Bridgefolk is pleased to welcome Andy Martin of Elmira, Ontario, Canada, on to its board. Andy is married to Colleen and they have three (nearly) adult children. He grew up in Waterloo region in the conservative Mennonite church, which split from the (Old) Mennonite church in the late 1950s in order to hold to a more conservative practice and theology. At the age of 31 Andy left his community of origin and his career as an automotive technician and owner of several small businesses to pursue an education. “From the beginning this was a journey to discover the bigger questions in life,” he explains.
Andy completed an undergrad degree in music and a master’s degree in counseling in Manitoba at Providence College and Seminary and a master’s degree in theology from Conrad Grebel University College/University of Waterloo, with a thesis on the influence of fundamentalism on the conservative Mennonite movement directed by Mennonite historian and Bridgefolk participant Arnold Snyder.
Currently Andy is employed one day a week as a clinical counselor and he is a ThD candidate at the Jesuit school, Regis College, Toronto School of Theology where he is studying Christian spirituality. His research is focused on the theme of humility from early monasticism to the late medieval period, with the goal of understanding 16th century Anabaptist spirituality. He has presented papers on Mennonite history, spirituality and theology at various conferences. Most recently he has recently published an article, “Mennonite Spirituality: A Reassessment of ‘Humility Theology’ in North America in the Nineteenth Century,” in The Mennonite Quarterly Review. Andy is also engaged in a research project at the University of Winnipeg on “horse and buggy” Mennonites (click here for upcoming conference info).
Andy became a member in the Mennonite Church of Canada in 2006 and is actively involved in his local church in Elmira in music, education and preaching. He attended the 2010 Bridgefolk conference at Saint John’s Abbey, as well as a conference at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Indiana earlier this year on Mary. Out-going board member Susan Kennel Harrison describes Andy as a calm, interested, and motivated person who is academic but able to connect well with a lot of different kinds of people. He is “thoroughly Canadian,” she notes, and is connected to several parts of the Canadian Mennonite scene.