An Enrichment Program at the Intersection of Faith and Life
No matter your age, discovery can be a life-long delight. Xplore offers courses that investigate dimensions of the Christian faith, our world, and life in it. All without any assignments or examinations!
The Winter 2024 Xplore program will come to you in person and online, making courses available broadly across Canada and beyond. All in-person classes will be held on the CMU campus on Wednesdays.
Xplore happens in a six-week block in Fall 2024 and Winter 2025.
Regardless of where you live, anyone with access to a computer and the internet will be able to benefit from these courses.
View course, tuition, and registration information below.
All who delight in a stimulating exploration of faith and life are invited to register.
Tuition and Registration
Fees for Xplore courses have changed for the Fall Semester.
In-person registrations for courses offered at CMU on Wednesdays is $60 per person.
Registrations for a smaller group for any online course in a home is $80.
Registrations for a larger group in a church or other community for any online course is $175.
Tuesdays: October 1 – November 5, 2024
9:30–10:30 AM CT
Wisdom, Tension and Conflict in the Gospel of John (Zoom Class)
The Gospel of John mesmerizes us with its simplicity. It is often the book gifted to new believers for their initial orientation to the Christian faith. Yet, if we search in academic libraries, we note that the commentaries on the fourth Gospel are much bigger and thicker than those of any of the other three Gospels. Why is this?
In this course we will open the Pandora’s box slightly to begin to see the complex, controversial, and conflictive nature of the fourth Gospel alongside its seeming simplicity. We will be surprised anew at the relevance of its Wisdom to our time and context.
Given the very brief time we will have together, we will look at episodes, themes, and passages that begin to help us understand this Gospel’s conflictual context from which its message emerges. We welcome your participation in this adventure.
Robert J. Suderman (Jack) and his wife Irene are both natives of Winkler, Manitoba, but are now members of First Mennonite Church in Kitchener, ON. Together they have a long trajectory of ministry in and for the Church. They have lived in Canada, USA, Costa Rica, Bolivia, and Colombia, always with a focus on pastoral/leadership training. Jack and Irene have also participated in pastoral/leadership training in Cuban churches for the last 36 years. Jack’s education includes BA and BEd degrees from the Universities of Winnipeg and Manitoba; a Master of Arts in Theology degree from the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries in Elkhart, ID, and a Doctor of Theology degree from the Pontifical University Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. His Doctoral thesis focused on the Gospel of John.
Jack has taught at Westgate Mennonite Collegiate (Winnipeg), Rocky Mennonite School (Kitchener), and Rosthern Junior College (Rosthern) where he also served as principal. He has also served as the Executive Secretary of Mennonite Church Canada Witness and as the General Secretary of Mennonite Church Canada. Jack’s post-retirement appointment as “Missional Ambassador” for MC Canada opened the door to teaching in many countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as well as work as Secretary and Chair of the Peace Commission of Mennonite World Conference.
Jack and Irene are presently enjoying retirement with friends, family, and church in Kitchener, ON.
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM CT
Dreams and Dreaming—in Scripture and in our Lives Today (Zoom Class)
In Scripture, God promises to pour out the Spirit: “Your young will see visions. Your elders will dream dreams” (Acts 2:17, cf. Joel 2:28). What might this mean for our dreaming today? What dreams do we have? How do we live wisely and well beyond our broken dreams?
This course will explore dreams and dreaming in Scripture, good dreams/bad dreams/broken dreams/God-given dreams, letting go of a dream, making room for a new one, learning to dream again, and living it out. Each session will include time for teaching, reflection, sharing, and discussion.
April Yamasaki is a pastor, author, editor, and spiritual formation mentor. She currently serves as resident author with a liturgical worship community, edits a daily devotional magazine, has taken on a new role as a spiritual formation mentor, writes online and in print, and is a frequent guest speaker for churches and in other settings. Her published books include Four Gifts; Sacred Pauses; and This Ordinary, Extraordinary Life. In these and other ways, she is living her childhood dream of being a writer. At the same time, with the sudden death of her husband two years ago and in other circumstances of life, she is well acquainted with delayed, disappointing, and broken dreams.
Wednesdays: October 2 – November 6, 2024
10:00–11:00 AM CT
Exploring our Relationship with Grief (Hybrid Class)
Grieving is a profound and influential experience that comes about when we encounter loss, a fundamental part of being human. We all have a relationship with grief. One of grief’s primary roles is to remind us of what is important and of value to us - when we are hurting, it’s easy to forget this.
Grief demands and requires our attention. And, as grief is painful, it is common to avoid, deny, and want to numb its presence. Problems such as mental health issues, addictions, and destructive conflict thrive in such environments. Therefore, it is helpful to engage with grief intentionally; our health and healing are dependent on this.
Throughout this interactive course, we will be shining a spotlight on our relationship with grief in order to engage in ways that contribute to health and healing. Together we will explore the following questions:
- How we are in this relationship with grief?
- How might this relationship with grief influence us?
- How do we want to be in this relationship?
- What can we learn from these experiences to better support others and best engage when we next encounter grief?
"Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them." (Leo Tolstoy)
Much of John Koop Harder’s career has centred on working with people dealing with crisis and trauma. While he has a diverse counselling practice, he has particular interest and specialized experience in working with families and individuals impacted by grief, addictions, mental health and violence, post-war trauma recovery, gender/sexuality issues, and sexual abuse recovery.
John’s work has been deeply informed by his international experiences working with individuals and communities impacted by civil war and ethnic conflicts in Colombia, Albania, and Northern Ireland. John also has significant experience working with and learning from Indigenous communities in Canada’s North. Much of his learning about the dynamics of intergenerational trauma and resilience has been informed by his relationships in these contexts.
John is a Registered Social Worker and holds a Master of Social Work from the University of Manitoba.
10:00–11:00 AM CT
Coming to Terms with Christian Anti-Semitism (Hybrid Class)
The church’s dreadful legacy of antisemitism is a history that few Christians know about and is a sin that the church has not yet adequately repented of. This course will explore how Christian theologians from the second to the fifth centuries used biblical texts to develop a deeply antisemitic theology that persisted into modern times. Christian antisemitism meant that for centuries Jewish communities across Europe were targets of demonization, persecution, expulsions, ghettoization, and wholescale massacres. Eventually Christian antisemitism evolved into various forms of secular antisemitism, one of which resulted in the Holocaust. The course will also explore how antisemitism was a major factor leading to the formation of the modern state of Israel and the resulting conflict with the Palestinian people. The course will consistently ask what appropriate contemporary responses might be to the legacy of Christian antisemitism.
Dan Epp-Tiessen, CMU Associate Professor Emeritus of the Bible recently retired from teaching Bible and other topics at CMU for the last 25 years. Prior to that he has been a pastor, Mennonite Central Committee worker, and homemaker. Epp-Tiessen's commentary Joel, Obadiah, Micah was published in the Believers Church Bible Commentary series in 2022. In recent years he has nurtured overlapping interests in the development of antisemitism, the rise of Zionism and the formation of the state of Israel, and Palestinian resistance to Israeli settler colonialism.
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM CT
The Great Oratorios (Hybrid Class)
Join us for a journey through some of the greatest musical offerings to the Divine and discover the ways in which music has enhanced spiritual experiences over the last four centuries.
Treaty One-based tenor Nolan Kehler is a performer dedicated to collaboration and reconciliation. He recently made mainstage opera debuts in his home city of Winnipeg with Manitoba Opera as La Roche in Li Keur: Riel’s Heart of the North and with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra as Oronte in Alcina. On the concert stage, Nolan sang tenor soloist roles in Bach’s Ascension Oratorio and Coffee Cantata in the Winnipeg Baroque Festival, and recently made his American debuts with American Bach Soloists in San Francisco and Emmanuel Music in Boston.
Nolan has also had the pleasure of working with Juno-nominated Cree composer Andrew Balfour on his compositions Captive and Nôtinikêw in performances with Winnipeg’s Dead of Winter at the Montreal New Music Festival, the Brandon University Chorale, and with Edmonton’s Chronos Vocal Ensemble.
When he is not performing, Nolan serves as Provincial Coordinator for the Manitoba chapter of Opera InReach, which aims to provide accessible opera education to schools from a wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds. Nolan can also be heard over the airwaves on CBC Radio One on the weekends across Canada introducing curated classical music selections.
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM CT
“Lord Teach Us”: Learning from the Sermon on the Mount (Hybrid Class)
The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) has been a touchstone for Mennonites and all Anabaptists for 500 years. It is typically viewed as the core of Jesus’ teaching for discipleship, a concise description of what Jesus means for us to be and to do when he says, “Come, follow me.” Join us as we explore the Sermon with three objectives: 1) hearing Jesus’ blessings; 2) learning Jesus’ way of love; and 3) nurturing Jesus’ holy habits.
Michael Pahl (PhD, Birmingham, UK) is Executive Minister of Mennonite Church Manitoba. He has served as pastor of two congregations and as professor at colleges and universities in Canada, the US, and the UK, He is the author of The Word Fulfilled: Reading the Bible with Jesus (Herald, 2024) and he blogs at www.michaelpahl.com.
Thursdays: October 10 – November 14, 2024
(note different start/end date)
9:30–10:30 AM CT
The Great Soviet Experiment: A Postmortem (Zoom Class)
In many ways, the most important events of the twentieth century revolved around the Soviet Union. What happened there mattered, from the Russian Revolutions in 1917 to the Stalinist Revolution of the 1930s to the devastation of the Hitlerite invasion during World War Two and right up to dramatic collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Or take Soviet (and post-Soviet) leaders: Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, and more recently Yeltsin and Putin. All have all left their mark on our world, for good or bad. This lecture series explores the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, though it will also identify key themes from more recent events in Russia especially. The lecture material will be shaped by the specific interests of those enrolled, so come prepared to engage the material and the instructor. Though not the focal point of this course, Friesen will comment each week on how Mennonites experienced that time, that place.
Leonard G. Friesen is a professor of History at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo Ontario, where he has been on the faculty since 1994. The child of a Mennonite refugee from the USSR, Friesen grew up in Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula. He studied at the Universities of Waterloo and Toronto. He also lived in the Soviet Union in 1987–88 (mid-point Gorbachev) where he was a graduate student at Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) State University. The author of several books, including most recently an overview history of Mennonites in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, Friesen has been to both Russia and Ukraine countless times over the decades, starting with language studies in Brezhnev’s time. He currently lives in Waterloo, ON with Mary, his wife of almost 47 years, where they stay busy with three married adult children and eight grandchildren.
Thursdays: October 3 – November 7, 2024
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM CT
Learning About Biblical Characters and Events Through Art (Zoom Class)
Over the centuries artists have portrayed Biblical characters and events in surprising, unique, and interesting ways. In each session of this course, we will use a variety of approaches to look at artwork from the 1300s to the present that can give us new insight into the lives and stories of both more well-known and less familiar characters and events we find in scripture texts.
With MaryLou Driedger newspaper columnist, author, teacher, storyteller, librarian, and former art gallery guide.
If you have any questions, or would like more information, please email xplore
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