on behalf of MCC’s partners around the world and promote an Anabaptist vision of peace and justice in international affairs.

—MCC

“A growing admittance of puzzlement in evangelical circles.” This is a shift some religion scholars are noticing in American church groups, as preachers respond to calamities and natural disasters by referring to the mystery of God instead of signs of God’s judgment, as they might have even one generation ago.

—Religion News Service eletter

The death in Edmonton of a young motorcyclist, Roland Szabo, one year ago, continues to affect others positively. Szabo had turned to God in the last months of his life and witnessed to his friends. Others were drawn to reevaluate their lives because of the funeral in Summerside Community Church, pastored by Ray Wiens. Some 25 young adults have come to the church and committed their lives to Christ.

—The Edmonton Journal

Mennonite Central Committee appeared before the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs recently. Representatives Don Peters, MCC Canada’s executive director, and Bill Janzen of the MCC Ottawa office asked for further steps in international aid and development as well as more action in measures to prevent war. They also stressed the importance of “corporate social responsibility” regulations for Canadian companies operating abroad. The full text of their submission is available on the MCC website.

—MCC Canada

Mourning and celebrating: Christ Church, the Episcopal Cathedral of New Orleans, honoured its 200th birthday and grief for the city by commissioning a jazz composition that told the story of Katrina. Composer and trumpeter Irvin Mayfield, whose father is still missing after the hurricane, shaped the piece around the movements of the “jazz funeral.” Church leaders said the concert, held in November, demonstrated “the fundamental Christian belief that death and destruction never have the last word.”

—Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

Israeli archaelogists have discovered ruins on the grounds of a prison near the biblical site of Armageddon that date to the third or fourth century and may be the oldest church in the Holy Land. The ruins include references to Jesus and images of fish, an ancient Christian symbol. Prison inmates took part in the dig.

—CBC online