I come from a line of children without end. — J.M. Coetzee My 16-year-old daughter is getting confirmed into the Episcopal church this spring. This would be fairly unremarkable save for the fact that she was...
[read more]The church is in decline. Statistically, it’s inarguable. But researchers who presented their findings at the Mennonite Church USA convention said the denomination is positioned to turn the trend around, if...
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The executive director sang a ’90s grunge rock song. A Bible study on Ephesians packed enough input for a month of Sundays. Teenagers and adults worshiped together with traditional hymns...
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Despite serving a growing congregation, I have a concern: I have not performed a single baptism for a middle school, high school, or college-aged person in over five years. Granted, my current congregation has...
[read more]National youth conventions are the canary in several Anabaptist coalmines. Declining participation requires new approaches to our relationship with the leaders of tomorrow’s churches. Faced with steadily...
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When my children were very young, there was all manner of reading material at my fingertips, ready to tell me exactly how I might raise perfect kids. I could read books on attachment and potty training, blogs...
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I asked a friend how he understood the current assault on civil and human rights. He replied, “Same song, different concert hall. Ghost of Colonialism in A Minor.” This began an interesting conversation...
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Many Mennonite congregations provide sexuality education for their youth, at least on paper. Many churches include it in the four-year Sunday school curriculum, alongside baptism and the Bible. Why does...
[read more]A bus carrying three south-central Kansas youth groups returning from Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp junior high snow camp crashed Jan. 21 just outside Stratton, Colo. Passengers experienced bumps and bruises,...
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There’s a new study out. In a nutshell: Smartphones are making this generation depressed. For the first time, the teen suicide rate was higher than the teen homicide rate in 2011. Or as the study’s author,...
[read more]For many of us, church feels good and safe. We were loved there as children and respected there as adults. In fact, we often describe our churches as “families” or caring communities where all are...
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At the Mennonite Church USA convention in 2015, high school student Leah Wenger questioned the role of youth after noting how separated the youth convention was from the delegate sessions. “My youth group...
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ELKHART, Ind. — Do Christians have the resources to pass on their faith to their children? The Deep Faith conference was organized to help promote faith formation for all ages. More than 100 people from...
[read more]In the days after the June 12 shooting that took 50 lives at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Fla., there were myriad news reports about dramatic phone and text conversations between people trapped in the club...
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Dove’s Nest has heard from churches that are struggling with situations of abuse in which an adolescent is the offender. These situations are terribly painful and complicated, but not terribly uncommon. An...
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As our Canadian society becomes increasingly secular, I have been thinking that people have disregarded the church. However, this assumption has been challenged for me. This spring I have been asked to...
[read more]I was dismayed at Jennifer Murch’s disparaging descriptions of our youth (“Let’s Revolutionize Youth Mission Trips“). She has seen them complain, refuse hospitality, make fun of the host...
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Nearly 150 Congolese youth traveled from nine provinces to attend the first Bible camp sponsored by the Mennonite Church of Congo July 14-20. For some, it was a journey of several days by boat, transport...
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Nearly 30 neighborhood children gathered for a week in December — a summer month in Bolivia — at Josué Roman Cavero’s home, where he and his mother organized a vacation Bible school. In addition to the...
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