Mosaic Mennonites

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How did we get here?

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Mosaic Mennonite Conference has deep historic roots, originating from European Mennonites who settled in colonial Philadelphia. Over time, the Conference has been shaped by reconciliation, migration, and mission. 

Mosaic was formed by the reconciliation of Eastern District Conference and Franconia Mennonite Conference in 2019. At Pentecost of 2020, amid social unrest and a pandemic, we acknowledged our changing reality by announcing our new name: Mosaic. 

The new conference included congregations in California that transferred in 2017 from Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference. Numerous congregations in Florida that were formerly part of Southeast Mennonite Conference also joined. Since 2020, more congregations have joined Mosaic, and several in Colombia and Mexico have expressed interest. 

In these last years we have begun to outline our commitments to life and work together. In 2021, we affirmed our new vision and mission statements. 

In May 2022, Mennonite Church USA (MC USA) held a special delegate session which repealed the denomination’s membership guidelines and passed a Repentance and Transformation resolution. Emotions were running high for many within the Conference and in response, a Listening Taskforce was created from a diverse, representative group of Mosaic leaders to hear and process feedback.  

Their recommendations led to the creation of the Pathways Strategic Planning Process, which included an evaluation of our relationship with MC USA. In Dec. 2022, the Mosaic Conference Moderators sent an Open Letter to the MC USA Executive Board, highlighting concerns and sharing about the Pathways process.  

In March 2023 the Pathways Steering Team was launched, and invited all to engage in prayer and fasting for their planning and discernment work. The Team was charged with a two-year process of guiding a listening tour, reflecting on feedback and aligning it with existing priorities, creating a three-year strategic plan, and a recommendation on the question of Mosaic Conference’s affiliation with Mennonite Church USA (MC USA). Representing the diversity of gifts and perspectives of the Conference, they learned to submit to God and one another. 

In August 2024, the Conference Board affirmed the Pathway Steering Team’s recommendation to seek partnership, rather than membership, with MC USA. Based on feedback from the delegate preparation meetings, open-ended questions about partnership for which there were not clear answers, and an indication at the time that MC USA was willing to work together in good faith, the board’s resolution for the Fall 2024 Assembly extended the work toward partnership for one more year, bringing bylaw changes to the 2025 assembly.  

That resolution received 71% affirmation in Nov. 2024, with responses reflecting the diversity of perspectives in the conference.  

In 2025, the board has been tasked with carrying out this recommendation with MC USA. In February, the Mosaic board proposed that Mosaic Conference become a program entity of MC USA (a designation already in MC USA’s bylaws) to facilitate ministry partnership. At MC USA’s request, the Mosaic board responded to four questions in writing in April, which directly name the challenges that Mosaic Conference has faced with MC USA.  

In May 2025, MC USA’s executive board unanimously voted to deny Mosaic’s proposal to become a program entity of MC USA, and later that month, the Mosaic board declined the board-to-board mediation process offered by MC USA at that time. In July, the board invited delegate feedback about the way forward and received a wide variety of responses. 

In part in response to this feedback, Mosaic’s Moderator reached out to MC USA’s executive committee requesting further conversation in late July and was informed that the committee was not available. 

With no indication of MC USA’s willingness to move forward, the board is left owing our delegates a recommendation without what feels like good faith negotiation or clarity from MC USA. On Sept. 15, the Mosaic board recommended that the Conference discontinue its existing membership with MC USA.  

This recommendation will be brought to delegates for discernment and a vote at the 2025 Mosaic Delegate Assembly. Eight delegate preparation sessions are being held prior to the November 1, 2025, Delegate Assembly. 

In September, the board also affirmed a Centering Document to help articulate the Conference’s identity, and relational posture as “centered set,” with Jesus as our center. 

Articles from Mosaic Mennonite Conference about the affiliation question:  

Articles by Anabaptist World:  

Articles by MC USA:  

Reflect – Spring 2024

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Spring 2024

REFLECT is available in 7 languages! Download in:

Reflect – Assembly 2023

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Assembly 2023

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Reflect – Spring/Summer 2023

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Spring/Summer 2023

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I Hope to Bring My Best Self to Assembly 

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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. 

Photo by Marta Castillo

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.

Assembly feedback form

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For the Caregiver: Returning to School After COVID

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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

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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.