Articles

When We Are Not of One Accord: Moving Forward on the Pathway

November 16, 2022 by Conference Office

By Stephen Kriss

Mennonite historian and retired pastor John Ruth once told me that if you don’t have gelassenheit, you really don’t have anything as a community. Gelassenheit (yieldedness) is a hallmark of our Mennonite story. In our historical moment, it’s a counter-cultural thing.

Gelassenheit is a willingness to put my own conscience or belief in the context of community and to yield my own position to the discernment of the group. It is the opposite of fight or flight. It’s remaining, staying, maybe even holding to your own viewpoint, but yet yielding.

While this yieldedness has possibilities for abuse, it also has an immense power in our time of individualism and consumerism. Typically we humans think of ourselves first and then those we consider like us (by biology, ethnicity, geography, politics, faith, language, or citizenship.) Our commitment to those who are different diminishes within diversity, rather than strengthened through intentional engagement.

It is the opposite of fight or flight. It’s remaining, staying, maybe even holding to your own viewpoint, but yet yielding.

In Mosaic, we are trying what can feel like an impossible thing by holding together some of those differences under the Spirit of Pentecost. We choose this community together, continuing the commitments of baptism to give and receive counsel and to identify with Jesus by walking together. We choose, in the face of diversity and adversity, not fight or flight, but engagement and connection.

At our recent Conference Assembly, we discerned a pathway together, a compromise with a two-year maximum timeline. While 81.5% of us found this to be an affirmable option, 20% of us didn’t. Our task now as Mosaic leaders is to hear the reservations of that 20%, some who think the process is too quick while others too slow, and to diligently include those concerns going forward.

We are not a community that simply allows the majority to rule. We take the concerns of everyone seriously. In this way, the church can bear witness to the reconciling love of Jesus in a way that isn’t evidenced often in political or economic realms. We are still one community, with one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God who is above all and through all and in all even when we are not quite of one accord.

I am committed to hearing the concerns and cautions (I read all the ballot comments before writing this article). A red vote didn’t mean you don’t love or know what it means to be Mosaic, nor that you weren’t ready to go the second mile in the spirit of Chesed. It meant you thought the plan was imperfect, not the best option, or you hoped for something else. I hear that. We all need to hear that, and also continue to move forward.

As a leader, I am committed to the principle of leaving no one behind. It comes from battlefield tactics and understandings. But it also comes from my sense of faithfulness in believing that the loudest or quickest person doesn’t negate the perspectives of those who speak more quietly or slowly or have yet to discern. God speaks in rolling thunder and in the still small voice as well. We need space for both and time to consider our way. There are times when we need to be quick and responsive, but also times when we need to be slow and contemplative. We will need to balance these realities together. We are both broken and beautiful, strong and weak.

In the next weeks, the Board and staff will begin to work at implementing pathway recommendations. There will be opportunities to begin to help shape this process further together. All of us will be invited to engage across our varieties of difference in Mosaic. I hope we will be able to yield to the process of our imperfect discernment for now, trusting the Spirit to keep working within us on the way and beside us in paths of mutual transformation and renewal.

Stephen Kriss

Stephen Kriss is the Executive Minister of Mosaic Conference.

Journeying with God

November 16, 2022 by Conference Office

By Eileen R. Kinch

In early October, my husband and I moved to Telford, PA from Ephrata, Lancaster County, PA. We had an embarrassment of help – more than we needed – to load and unload the moving truck. Most of the furniture is now where we want it, and we have unpacked many boxes. We are now figuring out how to find the things we need in our new community, such as groceries, car repair, and healthcare. Adjusting to a new place is hard work, and it takes emotional and physical energy.

Moving is also disorienting. I have lived most of my life in Lancaster County. I grew up in the southern end of Lancaster County, twelve miles from the Maryland border. I know the routes and the roads. In our new area, I don’t know where I am going most of the time. I am only starting to recognize where I am, and the other day, I considered it a victory when I found a post office.

In Genesis 12, God tells Abraham, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (12:1, JPS). I wonder how that felt for Abraham. Did he think, I am just fine where I am, thank you very much. I have everything I need. Why do I need to go somewhere else? Did he feel sad to leave his family and his home area? Did Abraham have a difficult time on his journey? Did he find it exhausting?

Moving and journeying also characterized the Israelite experience, especially after the escape from the Egyptians across the Red Sea. The Israelites moved from place to place and carried the tabernacle with them. When they reached the Promised Land, had planted crops, and were offering the first fruits of harvest, God commanded that the Israelites recite their history, beginning with these words: “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous” (Deuteronomy 26:5, NIV). Even after they settled, the Israelites were supposed to remember their ancestor Jacob’s experience of wandering.

Did he think, I am just fine where I am, thank you very much. I have everything I need. Why do I need to go somewhere else?

The book of Hebrews mentions wandering as part of the journey of faith, naming Abraham, Moses, and many others: “All of them died in faith, not having obtained the things promised, but having seen and hailed them from afar, and they acknowledged themselves to be foreigners and sojourners on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13, translation by David Bentley Hart).

Sometimes God calls us to do something that requires a change of location. Often this means leaving the comfort of home. Sometimes the purpose of moving is clear to us, but other times, it is not. As we pack, unpack, and try to make our way in a new place, we may wonder if the moving and disorientation are worth the immediate (or ongoing) trouble. Yet the writer of Hebrews points out that the big picture is important, even if we don’t recognize what it is. Faith, after all, is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of unseen realities” (Hebrews 11:1).

I am grateful for the experiences of wanderers in the Bible. I am sure Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (and Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah and Rachel) asked some of the same questions I do and experienced similar feelings. Even if I feel a bit lost right now, I can still find a home in this faith story.

Eileen Kinch

Eileen Kinch is part of the Mosaic communication team and works with editing and writing. She holds a Master of Divinity degree, with an emphasis in the Ministry of Writing, from Earlham School of Religion.

Courageous & Faithful Women

November 10, 2022 by Conference Office

By Mary Nitzsche

In the last year, I have been reading or listening to stories of women who served the Mennonite church and its institutions as pastors, educators, administrators, or theologians. Some of these women are living and continue to serve the church in their retirement; some face declining health and its limitations. Others have died. I am grateful, blessed, and inspired by these faithful, vibrant, and gifted followers of Jesus.

I began to gather stories of women leaders, lay and credentialed, from the former Franconia and Eastern District Conferences who paved the way for women exercising the full range of ministry gifts in the church. Their stories need to be shared publicly as a witness of the Spirit’s movement. I read two books about women leaders that have provided additional inspiration: She Has Done a Good Thing: Mennonite Women Leaders Tell Their Stories, edited by Mary Swartley and Rhoda Keener (Herald Press, 1999) and Quiet Shouts: Stories of Lancaster Conference Women Leaders, edited by Louise Stoltzfus (Herald Press, 1999).

In my listening and reading, I discovered the women had some similar qualities. They were faithful followers of Jesus, and they had a love for the church and a desire to serve. They were responsive to the Spirit’s nudging. The women also had male leaders who recognized their gifts and encouraged and supported them.

As young women growing up in the church, they did not have a theology allowing women to be in primary leadership roles in congregations, conferences, denominations, or in institutions of the church, nor were they aspiring to assume any of these roles. Most of the women did not have female role models serving in these leadership roles. In college, they majored in education or nursing, which were considered acceptable professions for women.

In their journeys, the women began to feel unsettled in their current roles. They sensed a desire and call to serve the church in a role that had not been assumed by women. The nudging came from within and was often accompanied by encouragement and support from a male colleague. Most of the women experienced resistance in their ministry. People walked out of the room when they preached. They were silenced or not taken seriously when they spoke in a meeting. They were shamed or told they were not being obedient to scripture. Their attempts to offer pastoral care were rejected.

Changes in belief and understanding of scriptural teaching on women’s leadership roles in the church did not happen quickly. Disagreement in belief and practice continues in our congregations, conferences, and institutions. The 1995 Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, Article 15, states clearly the position of Mennonite Church USA and Mosaic Conference: The church calls, trains, and appoints gifted men and women to a variety of leadership ministries on its behalf. These may include such offices as pastor, deacon, and elders as well as evangelists, missionaries, teachers, conference ministers, and overseers. Even though this is the conference’s position, Mosaic allows congregations to discern the role of women in leadership in their context.

I am so grateful for women who courageously accepted roles they did not feel prepared for. I am also glad these women persevered when they faced resistance or animosity when accepting a leadership role, even as the church was disagreeing, arguing, and dividing. It is evident in all these stories that the Spirit was moving within the women who were doing a new thing. The Spirit was also moving in people in the church who responded to the transforming power of the Spirit through these courageous women.

Mary Nitzsche

Mary Nitzsche is a Leadership Minister for Mosaic Conference. She and her husband, Wayne, are Midwest natives. They have two adult daughters, Alison and Megan, son-in-laws, Michael and David, and one delightful grandson, William.

Seeking The Spirit, Discerning a Pathway

November 10, 2022 by Cindy Angela

by Jeff Wright

Annual conference assemblies are not often considered to be transformational events. For Mosaic Conference, annual Assemblies have been nothing but transformational.

In 2022, Mosaic Conference Assembly met together in person for the first time. Following the reconciliation of Eastern District Conference and Franconia Mennonite Conference in 2019 and two years of COVID-driven virtual meetings, the delegates met on November 5, 2022 at Souderton (PA) Mennonite Church for a day of discernment and decision-making. Delegates and friends gathered to seek the Spirit and explore the Assembly theme of Chesed—God’s constant, steadfast, and faithful love—from Psalm 116 and 117.

During three worship times, multiple delicious snacks, three business sessions, and one pleasant luncheon, Mosaic Conference worked hard at the continuing task of transformation from a system concerned mostly with organizational detail into a formational, missional, and intercultural community. The gathering was animated by life together in the Holy Spirit and fed through the encouragement of the scriptures, acts of praise and worship, and remembering Jesus in the celebration of Communion. Although there was contentiousness related to the denominational decision-making process and outcome from the Mennonite Church USA Special Delegate Assembly in Kansas City in May 2022, by the end of the day, for many, the uncertainty had given way to a cautious, even hopeful, optimism.

During the morning delegate session, Angela Moyer Walter, one of the pastors of Ripple congregation in Allentown, PA and Roy Williams, pastor of College Hill congregation in Tampa, FL, were affirmed as Mosaic’s next Moderator and Assistant Moderator, respectively, effective January 1, 2023.

The delegates also heard from and affirmed a new congregation, Iglesia Evangélica Menonita de Oración y Adoración, located in Philadelphia and a new Conference Related Ministry (CRM), Amahoro International, based in Los Angeles.

The major building block for this delegate Assembly was a listening process initiated by the Mosaic Board. During the month of September, approximately 80% of the Conference’s communities and ministries had opportunity to dialogue with one of a ten-person Listening Task Force. This Task Force collated and discussed the data and submitted nine findings to the Board for their further consideration.

The Board distilled those findings into a single, four-point “Pathway” document, presented to the delegates. The Pathway document called for an increase in prayer and fasting, along with a call to walk together and begin a two-year strategic planning process, allowing for clarifying priorities and relationships. The document also offered congregations the opportunity to suspend membership in Mennonite Church USA while remaining within Mosaic Conference. This last point would result in a change of the current Mosaic bylaws, if affirmed.

Vigorous conversation in table groups and reporting to the wider delegate body permeated the afternoon sessions. At the end, delegates had to offer one of three possible choices to move forward: affirm the Pathway document, affirm the Pathway document with reservations, or withhold affirmation of the Pathway document. Of the delegates who voted, 81.5% expressed a preference with or without reservations for the Pathway document.

No one is claiming the process that was followed, nor the Pathway document itself, proposed a perfect solution to the challenges of a community amid theological dissent and social change. But a pathway is necessary. It is the next effort to maintain and grow a strong Mosaic identity. We gathered yearning for consensus; we finished the day with a pathway forward.

Jeff Wright

Jeff Wright lives in Riverside, CA and Souderton, PA, and serves as Mosaic Leadership Minister for California and intentional Interim Lead Pastor at Blooming Glen (PA) Mennonite Church. After his treasured Los Angeles Dodgers were eliminated from the Major League Baseball Playoffs, he conceded that it would be OK if the Philadelphia Phillies went to the World Series.

10 Things to Know Before Assembly

November 3, 2022 by Cindy Angela

Take time to read the documents in your docket before Assembly. Print out a hard copy (if you want one) of the Assembly docket or bring an electronic device on which you can read a copy. We will not be supplying hard copies for everyone.

Enter Souderton Mennonite Church through the main carport entrance.

Registration will begin at 9:00 am and worship will begin at 9:30 am.

Bring your stones to Assembly! (For details, please read this.)

Lunch will be provided, as well as morning and late afternoon snacks. There is no childcare during lunch.

We will have a collection basket at lunch. Donations will go towards offsetting the travel costs for delegates from a distance (FL, CA, VT, etc.)

A prayer room will be available next to the sanctuary from 9:30 am-6:30 pm. The prayer room is available for anyone to pray or receive prayer.

Our Conference has members who speak many languages. Be prepared to greet others in a language other than yours. Here are a few simple greetings to learn:

Plan to spend some time (before worship, breaks, or at lunch) with the exhibitors in the foyer.

Masks are optional.

Chesed Love is the Air We Breathe

October 27, 2022 by Conference Office

by Emily Ralph Servant

This is God’s chesed love in action: providing just what we need, just when we need it.

I stand in my backyard and take a deep breath, filling my lungs with cool autumn air. “Thank you,” I whisper to the trees, the grass, the purple asters, and hot pink anemone.

This is God’s chesed love in action: providing just what we need, just when we need it.

In a complicated process that I really don’t understand, the earth’s plants and trees produce oxygen. We humans, along with the earth’s animal population, breathe that oxygen in and, in another complicated process that I really don’t understand, turn it into carbon dioxide, which we then breathe back out.

It turns out, the earth’s plants and trees need that carbon dioxide to make more oxygen. So, in essence, they breathe in our carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. We breathe in their oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. And on and on it goes.

In her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer calls this “reciprocity:” the idea that as we receive live-sustaining gifts from others, we also have a responsibility to care for them in return. Give and receive, balance and flourishing -together.

This is God’s chesed love in action: God created an interconnected world in which we need other creatures for our very existence – plants offer humans their unique gift, and we offer our unique gift in return. That’s life-giving, life-affirming love!

And I wonder whether this is a reminder for such a time as this in our Conference. God’s chesed love created humans. God’s chesed love birthed the Church. God’s chesed love filled it with people from all nations and tribes and tongues and gifts and ideas and worldviews. God’s chesed love created a world in which we need each other.

I need the oxygen that you breathe out. You need the carbon dioxide I breathe out. Without one another – our differences, our gifts, our challenges – we wouldn’t survive.

Without one another – our differences, our gifts, our challenges – we wouldn’t survive.

Sameness will kill us. But because of God’s constant, steadfast, and faithful love we have been offered the gift of reciprocity: the gift of living in balance with one another, keeping one another in check, providing for one another, flourishing together. Polarities, opposites, extremes that we may seem – we can find a rhythm of giving and receiving … of love.

Thanks be to God!

And thank you—for breathing out the oxygen I need to survive and thrive. I need you.

(Deep breath.)

Emily Ralph Servant

Emily Ralph Servant is the Leadership Minister for Formation and Communication for Mosaic Mennonite Conference. Emily has served in pastoral roles at Swamp and Indonesian Light congregations and graduated from Eastern Mennonite Seminary.

Enlarging Our Capacity

October 27, 2022 by Conference Office

Ampliando Nuestra Capacidad – Memperbesar Kapasitas Kita

Adapted from the writings of Josefina Rodriguez

The Mosaic Women’s Gathering took place on October 8. It was a special day for the women to feel close to the Lord, to study the Word, and to experience God’s love. When we arrived at Souderton Mennonite Church from Centro de Alabanza (Philadelphia, PA), we were received with love by our sisters in Christ from twenty-one other congregations.

As the room began to fill and our day started, we prayed and thanked God for the privilege of being together. We recognized the women who had planned the event, and we all got to know each other through a fun icebreaker activity that brought laughter and unity.

Music was shared by video from Mission Tijuana in Mexico in Spanish, and we sang a song in Indonesian and in English, led by Marina Setyati and Lisa Quiñones. Singing in different languages helped us realize that the language we sang in was not important since we sing praise to the Lord. The foundational Bible verses of the day (Isaiah 54:2-4) were read in three languages, and Ramona Pickett gave a message.

We were invited to believe the Word and guard it in our hearts. This creates space for the Holy Spirit to remove obstacles so that our capacity can be enlarged. The words that stayed in my heart were that God is our rock. God will fight for our destiny, and we as women of faith need to open our hearts. Sister Ramona danced for the Lord with flags and cloths as she shared her feelings on how wonderful God is. Two young women also shared their gifts of art and music.

After lunch, we created travel bags to take with us on our journeys. We filled the bags with anointing oil, happy face stickers, Scripture, prayer cards, compasses, buttons, and more. It was a reminder that God has equipped us to do good works. God has stretched us, and now God is sending us perhaps to new unknown and uncomfortable territory. We remember that God has promised to always be with us, until the end of time.

We ended the day with a closing ceremony. We stood in a circle with ribbons and cords symbolizing the enlargement of our capacities and our unity. As sisters, we prayed for our Conference, and we prayed for each other. We ended with our theme song, which spoke of how God has done a good work in us. We left until next year. May God continue to work in us to grow the Kingdom of God.

Josefina Rodriguez

Josefina Rodriguez is a Women’s Ministry Leader at Centro de Alabanza, a Mosaic congregation in Philadelphia.