Learning to like funny cake and wear batik

Stephen Kriss, Philadelphia Praise Center

We still eat Mrs. Benner’s funny cake* from Landis Supermarkets at the Mennonite Conference Center, though some days Claude Good or other staff banter in Spanish and someone could be caught decked out in Indonesian batik. In these pages, you’ll see not only the stories of who we are becoming, but who we are—an increasingly polyglot people ministering and witnessing through the strengths of a historic community. Diversity is more and more not a message we preach, but a reality that we live. We find ourselves both invigorated and challenged with the pushes and pulls that diverse communities encounter. For those of us who are legacy Mennonites with deep biological roots sometimes this is disorienting. For those of us who find our lives newly woven into the Anabaptist fabric, the navigation can be confusing as well.

These are exciting days to be a part of Franconia Conference, I think. Though it’s not an easy time, it is a time of re-imagining and re-discovery. In the pages of this issue of Intersections, we see how some of those possibilities are incarnated with gifted leaders who are responding to God’s call toward credentialed pastoral ministry. We see how Conference Related Ministries extend the mission of the church through ongoing work and new partnership. We can read about how the Ambler congregation responds to the pain and possibility in their community and about new opportunities to engage with our British partners through the Anabaptist Network.

It’s a different time in Franconia Conference. We haven’t any bishops and our newly credentialed ministers are as likely to be Asian as they are to be a Derstine. We’re invited to negotiate together differently, understanding differing priorities of time and money, ways of leading and following, of saving and giving away. And these differences don’t just exist on the conference-wide level, it’s the reality in the life of our congregations as well. Our leaders have a unique challenge to listen well and lead with clarity in the midst of changing dynamics.

As I read these stories and as I have traveled among diverse Franconia Conference congregations over the last few months, I wonder what it is that we need to learn. I’ve just started an Italian language class. It’s a few hours a week that pushes me to say things in new ways, to watch for patterns, to listen carefully. I know that these days, my Italian is about as fluent as a toddler’s. I need to keep focused on my work as I struggle to learn, following up on assignments and listening to Italian when I can during the week. This educational venture requires both my careful attention and a bit of vulnerability.

One of the things this issue of Intersections suggests is the hopeful possibilities that are out there when we keep learning, responding to our communities, to God and to the faithfulness of the past, the potential of the present and the mystery of the future. Slovene thinker Slavoj Zizek says that when everything seems to be askew we need to learn, learn, learn. In the midst of a time when diverse experience, background and perspective is our everyday encounter, we find ourselves pulled closer and closer to the realization that to glimpse the reign of God requires childlike openness as Jesus suggested in the Gospels.

Openness to learn—whether it’s learning to like new foods, speak new languages or respond to unfamiliar situations—requires both humility and boldness. It’s an opem admission that we don’t exactly know what we are doing and the boldness to be able to learn even in the midst of possible failure. In my Italian class, the more I speak the familiar words of Spanish, the less Italian I actually learn. It’s easier to fall back on the more familiar than to press into the struggle of learning something new. Learning requires us to confront what we don’t know and to move away from assumptions of our own omniscience, which we say belongs to God alone anyway.

Intersections continues to highlight how and what we’re learning and who we’re becoming. We tell these stories to offer hope for the journey, to equip us for the path we’re on and to strengthen our faith for the road ahead. May we continue to learn as we live the stories of fruitfulness from humble beginnings and illuminate the lessons that emerge in the midst of striving toward boldly embracing God’s mission in these days when some of us are learning to like funny cake and others are finding ways to sing God’s praise in languages we have never imagined.

*A vanilla cake and chocolate syrup breakfast pie distinct to the suburbs just north of Philadelphia.