Circling the Globe

What does it take to write the history of the EMC? Hard work, an abiding interest, and patience. Ask Doris Penner.

Long interested in Anabaptist history and raised within the EMC, Doris was approached about writing a new history of the EMC and Circling the Globe is the result. Penner’s book looks briefly at the start of the Christian Church, the Reformation, and the wider Anabaptist movement before focusing on the EMC. The EMC came out of the Kleine Gemeinde, a group which broke away from a larger Mennonite church in 1812 in Russia and came to Canada in 1874-75. Penner traces the development of part of the KG into the EMC, a church that, at first, moved around the world for religious freedom and, later, expanded its vision to send members around the globe in Christian service.  

The EMC commissioned the book and guidance was provided by a committee, yet it remains Doris’s assessment and her opinions come through. She looks at the EMC’s past and present and ponders the future.  

Doris Penner, a journalist and a former teacher, serves within the EMC.  Her studies have taken her to Steinbach Bible College (BRS) and the University of Manitoba (BA, MSc.). She lives in Landmark, Man.