Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Articles

Where Do We Go From Here?

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by Stephen Kriss

My last vote as a Franconia Conference delegate was to reconcile with Eastern District Conference in 2019. After years of process and negotiation, a 150-year-old schism was reconciled. It was joyous and hopeful. There were tears and senses of finally. It was the fruit of long processes, listening, and laboring. It included a carefully constructed formation document that was designed to bring as many of us between the two conferences into relationship as seemed possible at the time. While this was happening in fall 2019, we expected those in Southeast Conference that wanted to remain in fellowship with Mennonite Church USA (MC USA) to join us in fall 2020. 

No one could have predicted that our Eastern District/Franconia Conference reconciliation process would be impaled by a pandemic and months of social unrest, including protests related to George Floyd’s murder and an uprising at the U.S. Capitol during a presidential transition. Our increased social isolation and polarization came to the surface as anger and frustration.  While many U.S. cities were experiencing protest, we took on the new hopeful name Mosaic. We believed that a new identity was necessary to move forward and find our way together. 

There were already some challenging points in our formation document. The question of affiliation with MC USA was raised, but as both Eastern District and Franconia were members, the team deferred it. There was conversation about switching our basic belief document from the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective from 1995 to the Seven Core Convictions of Mennonite World Conference. At the time, that would have put us outside the boundaries MC USA had formed. And there were already tensions around the inclusion of queer people, with some of us needing the Grace and Truth and Going to the Margins statements, and others seeing this as a time for revision. We took the most conservative route and held onto all the documents and positions already in play, deciding that a new organizational system didn’t need that challenge yet. 

After our historic, joyous vote to reconcile, we had two online annual assemblies due to Covid concerns. We didn’t meet face-to-face again until after a special delegate session of MC USA in summer 2022. Some of us came to the 2022 Mosaic assembly with heated concerns about its process and outcome, particularly related to the passing of the Repentance and Transformation Resolution. There was a mosaic of opinions and responses, with rumors of schism already. In response to issues around human sexuality, Mosaic lost five member congregations and delegates allowed an opt-out of MC USA, which another seven congregations took. We focused on hesed, extending loving-kindness. We tackled a two-year process of Pathways to help us find our way together. 

In teaching about Anabaptism, I’ve come to love Walter Klassen’s work Anabaptism: Neither Catholic nor Protestant. His later addition would be that we are “both/and.” We have much in common with the Protestant movement and its fracturing ways. We have much in common with the orders of Catholicism in their orientations to distinct practices. As someone shaped by Catholic background and education along with Mennonite education and practices, I’ve tried to find a way for us to live in the in-between of this reality. Martin Buber, a Jewish philosopher/theologian, calls it the “narrow ridge.” 

The narrow ridge is precarious. Finding a pathway that is solid enough for us all to move ahead together while admitting the precarious and difficult terrain takes wisdom, willingness, and work. Moving forward with a recommendation as bold and complicated as a redefined relationship with our denomination will require elements of hesed, and another word that we used to know well from German, gelassenheit or yieldedness. 

The Pathways Team’s recommendation will require something of us. It is easy to define relationships as “in/out” or “right/wrong.” Sometimes relationships change because of organic growth. And for many of us, change is difficult. 

The recommended shift to partnership rather than membership gives Mosaic the space that we need to navigate the narrow ridge. We will need to commit to working in ways that are collaborative more than hierarchal, local/global rather than national/colonial, and relational rather than institutional. This creates space for growth and allows us space to further discern our identity as Mosaic Mennonites in a world that desperately needs the reconciling love of Jesus. 

Of course there is irony in all of this. And pain. And all kinds of emotions. I trust the work of the Spirit to use this moment regardless of the outcomes. Through our history, we have been entrusted with a peaceable and often fracturing way of following Jesus. We are like the world around us, both broken and beautiful. We are full of hope and possibility and desperately in need of mercy and grace. 

Author’s Note: Our conference communities have been in flux of relationships for years. 

  • Franconia Conference joined the General Assembly of the Mennonite Church in the early 1970s. Before that it operated autonomously in collaboration with other conferences (though rarely until recently with Eastern District).
  • Eastern District joined a group of mostly Midwest congregations to form the General Conference Mennonite Church after the split from Franconia in 1847.
  • Southeast Conference formed from the amalgamation of congregations from a variety of Conferences in Florida and Georgia in 1967 which then broke apart as it joined LMC following a 2018 vote. Several congregations from California joined Franconia/Mosaic over the last decade after exiting Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference.

Stephen Kriss

Stephen Kriss is the Executive Minister of Mosaic Conference.

Creation is Calling for Peace

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by Joyce Munro

immersive and collaborative 

An art installation of 12 Mosaic Conference artists suggests its theme: “Creation is Calling for Peace.” It is on display until September 28 at the Conference-Related Ministry Mennonite Heritage Center (Harleysville, PA), along with paintings and worship sanctuary art by Berdine Leinbach (Souderton [PA] congregation).  

Ever since she visited Wonderspaces in Austin, TX, Leinbach has wanted to create an interactive multi-sensory art experience. How could she do that for her upcoming 2024 show at the Mennonite Heritage Center? In the Lapp gallery? 

Ouisi, a game of associations, has a nature version that invites players to find patterns. “Everyone can notice, wonder, and connect,” Leinbach says about this game. The show idea grew to include the game, as well as an I-spy element.  

Another question for Leinbach was: Could artists together create something around a creation theme?  

The Interdependence Hexagon Project, an arts and educators collective based in Scranton, PA, uses this geometric shape to focus its makers on relationships that can be made visible and practiced in a world where shared values are needed if we are to survive.  

Joy and Connection. These were Leinbach’s longings for the anticipated show. There it was—a hexagon project for Mosaic artists. With six equal sides to connect to other hexagons!  

Leinbach offered each artist three or more wooden hexagons in Fall 2023, which were returned to her by each artist in Spring 2024.

“Berdine asked if I’d be willing to collaborate in this project. I agreed without hesitation,” writes Ramona Pickett (7 Ways Home Fellowship), a liturgical dancer and life coach living in Maryland, with whom Berdine first brainstormed the project.  

Leinbach and Pickett had worked together on the intercultural planning team for the October 2022 Mosaic Women’s Gathering. “I knew she was full of ideas and her creative outlet was dance and sewing,” Leinbach says. They brainstormed other artists they knew.  

“Carla Garder was the first person who popped into my brain,” Ramona says. Carla and she worship together with 7 Ways Home Fellowship. So the project got a crochet enthusiast.  

Glenn Bauman, Joanna Rosenberger, Kim Bergey, Libby Musselman, Lydia Sensenig, Mandy Martin, Tim Swartz, and Vicki Beyer were also on board.  

So was Steve, Berdine’s husband and a graphic artist whose skills would be needed when it came to building a visual key for the installation with statements from the artists. 

When the hexagons came back from the artists five months later, Berdine saw that no mammals were included (think Edward Hicks’ “The Peaceable Kingdom”). Steve searched through his photos. A lion, elephant, and a leopard made hexagonal entrances. 

fusion, sometimes drama 

Many individual hexagons speak for themselves:  

Dramatic three-dimensional blues and white swirl on Vicki Beyer’s hexagons, sometimes in interlocking patterns. There’s tension and action here.

Poppies like shooting red and white stars pop—these are the flowers of Flanders and war; the artist Mandy Martin reminds viewers—not simply a signature subject of hers.  

Subtle green tones and patterns occur in the quilted fabrics of Pickett’s earth hexagon; a gold button for the precious metal that Proverbs signifies is the result of purification provides continuity among her three hexagons. 

A child looks at you, its brow furrowed, so that peering at the installation, you cannot help but feel that a trauma has occurred and you are here to wait for its voicing.  

counterpoint 

Several hexagons benefit from their placement among others: 

A crescent moon among distant stars situates questions that night skies prompt, that religions seek to answer. . . abuts Fraktur symbols of Mennonite piety in Kim Bergey’s hexagons. 

A grey so dark so close you must make of the scene something that’s almost terrifyingly your own meaning, even though your brain scrambles to categorize the image calmly. . . It is the breakdown of life carbon and mineral that up close is a sandy shore on a cloudy day. Tim Swartz attends to the turmoil narrative of creative process while finding calm in the patterns that happen where land and water meet. 

I left the art installation feeling its silences:  

the tiny pollinators that get mistakenly called “bees,”  

unseen, the billions in a tablespoon of healthy soil and their absence in unhealthy soil,  

the vulture gut and its glorious work, 

edible oyster fungi growing on dead ash trees,  

invisible methane escaping confined meat animals. . . 

Then there is the vanilla bean that we are about to lose because of climate change. 

What are life changes we could make if we would hear these creations calling for peace?  

The collaborative work by Mosaic artists, along with many other of Leinbach’s paintings, are available for viewing at the Mennonite Heritage Center until Sept. 28, 2024. 

A photo of this collaborative work was selected by the Hexagon Project’s Posters for Peace exhibit beginning at ArtWorks Gallery and Studio in Scranton from Sept 6-21. It is one of 40 selections out of 1,500 entries.  

If your congregation or Conference-Related Ministry is interested in displaying the piece after the exhibit, please let Berdine Leinbach know.  

Mosaic congregations and Conference-Related Ministries represented include Souderton Mennonite, Dock Mennonite Academy, Ambler [PA], Blooming Glen [PA] Mennonite, 7 Ways Home Fellowship, and Salford (Harleysville, PA) Mennonite. 

Joyce Munro

Joyce Munro is a member of Unami Friends Meeting and involved with the Carbon Forest Project. She is also a volunteer for the Mennonite Heritage Center (Harleysville, PA).

MCC Summer Service Workers We’re Learning From

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by Jennifer Svetlik

In addition to hosting nine Mosaic summer Ambassadors, three other young people within Mosaic congregations participated in the MCC summer service program, a 10-week program for young adults of color in the U.S. that runs from June to August. The program encourages and strengthens leadership capabilities within young adults while nurturing a commitment to community engagement.  

Game time with the Peace Camp children.

Cheryne Yapcolin is a part of Philadelphia Praise Center. She applied for MCC summer service to expand her understanding of community service and to integrate her passion for worship with meaningful outreach. She also wanted to learn from new experiences and to see how she could contribute to her community according to her abilities.  

During the program, Yapcolin lead worship, organized community events, and supported the summer Peace Camp for the kids aged 7 to 11 years old, the youth retreat, and the Indonesian night market.  

“Balancing multiple responsibilities was quite challenging. Managing my time between work, personal matters, and ministry duties required a lot of organization,” reflects Yapcolin.  

She was surprised by the strong sense of community and support from members of her congregation and the MCC team. “This summer experience also showed me that people from different nations, races, cultures and backgrounds can understand and care for each other,” she says.  

When reflecting on her learnings from the summer, Yapcolin offered, “Leadership is about empathy, active listening, and empowering others to bring out the best in themselves. Leading with compassion and understanding helps build stronger teams and creates a welcoming community.” 

Lioe pictured in the front of the worship band. 

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Victoria Lioe is a part of Indonesian Light Church (Philadelphia, PA). She applied for Summer Service because she loves to contribute to her congregation and wanted to be able to do it more. 

Some of her projects this summer included leading worship, multimedia work, organizing events and leading the youth group. Each of these responsibilities allowed her to develop a diverse set of skills and contribute meaningfully to the community. 

She found spending time with the youth group especially rewarding, particularly when they shared funny stories about their lives and asked her for advice.  

“Summer service offered an excellent opportunity for personal growth and leadership development,” Lioe shared. “It allowed me to connect with like-minded individuals who share my values and beliefs, fostering both professional and personal relationships.” 

One of her learnings was “that my fears about potential outcomes can impact my effectiveness as a leader, creating barriers that hinder my performance,” she reflects. “I developed better multitasking abilities and learned the importance of addressing stress and anxiety while embracing challenges as opportunities for growth.” 

Lioe will continue to support her congregation this fall including in their annual retreat and with performances from the youth.  

This summer, Chile oversaw LA Faith Chapel’s clothes distribution.

George Chile is a part of LA (CA) Faith Chapel. He applied for Summer Service to expand his capabilities and be more productive and impactful. He had heard stories about MCC’s work and was eager to learn from the organization and apply it to his life, congregation, and community.  

Chile’s assignment for the summer was assistant organizer. He set up events but also was given ministry responsibilities. “I found myself doing things I never thought I would do. I went from seat warmer to getting involved in what it takes to run a church for a whole summer.” 

Chiles’ notion of responsibility and collective support was challenged when he was able to experience how many people came together to support one another and work on various tasks and events. The large outreach events and how they touched the broader community made an impression on him. 

“I was surprised by my ability to grow in focus and work collectively with others to get projects done,” Chiles reflects. He noted that growing in leadership takes time, but with a drive to serve God and touch people, anyone can make a difference. He was grateful for the opportunity to have new responsibilities and accountability.  

As he finishes his experience, Chiles is motivated to take risks and say yes to new experiences to learn and grow. “MCC provided me a space to nurture a Godly mindset and heart,” Chiles shares.  

Jennifer Svetlik

Jennifer is Editor & Development Coordinator for Mosaic. She grew up near Houston, TX and spent a decade living in intentional community in Washington DC, before moving to Lansdale, PA with her spouse, Sheldon Good. She is a graduate of the University of Texas and Washington Theological Seminary. She serves as Children’s Faith Formation Director at Salford Mennonite (Harleysville, PA). Jenn has two elementary-school-aged children and loves biking, camping, gardening, and vermicomposting with her family. 

A Pathway Doxology 

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by Marta Castillo

“O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!  
‘Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?’  
‘Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?’  
For from him and through him and for him are all things.  
To him be the glory forever! Amen.”  

– Romans 11:33-36, NIV 

When our children are young, we limit their choices. We say, “Do you want the red cup or the yellow cup?” As their world expands, they realize that there are blue cups, green cups, and all kinds of cups to choose from. Having many choices can be lifegiving and can be overwhelming. 

When Mosaic’s Pathways Steering Team was charged with developing a strategic plan and bringing a recommendation of affiliation with MC USA, I went in with a two-path mentality. In Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken”, he suggests that there are two roads and that we can choose only one of them. The less-traveled road would lead to another, and it is unlikely we could go back. 

Pathway Process Steering Committee Members

  • Brandon Bergey – Bethany (Bridgewater Corners, VT)
  • Brent Camilleri – Deep Run East (Perkasie, PA)
  • Bronwyn Histand – Blooming Glen (PA)
  • Cherokee Webb – Faith Chapel (Los Angeles, CA)
  • Danilo Sanchez – Ripple (Allentown, PA), Mosaic Staff
  • Jenny Fujita – Upper Milford (Zionsville, PA)
  • Jim Musselman – Zion (Souderton, PA), Mosaic Board
  • Haroldo Nunes – Seguidores de Cristo (Sarasota, FL)
  • Kiron Mateti – Plains (Hatfield, PA)
  • Mark Reiff – Doylestown (PA)
  • Marta Castillo – Nueva Vida Norristown (PA) New Life, Mosaic Staff
  • Regina Valensia – Philadelphia (PA) Praise Center

Learn more

That may be true. However, when a group like our diverse Pathways Team works together, the choices of pathways become much more complex and roundabout. There are not just two paths but a city with miles of streets. It’s possible to turn right, left, or go around the block to return to the same place. There are some one-way streets we can’t enter, and we must go around the block and choose another way. 

Our team knew that finding a path forward would be difficult and would mean committing to God, one another, and the journey. We believed our desire to seek God’s will would please God, and that God would be faithful to show us the way. We kept saying to one another, “If our group can come to agreement on the way forward, then there is hope for the conference to come to agreement.” 

Our team was asked to focus first on the strategic plan and our identity as Mosaic, and then consider our recommendation for affiliation with MC USA. We were asked to consider but decenter the LGBTQIA conversation and instead center on our identity as a conference, our vision, mission, and priorities.  

The focus areas that emerged were clarity/identity, communication, relationship building, leadership development, and reconciliation. When we learned of the probability of receiving the Vibrant Mosaic Program grant, we incorporated those activities into the plan. Many of us felt excited about all that could happen over the next three years. 

After turning the strategic plan over to our consultants for refinement, we turned to discernment on our recommendation for affiliation with MC USA. It was a disconcerting moment, and we asked ourselves, “How do we decide? What process do we use?” 

We gathered information and had direct and deeper conversations with groups in Mosaic around the three options that had emerged – independence, renewed commitment, or partnership and collaboration. We considered the implications of each option.  

From our conversations, we heard that a split to independence was supported by only a few, a renewed commitment to MC USA was encouraged by a higher percentage, and the option to leave as a member but continue as a partner brought the most energy and felt mostly lifegiving by a wide margin. 

After processing the feedback, our last step was to discern and decide which recommendation we would make to the Board. In a meeting, each team member presented and explained their recommendation, from their own areas of influence and connections within the conference. There was a clear majority recommending collaboration and partnership, with several advocating for continued commitment, so we decided to take additional time for discernment.  

Two weeks later, we met and received a more detailed list of ways we might be able to collaborate with MC USA, and each team member again shared their recommendation. That evening we came to consensus to recommend collaboration and partnership with MC USA. 

For me, it was a joyful culmination of the work the Holy Spirit had done in our group. We had committed to each other and to the work, even in disagreements. Each person’s gifts were used, and each person remained engaged throughout the almost two-year process. The ebb and flow of the process showed us who we can be in community. Together we wrote our final recommendation and rationale. 

We offer it to you as a labor of love, representing many hours of prayer, conversation, and discernment. To the delegates, it is now your choice!  

“For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”

Romans 11:35, NIV

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.

Trusting in the Spirit Who Brings Unity

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by Rose Bender Cook

Based on a sermon preached at Whitehall (PA) Mennonite on 16 June 2024 from Ephesians 4:1-6. 

Since Pentecost, I have been thinking a lot about the Holy Spirit (#MosaicTogether2024). Mosaic’s strategic plan calls for a common definition of what it means to be Spirit-led. Recently, I have been led to consider how it is the work of the Spirit to bring unity.    

1 Cor 12:13 says, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit to form one body.” (NIV) The implication is that it’s not my job as a pastor or a Mosaic staff member to bring unity to the church.   

And yet I long for unity. Or at the very least, a deep respect and appreciation for one another that allows us to live and minister together in the body of Christ.    

Recently, I invited eight members of the Whitehall congregation to answer questions that would reveal some of our differences: where was your father born? How many languages do you speak? What do you eat for breakfast? I wanted to show how different we are, and that by the power of the Spirit, we have been placed into one congregation– baptized into one large Body of Christ. As it happened, the answers were so different – including the breakfast foods. Only one of these persons was raised Mennonite. 

In his book, Humility Illuminated, Dennis Edwards reminds his readers of the Pauline teaching that the position or current location of believers is in Christ. It’s not our geography, language, or even our theology that should unite us. Rather, it is our position in the body of Christ. That is where the Spirit puts us and that is what makes unity possible.   

Paul reminds the first century Christians in Ephesus that Jesus broke down the dividing wall and created one new humanity. So that, whether they are Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian or Scythian—they are now one in Christ.  

Of course, we have our own categories of US and THEM—whether its theology, language, practices we consider faithful or unfaithful, worship styles, economic or education levels, what country we were born in, or what last names we have.   

I wonder if Paul were writing a letter to Mosaic Conference—what categories would he have included? “In Christ there is no longer _____ or _____. “  

Though it is the work of the Spirit to unite us, we have a role to play too. Ephesians 4:3 says, “Make every effort (as far as it depends on you) to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” 

How do we keep the unity of the Spirit? In verse 2 Paul tells us to be completely humble, gentle, patient, and bearing with one another in love.  

Humility, gentleness, patience, and love that invites me to bear with my siblings in Christ—these are the qualities I need to cultivate.  

I am being convicted that I am not the gatekeeper of the church or the one who needs to create unity. That is the work of the Spirit. I have plenty to do in examining the posture of my own heart and seek to keep the unity the Spirit has already established.    

As a response, my prayer this summer has been something like this:   

Spirit, soften my heart—may it be gentle and humble like Jesus’ 
Grant me patience to see others as you see them,  
To wait upon your timing 
To trust in your transforming work in my own life and in the lives of others. 
And help me swim in the ocean of your abundant and gracious love.
For your kingdom and your glory.
In Jesus name. Amen.   

May it be so.   

Members of Whitehall Mennonite answering questions. Represented were Indonesian, Nicaraguan, Sgaw Karen, Poe Karen persons and people whose ancestors immigrated from Western European countries.

Rose Bender Cook

Rose Bender Cook is the Leadership Minister for Formation and the Mosaic Institute Director. She is also a pastor at Whitehall (PA) Mennonite Church.

Ambassadors We’re Learning from This Summer (Part 3)

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by Brendan Sagastume

Editor’s Note: This summer, nine young adult Ambassadors served in congregations and ministries across Mosaic Conference. This article highlights three of these Ambassadors. See the prior articles here and here. 

Ivonne Hartono, 20, is a member of Jemaat Kristen Indonesian Anugerah (Grace International Christian Fellowship) in Sierra Madre, California. This summer she has been reorganizing and filing a lot of the congregation’s music, leading and organizing youth events, and assisting in other areas needed.  

One takeaway from this summer is that organizing events with youth is both challenging and rewarding. She shared about the difficulties with various processes and decision-making which helped her to realize that there is often no perfect solution. Hartono says, “we have to be willing to take a risk in each decision made.”

Throughout her time in the Ambassador program, she has been happy to create a space for the youth at her church. She also appreciated time with other Ambassadors to learn and share thoughts and ideas. After the conclusion of the program, Hartono will continue to help at JKI Anugerah with the creation of a new website. 

Heydi Casas Perez, 17, is a member of Iglesia Menonita Shalom (Tampa, FL). Throughout the summer, she has prepared lessons to be presented in front of the congregation and assisted with organizing Sunday worship along with other teenagers in her church.  

One of her takeaways from this summer is that God doesn’t give obstacles that can’t be faced. She sometimes experienced challenges in her work but knew she could put everything in the Lord’s hands. Casas Perez says that it is always important to “have faith in what God has for you because he does everything with a purpose.” 

She has been grateful for the opportunity to learn more about being a leader. As she continues to get more young adults more involved in her congregation, she knows she can put everything that she has learned this summer into practice. 

Aaron Walojo, 21, is a member of International Worship Church (San Gabriel, CA) This summer he assisted with coordinating English services for teens in the community, as well as outings for the youth.  
 

One of his takeaways from this summer is that it is okay to make mistakes; they allow learning and growth. Another thing he learned is that communication is key to becoming a good leader. 

After Walojo felt a call to serve the church and help others grow in their faith, he was happy to join the Ambassadors program to work towards his goals. One goal was to “have better connections with the younger church members, provide guidance, and help create an environment where they can encounter God meaningfully.”  

He is grateful for the chance to achieve these goals and will continue to work with his congregation while returning to college.  

Brendan Sagastume

Brendan is a member of Perkiomenville (PA) Mennonite. Through the Ambassador Program this summer, he is working with both Mosaic Conference and Perkiomenville.

August Board Meeting Sets the Pathway for Mosaic’s Future

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by Jennifer Svetlik

On the evening of August 19, 2024, the Mosaic Board met with a full agenda for their bimonthly meeting. Grounded in Psalm 118:1-4, the Board received a positive net income finance 2023-24 report and a report on the recent Thriving Congregations Initiative grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. Additionally, they set the annual Assembly schedule and prepared to receive three new congregations and one new Conference-Related Ministry (Ark of Christ [Orange County, CA], Bethel [Levittown, PA], Resplandece [Miami, FL and Baranquilla, Colombia], and The Worm Project. These will be introduced in Mosaic News prior to Assembly).

The Board also affirmed and adopted the strategic plan that the Pathways Steering Team has crafted with the support of consultant Grovider.

The strategic plan, which will guide the work of the conference from 2025-2027, includes five pillars: Clarity/Identity, Communication, Leadership Development, Reconciliation, and Relationship-Building. These pillars were based on the key themes that emerged from the listening tour findings and will be interwoven with Mosaic’s missional, formational, and intercultural priority areas.  

The Strategic Plan overview from Grovider is available here. Additional framework for this report will be forthcoming. 

The Pathways Steering Team, made up of 13 individuals from congregations across Mosaic Conference, includes two board and two staff members. The team was charged with a two-year process of overseeing a listening tour, reflecting on the tour’s feedback, aligning the feedback with existing priorities, and creating a three-year strategic plan and a recommendation on the question of Mosaic Conference’s affiliation with Mennonite Church USA (MC USA).

The Pathways team brought to the August 2024 meeting this recommendation for the Mosaic Board:  

We, the Pathways Steering Team, recommend a pathway forward of partnership and collaboration for Mosaic Mennonite Conference’s relationship with MC USA.  

We believe that partnership, rather than membership, allows our diverse conference to focus on our vision, mission, and priorities as we engage with each other and the broader body of Christ in each member’s unique context. 

We believe a partnership can help MC USA and Mosaic congregations and Conference-Related Ministries discover innovative ways to journey together toward healthier relational patterns. We believe Mosaic has much to offer in shaping a new model of relationship. 

We believe a partnership gives space for those who disagree to covenant as one body while we continue to learn and grow together in Christ-centered discipleship and peacemaking. We desire to avoid the schisms of our past and acknowledge that neither this recommendation nor any other will resolve all tension with recent MC USA resolutions and the diversity of belief within Mosaic.  

We thank the Holy Spirit for empowering us as we have worked together in our discernment and decision making. We have sensed the Spirit leading us forward through our times of listening and sharing, agreeing and disagreeing, praying, silence, and Scripture. Partnership was the pathway the majority of the Pathways Team was drawn toward, and where we found consensus. This recommendation comes with a sense of peace, a fruit of the Holy Spirit, and indeed it is a “pleasant place” (Psalm 16). 

After extensive conversation, the Mosaic Conference Board, with strong support, “affirmed the work of the Pathways team and recommends the affiliation proposal to the delegates.” 

“We deeply appreciate the dedicated, faithful discernment process of the Pathways team,” shared Conference Moderator Angela Moyer Walter. “We look forward to who we are becoming as we commit together to do the work of the strategic plan.”  

Moyer Walter continued, “Each piece of our mosaic is valuable and contributes to the whole. There are many perspectives, but God unifies us, even in disagreement. I invite us to surrender to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and recognize the breadth of God’s beauty represented in all of us.” 

Each piece of our mosaic is valuable and contributes to the whole.

angela moyer walter, mosaic moderator

“The Pathways team was very successful in what they were asked to do,” shared Mosaic’s Assistant Moderator Roy Williams. “No one approach will satisfy everyone. We as a board accepted this recommendation as such. We invite the Assembly delegates to wrestle with this recommendation and come together at the delegate preparation meetings to share their feedback. We’ll take all of it under advisement.”  

In reflecting on the affiliation recommendation, Executive Minister Steve Kriss shared, “This ‘third way approach’ will require work, patience, and creativity as we discern a possible new pattern of relating with our siblings across Mennonite Church USA. We value the space a new arrangement might give toward both focused and expanded possibilities within the global Anabaptist community.” 

“I feel grateful to be part of the Pathways Steering Team, though our time of prayer and discernment was not easy,” shared Haroldo Nunes (Seguidores de Cristo [Sarasota, FL]), who joined the Pathways Steering Team in January 2024. “We had disagreements, worked on many language changes, and needed to listen to each other well and compromise. We worked with respect and love for each other, knowing that the results will benefit the conference.” 

Also reflecting on her experience on the Pathways Steering Team, Bronwyn Histand (Blooming Glen [PA] Mennonite) offered, “I recognize that our path was difficult; we did not initially know one another, we primarily worked virtually, and our task grew out of a significant conflict. However, with persistent listening, scripture, prayer times, and lots of emails, both the strategic plan and the affiliation recommendation became clear. I particularly felt the Holy Spirit leading us as we grappled directly with the affiliation question. We talked openly, shared perspectives, agreed and disagreed, asked questions, and ultimately came to consensus. I felt a sense of God’s creative spirit flowing like a river as we embraced a ‘third way.’”

Feedback from the delegate preparation meetings in September will help to shape the action that the Conference Board will bring to the annual Assembly. The next meeting of the Conference Board will take place on Sept. 30, 2024.  

Jennifer Svetlik

Jennifer is Editor / Development Coordinator for Mosaic. She also serves as Children’s Faith Formation Director at Salford Mennonite (Harleysville, PA).

Spruce Lake’s Gap Year students talk about its impact 

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by Grace Nolt


The 2023-24 Gap Year students on their last day of classes May 14, 2024, (L-R, Back): Moraya Tellado, program manager; Micky Tellado; Abby Arndt; Connie Wismer, teacher/program manager. (Front): Kathryn Hoover, Maura Heraghty, Isabella (Izzy) Morales. Photo by Bethany Evans.

Renew Gap Year is a program for young adults in its second year at Spruce Lake Ministries, a Mosaic CRM (Conference-Related Ministry). Renew combines hands-on ministry experience with classes taken through Anchor Christian University (with or without credits), plus off-site trip days that include an international trip to Costa Rica. It can be a cost-effective alternative to diving into college immediately after high school. 

How can Renew benefit young adults in the Mosaic community?

Isabella Morales (otherwise known as Izzy) is one of the graduates from the 2023-2024 academic year. “I wouldn’t trade this year for anything!” she said. 

“The Renew Gap Year,” Izzy continued, “is great for young people who just want to find some direction in life; it gives you great experiences with work, school and relationships, and leaves you with experience and memories that you’ll remember…and it is a whole lot of fun!” 

Maura Heraghty, another graduate, agreed. Before coming to Renew, she just hadn’t realized that her interests in the mechanical and missionary fields could actually be combined to serve God. “I’m realizing that I can use all of my skills at the same time; I’m looking to be an engineer missionary now!” 

Micky Tellado’s Renew experience has affirmed his goal of becoming a youth pastor one day. (Micky already has been a Spruce Lake Day Camp counselor since 2021 and a Wilderness Camp Leader-in-Training in 2020.) 

Each semester, four 3-credit classes are offered for a total of eight classes and 24 optional credits, which are transferrable to select universities. Classes taught by qualified Spruce Lake Ministries staff include Dynamics of Discipleship, Apologetics, New Testament Survey, and Personal Finance. 

In the New Testament Survey class, students read the entire New Testament. “This allowed me to have more knowledge of who Christ is, what he taught, and why he said some of the very challenging things he said,” Maura commented. “It was also an environment where I could discuss those things with people without being afraid they’d just brush me off.” 

Throughout the year, Renew participants apply themselves through class days, work days, and trips off site — anywhere from a Broadway show in New York City to picking apples at a local orchard. They also serve with a local church or ministry, meeting twice a month with the ministry leader – another practical way to apply their skills and receive insight into the type of work in store for them. The 10-day Costa Rica trip tends to be a spiritual highlight. 

“I spend a lot more time in the Bible now,” said Micky. “That happened after our Costa Rica trip where each morning we would take an hour to be completely silent and spend time in the Bible and with God.” 

“My biggest transformation,” Izzy said, “has been an increase in confidence. Before, I was really anxious about (trying new things). At Renew, I learned that I can work in the office, I can do food service, I can interact with a customer, and I can grow a relationship with a bunch of people I never met before … it’s made me more willing to take risks and jump into other things in life.” 

Maura knew that she wanted to be in a Christian environment but couldn’t afford college. She registered for Renew when a friend told her about the program at Spruce Lake. “Renew has affected my walk with Christ,” she said. “My mentor really pushed me to grow in spiritual areas; she would kind of give me a nudge in the right direction, then check up on me to see if I actually chose to take those steps.” 

“The Renew Gap Year program,” Maura summarized, “is a place to grow and definitely be stretched — but also to find peace.”