A long-ago Kansas farm boy will share his new book at Kauffman Museum this Sunday.
David Janzen, Evanston, Ill., will read from Once Upon a Time There Was a Three-Year-Old Grandpa, published this year, at 3 p.m. in the museum auditorium.
Copies of the book will be for sale, and Janzen will sign books after the reading and discussion.
Janzen was born and raised on a Kansas farm and graduated from Bethel College in the early 1960s.
In the early ’70s, he and his family were among the founders of New Creation Fellowship, now New Creation Fellowship Church, a Mennonite congregation in Newton.
In 1984, the Janzens moved to Evanston to join Reba Place Fellowship, an urban, income-sharing Christian community.
Since then, Janzen has assisted in Reba Place’s refugee asylum project, served on the leadership team, directed an affordable housing ministry, and mentored leaders of a new generation of communities associated with the New Monasticism movement.
He is the author of several publications on Christian community leadership, including The Intentional Christian Community Handbook (2012) and Seven Radical Elders (2020).
The title of Janzen’s latest book, Once Upon a Time There Was a Three-Year-Old Grandpa, is meant to evoke a collection of bedtime tales first told to grandchildren.
Chapters begin with a farmer-boy story from the 1940s, an era before industrial farming, when horses, cows and chickens were still members of the family.
Each anecdote launches a theme that splashes down with further development in later decades of Janzen’s life.
Diverse topics include imaginative play, construction crew humor, animal intelligence, contemplative prayer and journal writing, rural and urban farming, communal wisdom, and affordable housing.
The book also “[reflects] on God’s in-breaking initiatives and the writer’s emerging sense of calling in lifelong conversation with Jesus,” according to its promotional material.
“[The] stories offer a series of curiosity-driven on-ramps into eight decades of transformative experiences for curious souls to ponder an open-eyed faith and a communal way of life for the long haul.”
Regular Kauffman Museum hours are Tues.-Fri. 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Sat.-Sun. 1:30-4:30 p.m., closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission to the special exhibit, “Unlocking the Past: Immigrant Artifacts and the Stories They Tell,” and permanent exhibits – “Of Land and People,” “Mirror of the Martyrs” and “Mennonite Immigrant Furniture” – is $5 for adults, $3 for children ages 6-16, and free to Kauffman Museum members and children under 6. The museum store is open during regular museum hours. See kauffmanmuseum.org or the museum Facebook page for more information.
