PodcastDirectory.com's listings of the Grant Klassen Podcasts

Episode 34: Being a Faithful Church

The ongoing health of the church requires that believers continue to strengthen their overall capacity to discern the word and the mind of God as the church wrestles with the critical agenda of our time. Robert J. Suderman, General Secretary of Mennonite Church Canada, has written a paper to guide the church in matters of being a faithful body in times of tumult and widespread disagreement on a variety of issues and biblical understandings. The paper is entitled Being a Faithful Church: Tes ...

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As communication technologies and international travel grow, the global village shrinks. So too with the church. Many Christians are struggling with economic oppression, conflict, poverty, and lack of healthcare and educations in their homelands. Can a church become a global church? How? Danisa Ndlovu, President of Mennonite World Conference, offers some stories and tips of how the international church stands with struggling churches around the world, including in his country of Zimbabwe.

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Daylins Rufin, active Baptist pastor and seminary professor in Cuba, dispels myths about the church in Cuba.

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Doug Gay lectures on Practical Theology at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, is an ordained minister, has been an inner-city pastor in London, England. He also has a special interest in Anabaptist theology. Doug talks about the influence of Anabaptist and Mennonite theology in the ecumenical church setting in the United Kingdom

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What can the church learn from the South African church’s experience with apartheid and its Truth and Reconciliation Commission? Dr. Piet Meiring is an ordained minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, a theology professor at the University of Pretoria, has authored or co-authored thirty books, and has been deeply involved in apartheid issues in South Africa for over three decades. Most recently he served with South Africa’s truth and reconciliation commission, and has since been invited ...

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What can the church learn from the South African church’s experience with apartheid and its Truth and Reconciliation Commission? In Part 2 we ask Dr. Meiring what the church in Canada can learn from the South African church experience, and how we can apply this knowledge to the recently launched Aboriginal Truth and Reconciliation process in Canada. Dr. Piet Meiring is an ordained minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, a theology professor at the University of Pretoria, has authored or co ...

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Gordon Allaby and his Mennonite congregation in Osler, Saskatchewan are passionate about non-violent peace building. Just as importantly, they have demonstrated considerable creativity in getting the peace message out into the public square in their part of the world. Gordon is the son of a Baptist minister, is both a Canadian and American citizen who himself was interrogated by USA military officials after applying to be a conscientious objector. In 2008, Osler Mennonite Church sponsored a ...

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Gordon Toombs had the best intentions. He wanted to stay faithful to his belief that Jesus taught all his followers to be non-violent peacemakers. When the Canadian government conscripted him for World War in 1941, they promised he could serve as a medic by declaring himself a conscientious objector (CO). That promise was broken. Gordon felt he had betrayed his deeply held beliefs - and kept his failed CO declaration a secret for 60 years. This is his story.

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Canada’s indigenous peoples have had a rocky relationship with the Christian church. Can this relationship be healed, and if so, what can the ordinary person contribute to the healing? In this episode, we explore the topic with Anita Keith. Anita is a Christian of Mohawk, Algonquin and British descent. She is an Ordained Minister, an instructor of Aboriginal Education at Red River College in Winnipeg, and an Administrator for the North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies ...

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What does it mean to have food security, what does the Bible have to say to us about food security, and what does the church have to do with food security? Join Church Matters and guest Stefan Epp, Food Policy Analyst with the Manitoba Food Charter, as we explore what food security and the church mean in both local and international contexts.

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Church and state: How can we create space for meaningful interaction? How should the church call governing leaders to accountability, and how can we do this fruitfully? And how can the church be faithful in its relations with the state? This episode’s guest, Reverend Doctor Karen Hamilton, General Secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches, helps explore this topic as Canada prepares to host the G8 leaders as well as a G8 Religious Leaders Summit. What can the church do to hold leaders ...

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When the news is full of stories about devalued pension plans and retirement savings, even God’s people can be tempted to make ethically questionable investments that promise temptingly high returns. What is the role of the church in tough economic times? Gary Hawton, CEO of Meritas, a socially responsible investment firm, has some words of wisdom for jittery Christians in times such as these.

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The many recent books on the market indicate a strong, renewed interest in Jesus. Some works tackle Jesus as a highly moral man with some good teachings, others interpret Jesus as a divine messenger from God. Authors use research from historical documents, scholarly works, and archaeological information. This episode explores how we know what we know about Jesus, and what this means for the church. Guest: Tom Yoder Neufeld, associate professor of Religious Studies at Conrad Grebel Universi ...

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The Decade to Overcome Violence will end in 2011. What progress has been made so far? Guest Fernando Enns, a Mennonite, first proposed this idea to the World Council of Churches. Aired on July 20, 2008

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Guest: Don Rempel-Boschman. This episode is part 1 of a two part series on the Church's call to generosity. Don talks about how his congregation seeks to be faithful as they balance the vast need in the world with the passions of people in the congregation. Aired on September 21, 2008 Note: Episode 19 was a repeat broadcast of Episode 5

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Guest: Don Rempel-Boschman. This episode is part 2 of a two part series on the Church's call to generosity. Don talks about how his congregation seeks to be faithful as they balance the vast need in the world with the passions of people in the congregation. Aired on October 19, 2008

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Part 1 of a two part series The many recent books on the market indicate a strong, renewed interest in Jesus. Some works tackle Jesus as a highly moral man with some good teachings, others interpret Jesus as a divine messenger from God. Authors use research from historical documents, scholarly works, and archaeological information. This episode explores how we know what we know about Jesus, and what this means for the church. Guest: Tom Yoder Neufeld, associate professor of Religious Studie ...

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Russian Mennonites have a lengthy ancestral history with Ukraine. As part of a long migration through Eastern Europe, many Mennonites of ethnic Germanic origin sojourned there for up to 150 years, with approximately 50,000 emigrating to Canada between 1870 and 1950 to escape disagreeable government policies, and Bolshevik Revolution during the 1920s. Today, Canadian Mennonites still relate to people in Ukraine, most often through church-based connections. Anna Alipova, is a Church Council m ...

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Jesus the Way Maker Guest: Richard Twiss Richard Twiss is a Rosebud Lakota theologian from Vancouver, Washington, the co-founder of Wiconi International, the author of One Church, Many Tribes (Regal Books, 2000), and a Doctor of Missiology candidate at Asbury Theological Seminary. His ministry encourages Indigenous people from North America and around the world to use appropriate aspects of their cultural traditions for expressing Christ-centred theology. Using the lense of biblical ...

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Healing and Hope in the event of a pandemic Guests representing public health practitioners, spiritual care specialists, emergency preparedness planners, and disaster recovery experts talk about the church's role in the event of a pandemic. Aired on May 17, 2008

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