Archive
Reflect – Spring/Summer 2023
- Pathway Steering Team and Consulting Firm Announced (pg 2)
- Steering Team Update (pg 2)
- Board Updates – article 1, article 2 (pg 3)
- The Kingdom Work of Committees (pg 4)
- Powerful Kindness, Faithful Truth (pg 4)
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I Hope to Bring My Best Self to Assembly
By Marta Castillo
Wow! Can you believe it? It is only 2 days until the Mosaic Fall Assembly. Most of my to do list is done, although I am sure there will be some unexpected, last-minute tasks that will pop up.
Assembly participants have begun arriving by plane, train, airplane, and automobile. I am excited to see friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, from all over – California, Florida, Puerto Rico, Mexico, New Jersey, Vermont, Maryland, and PA … A family reunion, Mosaic style with diversity and unity. I am excited to berbicara Bahasa Indonesia, hablar español, and speak English. I also look forward to fellowship and eating together, sampling Indonesian food, Mexican breakfast tamales, and funny cake. I also anticipate with joy the opportunity to worship the Lord in unity in multiple languages, to read the Word of God together, to pray together, to be together. And yes, to discern together.
I hope to bring my best self to the day of assembly: The self that has spent time in God’s presence
I hope to bring my best self to the day of assembly: The self that has spent time in God’s presence – centering on God, humbling myself, committing my way to the Lord, fixing my eyes on Jesus, and waiting on His Spirit; the self that is curious and is more concerned with being in relationship than being right. I hope to bring a self that is not easily offended and defensive but that is open to listening and learning to others.
I hope to bring my commitment to being an active part of a larger community and the belief that each person who will attend and lead Assembly is a person who is loved by God and who is also faithfully seeking God’s will, to follow Jesus, and listen to the Holy Spirit in the space of their own congregations and communities.
And above all, I hope to bring with me the comfort, challenge, and greatness of “Chesed” – the loving kindness of God which was given freely to me, even though I didn’t deserve and somehow did deserve, as a child of God. The steadfast, loving kindness of God that God expects me to extend to others as part of my faithful witness to Jesus.
I pray that we will bring our best selves. If you can’t, then still come. Bring your anger, your pain, your frustration and together as the body of Christ, we will work it out together in the spirit of chesed – stubborn, loving kindness that stays the course because God has stayed the course with us.
And as we prepare for Assembly, I invite you to pray with me, from Ephesians 3:17-21:
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
…we will work it out together in the spirit of chesed – stubborn, loving kindness that stays the course because God has stayed the course with us.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Marta Castillo
Marta Castillo is the Associate Executive Minister for Mosaic Conference. Marta lives in Norristown, PA, with her husband, Julio, and has three sons, Christian, Andres and Daniel and one granddaughter, Isabel.
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For the Caregiver: Returning to School After COVID
This article was originally published in St. Luke’s Penn Foundation’s August 2021 newsletter and is reprinted with permission. Penn Foundation is a Mosaic Conference Related Ministry.
Over the last year-and-a-half, families have had to adjust to online learning. But as a new school year approaches, families must shift gears once again back to in-person learning. While many students will feel excitement, relief, and joy, others may feel nervous and overwhelmed. Socializing with peers, meeting teachers’ expectations, tests, and projects are just a few examples of what may cause anxiety for returning students.
As you consider how to support your children as they prepare to return to school this fall, keep in mind their resilience as they faced the challenges of COVID-19. They did it! Help your children identify their feelings about returning to school and validate those feelings. Explore and model healthy coping skills such adequate sleep, a healthy diet, time outside, and daily exercise. Maintain a flexible routine that allows for some down time and connection with you. Be playful and have fun with your children, creating memories and making the most of these summer days.
If your children is feeling anxious, remember that anxiety often stems from fear of the unknown and that anxiety is a normal emotion during any change, even a positive or preferred one. Here are a few suggestions of open-ended questions to help start a conversation with your children to explore the unknown, their thoughts and feelings about returning to school, and ways you can support them.
- What do you think it will be like going back to school this year?
- What will be different about this school year?
- What are you most excited about?
- What are you most worried about?
- What are your goals for this year?
- How can I support you at the start of this new year?
Helping your children identify their thoughts and feelings will help you create a game plan together to ease this transition and embrace this new beginning of another school year.
Portrait of Dad at the Cutting Board
Portrait of Dad at the Cutting Board
Every morning
a loaf of bread—
the first brown slice
toppled inside its
plastic sleeve.
Knife upright in the
peanut butter—as
righteous as Moses—
spoon in the Concord jelly.
By lunchtime,
sanctuary of the day, the
sandwiches were soft—
the bread, grape-crystalized,
the peanut butter dry—
familiar to us
as the blessing melody.
There was a quarter
taped to the lid
of the lunchbox
because he loved us
and ice cream sandwiches.
Every morning—
because he loved us,
because our faces,
counter-height and
still round with sleep,
willed him there
by looking.
Every morning—
silvered hair soft
and finger-swept,
licking jelly from
his thumb.
Every morning
he fed his children
before they were
hungry.
Editor’s note: M. Christine Benner Dixon’s poem is an intimate portrait of her father, retired pastor, David Benner, remembered from childhood. She writes: “My father has been many things in his life, from carpenter to tow-truck driver to Mennonite pastor to business manager. I feel like I can only capture little slivers of him in my writing. This particular sliver reflects the tenderness he had towards his five children. The sight of him at the cutting board every morning, making our PB&Js and slipping little treats into our lunchboxes, was so regular that it became ritual. It was the kind of faithfulness that turned the mundane into the sacred.”
This poem is used by permission and originally appeared in The Dewdrop in May 2021.
The Absurd Economics of Jesus
by Brent Camilleri, Deep Run East (Perkasie, PA) congregation
Absurdity. Following Jesus can feel absurd. Perhaps that sounds slightly extreme. However, from the world’s point of view, it might not be all that far from the truth.
On August 19, approximately 20 credentialed leaders from Mosaic Conference gathered (virtually) for the Faith and Life gathering, a time of meditation, reflection, and discussion. Recent gatherings have focused on the theme of “Identity.” This month we centered on the role of our socio-economic status in our identity.
Pastor Nathan Good, of Swamp (Quakertown, PA) congregation, started off our conversation with personal reflections. In his youth and as an adult, Good, like many of us, was not always aware of the ways that his own socio-economic status informed his sense of identity. And yet, we recognized that our financial and social location does, in fact, play a significant role in how we define our own sense of self.
Our discussion time followed, with a time of meditation on Luke 4:16-19, looking at Jesus proclaiming “The Year of Jubilee.” This vision of the Kingdom again seems impractical or absurd by any earthly definition. We then spent time in smaller groups, discussing Matthew 19:16-30, the story of the rich young man.
Dual themes of guilt and hope arose from our discussions. Guilt and anxiety, mixed with a strong sense of being challenged, were expressed as we recognized that most of us, by living in the United States alone, are in the top 1% of the world’s wealthiest people. Many mentioned that we have underlying anxiety about appearing needy, or that we still find neediness unattractive in some way. It chafes against our desire to be independent, self-sufficient, and responsible.
The scripture in Matthew also contained hope. When Jesus calls us to follow him, he is calling us to something better, healthy, and whole. To all who follow Jesus faithfully, there is the promise of a one hundred-fold return. And although, in many ways, living out the “absurd” economy of Jesus’ Kingdom feels impossible, we are assured that “with God, all things are possible.”
In the end, socio-economic identity and the upside-down values of God’s Kingdom feel challenging to us because it is challenging. Instead of storing up our treasures on earth, Jesus invites us as his followers to “live with the end in view.” Not only our wealth, but our time, material resources, energy, and attention should be oriented again and again towards the Kingdom of God. Jesus proclaims the renewal of all things, the year of God’s favor.
We are called to live in ways that welcome that future reality into our present reality. Absurd? Perhaps. Impossible? Without a doubt! But with God, all things are possible.