New resources to incorporate features from discontinued children’s periodicals

Mennonite Church Canada/Mennonite Publishing Network
April 14, 2006

Waterloo, Ont./Scottdale, PA –This summer Mennonite Publishing Network will launch a number of new resources, some of which will incorporate features of two long standing children’s Sunday School publications, Story Friends and On the Line – which will be discontinued.

Gather ’Round, a Sunday school curriculum beginning Fall 2006, has incorporated some features from On the Line into Grow, the student book for middler children. God With Us Today offers one hundred short devotions for families with children ages 4 through 12. Three age-appropriate Bible reading record booklets, scheduled for publication in 2006, will encourage children to read their Bibles at home. In 2007 Mennonite Publishing Network will publish two books for primary and middler children that celebrate Anabaptist faith heroes.

Mennonite Publishing Network celebrates the long life that Story Friends and On the Line have had in the Mennonite denominations. “We are grateful for dedicated readers who remained loyal for generations, and for the series of editors whose love for children was expressed on the pages of these magazines,” commented Eleanor Snyder, director of Faith & Life Resources, MPN’s congregational division. “While it is difficult to say farewell to these resources, we look forward to seeing how new ones will inspire the next generation.” Story Friends and On the Line have experienced declining subscriptions for several years, she added.

Other periodicals published by Mennonite Publishing Network—Rejoice, Purpose, and Leader—will continue in their present forms. Beginning September 2006, With—a magazine for high school youth—will shift from bi-monthly to quarterly publication. For more information, call 1-800-245-7894.

Mennonite Publishing Network, the publishing ministry of Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada