By Marta Castillo
Dear Mosaic Siblings,
It has been a privilege to serve as a Mosaic Conference staff person for nine years, walking alongside congregations and credentialed pastors. What a joy it is to visit our churches and organizations, to learn from all of you, and celebrate the diversity!
The depth, beauty, pain, and complexity of our Mosaic community is profound. If I close my eyes, I can see the multitude of believers from Revelation—each of you —worshipping before the throne. It is a gift to have a balcony view of this sacred community.
You may have read the Centering Document for the first time last week. A group of us in the conference has been engaging with this work for over two years, praying, dreaming, editing, and discerning together. We weren’t aiming to write a new statement or develop policy, but rather to name a centered space of what God is calling us to do and be together.
As the document states, “Our community’s identity is as much about our posture towards one another and the way we act together as it is about what we believe together.” I’m grateful that the board has affirmed this clarifying identity document, and I’m hopeful about how this posture of high expectations and gracious hospitality will be owned and put into practice in each of Mosaic’s congregations and ministries.
When I think of a local church—your church, or one like yours—I see a unique gathering of people who have chosen to be community together. Not because we are all the same, but because we care deeply for one another. Our churches, groups, and organizations are shaped by the needs, passions, gifts, and care of their members. In the times when we don’t agree, we continue to show up, week after week, to love and serve each other through the messiness of being church. It is our love for God and our love for our siblings in Christ that shapes how we act together just as much as our shared beliefs.
As people within the conference respond to this invitation to “center ourselves on being community together that honors and values our differences as we partner to live, love, and become like Jesus in our broken and beautiful world,” we must remain open. Open to hearing words of disappointments, pain, challenge, curiosity, hope, compassion, and joy. Like any document, this one can be critiqued, word-smithed, and questioned. Even after all the edits, there’s always more it could say, or ways it could be clearer.
It can also be read from a posture of someone who loves their community, seeks its flourishing, and seeks to find connections. It can be read with a vision for how it might take root in real practices. May our love for God, for our neighbors, and our enemies, guide us as we continue to center ourselves on Jesus and strive to be holy together.
Marta Castillo
Marta Castillo is the Associate Executive Minister for Mosaic Conference.
Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To contact Marta Castillo, please email mcastillo@mosaicmennonites.org.
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.