By Stephen Kriss
Anabaptism begins with a protest action—deeply spiritual, yes —rooted in faithful reading of Scripture. But it is a protest, whether intentional or not, against the commingling of the state and the church. It’s both a deeply personal and a communal response. While we often highlight the movement’s Swiss genesis, it emerges across Europe in different but similar ways as the Scriptures become available to the masses through the newly invented printing press.
We take on the name “Mennonites” from a former Dutch priest, Menno Simons. This naming comes only after the movement had begun to take shape and Simons had time to write and attempt to organize the chaos, amidst martyrdom and the fallout of the Münster Rebellion, where Anabaptists attempted a violent takeover of a Dutch city. We were not always a peaceable people. But through that lesson, the movement embraced a decisive turn toward nonviolence.
Mosaic Mennonite Conference has existed for only about one percent of this movement’s history, though our predecessor conferences span 350 of those 500 years. The future of the movement is increasingly global and challenges us to balance history and trajectory. While our story begins in Europe, more of our future is emerging in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.
As Mosaic Conference finds its way, too, we are shaped by the emergence of global connectivity and community. Our story begins with European migrations to Pennsylvania, and our trajectory includes movement in the Americas and global connections that defy political boundaries—just as Anabaptism always has done.
Movements of the Spirit and of the people continue to bustle and at times bristle with institutional boundaries. This requires us to reimagine both ourselves and our relationships with each other. For some, it’s an invitation to examine our own power and our need to be right, while allowing the Spirit to lead, direct, and disrupt.
At its best, Anabaptism is contextual and responsive—traits that keep movements alive. When Mosaic was formed five years ago, those involved envisioned a flexible and sturdy structure that would allow us to keep moving together. My former colleague, Noah Kolb, talks about the balance of ballast and sail to keep ships afloat and responsive. Philosopher Simone Weil calls this the work of gravity and grace.
Our Mosaic Mennonite Conference commitments to the Anabaptist vision (in our bylaws, we draw from Palmer Becker’s Anabaptist Essentials: Jesus is the center of our faith, community is the center of our life, and reconciliation is the center of our work) and our deep history of practiced Mennonite belief and values give us both root and vine.
We remain deeply rooted in this 500-year-old movement, in the vision of early leaders to engage the Scriptures and to respond faithfully to Jesus’ calls and the Spirit’s movement, and in our own story of ongoing migration and mission. The Anabaptist identity shapes us, and we in turn also shape that identity through our particular mosaic conference of congregations, ministries and partners.
To live this identity out together requires one of the most difficult disciplines of our time: to yield to God and to each other. In that yieldedness there is both opportunity and responsibility: to acknowledge the pains of the past, while proclaiming the possibilities of the future. Holding onto the foundation that is Christ (Menno Simon’s hallmark verse from 1 Corinthians), we embrace our contexts with faith, hope and love.
We seek to respond with faithfulness, not fear, believing that God, who began this good work 500 years ago—though it’s both beautiful and broken—will sustain it, and us, through faithful struggle and ongoing holy inbreaking and surprise.
Stephen Kriss
Stephen Kriss is the Executive Minister of Mosaic Conference.
The opinions expressed in articles posted on Mosaic’s website are those of the author and may not reflect the official policy of Mosaic Conference. Mosaic is a large conference, crossing ethnicities, geographies, generations, theologies, and politics. Each person can only speak for themselves; no one can represent “the conference.” May God give us the grace to hear what the Spirit is speaking to us through people with whom we disagree and the humility and courage to love one another even when those disagreements can’t be bridged.