March 6th, 2024CommonWord marks 50+ years of service
50+ Years of Service:
A look back at CommonWord and how it got here
CommonWord, the current bookstore and resource centre of Mennonite Church Canada (MC Canada) and Canadian Mennonite University (CMU), is celebrating 50+ years of service! Fifty years ago, in 1974, the Conference of Mennonites in Canada hired its first Resource Centre staff person. Although the resourcing and publishing work of the conference predates this, the vision for a Centre took form at this time. The bookstore portion of CommonWord’s history also predates 1974 as the predecessor colleges of CMU had retail (particularly textbook) services for their students.
CommonWord is marking this history with a short paper that looks back over the years on the intersectional resourcing ministries of church and school and how that led to the eventual merger in 2015 as CommonWord. Today, building on that foundation, CommonWord offers Anabaptist and related Christian resources to buy, special order, borrow, or access online.
Dan Dyck, MC Canada staff writer, wrote the paper. Many other people helped in the project’s research and shared personal memories, including past and present MC Canada staff: Dave Bergen, Arlyn Friesen Epp, Kathy Giesbrecht, Katharine Hogue, Connie Loeppky, Ron Loeppky, Anita Neufeld, Elfrieda Neufeld, Adelia Neufeld Wiens, Evelyn Peters-Rojas, Conrad Stoesz, Anne Unruh.
The paper is available here: CW 50+