Following Jesus, living out unity, building peace— It is the new tagline for the mission we’ve always carried as Anabaptists.
This is a momentous year with two anniversaries for Mennonite World Conference: 500 years of the Anabaptist movement and 100 years of MWC: a communion of Anabaptist-related churches linked to one another in a worldwide community of faith for fellowship, worship service, and witness.
As an organization—a koinonia—we exist to facilitate relationships with each other, growing our Anabaptist faith and relating to other communions.
We are inviting our members around the world to celebrate with us by participating in campaign of bimonthly challenges. Each action will be announced on social media with a reminder in each issue of MWC Info.
All submissions can be sent to photos@mwc-cmm.org.
The challenge campaign will continue throughout the year. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram or subscribe to MWC Info, our monthly e-newsletter to discover the next challenge.
To mark our 100 years of Anabaptist congregations coming together like a stream of living water, we invite congregations to plant a tree.
“Faith grows less like a math equation and more like a living organism. A tree can be a monument, a marker to history. It is also a sign of care for creation, adding biodiversity and habitat. A tree is a gift to the community, providing shade, stabilizing soil, and cycling water,” says Tigist Tesfaye, Deacons Commission, secretary.
In 1997, then-general secretary Larry Miller suggested that a tree be planted whenever Executive Committee meetings took place. It hasn’t always been possible, but MWC has put down its roots in at least eight places since then.
“Anniversaries are a time to stop and reflect: we remember where we have come from, consider who we are today, and anticipate where God is calling us to be,” says César García, MWC general secretary.
“The courage to love” is the theme for Mennonite World Conference’s anniversary year in 2025.
For more information on MWC’s one-day commemoration event in Switzerland or information on other commemoration events throughout the year, visit mwc-cmm.org/anabaptism500.
The focus of Mennonite World Conference in 2023 was on strengthening relationships in our Anabaptist-Mennonite family. We are family, woven together and strengthened as one body of Christ. Sharing joy and sorrow, together we are following Jesus, living out unity, and building peace.
More information will be available on our website and MWC Info.
Greetings to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Prince of Peace!
We invite you and your congregation to observe Peace Sunday together with brothers and sisters in the global Anabaptist church family on 17 September 2023.
Accompanying this letter, we send worship resources you may use in celebrating Peace Sunday in September or at any time that suits your worship calendar. Please feel free to use only the pieces that are useful for your worship gathering.
The theme for this year’s Peace Sunday is: “We are Family! Participating in God’s family.”
This year’s Peace Sunday resources explore what makes a “family” a space in which people can embody just and peaceful relationships with one another, witnessing to God’s shalom.
In Matthew 12:46-50, Jesus challenges and re-draws images of family: not prescribed by a given structure but shaped by the quality of relationships; not characterized by the absence of conflict or tension, but how these are addressed.
These Peace Sunday worship resources are provided by the Peace Commission of Mennonite World Conference. We encourage their use by all MWC-related congregations on the designated Peace Sunday (17 September 2023), or another Sunday that fits the schedule of the congregation. We trust that we can all be nurtured by the faithfulness of these brothers and sisters.
May these resources help us in this pursuit.
I think YABs Fellowship Week is an excellent opportunity to get to know about and sync with people from all around the world that believe in the same God you do but have completely different realities!” says Valentina Kunze, YABs Committee chair and representative from Latin America.
Sunday, 18 June 2023 at 10:00 UTC or 19:00 UTC: Meet the YABsThursday, 22 June 2023 at 10:00 UTC or 19:00 UTC: story time and prayers
Click here to find the time in your local area.
We want to discuss the pain and challenges that young people in each country face. Within that context, I would like to have a conversation about how we, as disciples of Jesus, are living and should live,” says Kkot-ip Bae, YABs Committee representative for Asia.Join the YABs in a Discord chat on at the following times to talk with Kkot-ip Bae and others about living as disciples of Christ.
We are not separate but interconnected
YABs Fellowship Week worship resource. See the testimonies, discussion questions, and prayers in the YABs Fellowship Week materials.
Download here
By sharing the story of the global church, we can expand the concept of community. In the process of finding a Jesus-centered neighborhood, not an ‘I’-centered neighbourhood, we can break down walls,” says Kkhot-Ip Bae. The Mennonite Christian from South Korea is the Asia representative on the YABs…Read more
Cyclone Freddy impacts BIC churches in Malawi and MozambiquePray for Anabaptist-Mennonite church members in Malawi and Mozambique who are affected by Cyclone Freddy, an exceptionally long-lived tropical storm that battered the region for more than five weeks with heavy rains and high winds. Read more
“Deliver us from evil”Prayer on the occasion of the 1st anniversary of the Russian government’s war of aggression against the people of Ukraine. 24 February 2023 War causes endless suffering. Locally, where people experience gun violence, rape, death and displacement; regionally, where the use of mines, heavy equipment…Read more
A treasure of unity in the pearl of Africa“MWC brings people from different cultural backgrounds together into one basket,” says Bishop Simon Okoth of Mennonite Church Uganda. A chance airport encounter allowed Simon Okoth to bring that cultural mixing to Mennonite congregations in his country. Departing Semarang after Assembly, Rashard…Read more
Unity with a purposeAccording to our MWC vision, worship is one of the purposes of being one, of enjoying a global community of faith, of being a worldwide communion. In that sense, it follows the emphasis the book of Revelation gives to worship in a multicultural setting. The sentence “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages”…Read more
Life and faith within God’s communityWe never imagined that the pandemic and its scars would affect our lives and the lives of our institutions to the extent it has. The church could not divorce itself from the difficult realities we lived through, and that still affects the “new normal” we live with today. Like society at large, the…Read more
Always trust in GodMay glory be given to the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for his good deeds. By the grace of God, in Congo the pandemic was not as cruel as it was under other skies. Aside from the hygiene lessons given regularly and generally by the political/ administrative and health authorities to the population, there was no direct long-term link between the pandemic and worship. Read more
Prayers of gratitude and intercessionChurches in the Vancouver/Abbotsford region of British Columbia, Canada will be hosting the MWC Renewal event (25 March), and many local congregations will be welcoming international MWC guests to their worship services (26 March). MWC Executive Committee (27-29 March), Commission leaders, Regional Representatives and staff will be gathering the following week for their annual meetings.
Please pray: that international visas will be processed and arrive in a timely fashion, and for safe travel; for the Renewal event that will bring together people from various churches; for the hosting churches and their leaders; for the Executive Committee, Commission leaders, regional representatives and staff as they meet together. We pray about the political and economic changes in the Southern Cone of the Americas and the resulting social instability (especially in Bolivia and Peru). May the Anabaptist communities, churches and institutions be a light; may they promote dialogue, denounce injustice and respond to so much need.—submitted by Adaía Bernal Collazo, Iglesia Menonita de Teusaquillo, Bogotá, Colombia. Let pray for peace and unity. Let us open our eyes to the needy people around them, and listen for God’s call to us to help provide for their needs. Let us pray for healing for those who are sick and in hospital, and listen to God’s call to visit them with love and encouragement. Let us pray for economies of our countries: may our leaders make wise decisions for the common good. Read more
Watch video here In 2022, we found new ways to follow Jesus together across barriers. We crossed barriers of travel restrictions and distance to come together for our Assembly in 2022. We crossed national church barriers to meet together, encounter new partners and make decisions by consensus in 2022. We crossed barriers of time and space to love our neighbors in the name of Christ. We crossed barriers of inequality by providing teaching resources. We find strength to follow Jesus best when we follow Jesus together.