Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

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Perk Up in Prayer

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by Paula Marolewski

If you google, “why prayer meetings are dying,” you will find plenty of reasons: lack of variety, lack of leadership, lack of participation, lack of enthusiasm, and more. Prayer meetings can become “same old, same old” and die the death of attrition. Yet prayer is our personal and corporate connection to our sovereign God. Prayer meetings should be a wellspring of life within each local church. 

Perk Up in Prayer, the weekly prayer meeting at Perkiomenville (PA) Mennonite Church, is full of energy and excitement. Several factors have contributed to the vibrance of this prayer meeting. Perhaps other congregations will find some of these practices helpful in their own prayer meetings. 

Kingdom Focus 

Perk Up in Prayer springs from and aligns with the kingdom-focused vision, mission, and goals of the prayer ministry at Perk.  Perkiomen Mennonite desires to be a congregation  

where vibrant prayer drives the kingdom of God forward in our lives, our church, our community, and our world.  The prayer ministry’s mission is to provide opportunities for teaching and mentoring in prayer to help people know God better and love God more.    

Perk Up in Prayer allows people to be involved regularly in at least one opportunity for corporate prayer and helps them to learn to be comfortable with praying together.  It also expands people’s concepts of prayer to embrace a kingdom mindset. 

Varied Approach 

Each Perk Up in Prayer meeting is unique because we vary the topical focus, the methods of prayer, and the specific components for each evening. The combinations offer an infinite number of possibilities for prayer meetings. 

In general, we have found that the energy and engagement level of the meeting is best maintained by structuring the evening in 10–15 minute blocks of time. For example, we might start with 10 minutes of worship, and then spend 15 minutes sharing and praying about the needs of the church.  We may turn to sharing about an attribute of God for 15 minutes and then move to 10 minutes of silent reflection and prayer about that attribute. We conclude with 10 minutes of corporate prayer focused on that attribute. 

Diverse Leadership and Spiritual Sensitivity 

Having a team of people who are willing to lead meetings provides both diversity and sustainability to Perk Up in Prayer.  

A principle for leaders to always keep in mind is to go with the flow of the Spirit. Leaders plan and prepare as good stewards, but they should remain sensitive to the leading of the Spirit. Leaders need to be willing to make changes on the fly to respond to the need and insight of the moment.  

For example, if a person comes with deep pain, it is important to take time then and there to pray for that person. Or, if a group discussion reveals that a certain burden is on everyone’s heart, scrap the plan for the evening and pray for that burden.  Being sensitive to the movement of the Spirit is essential to any prayer meeting. 

How are prayer meetings helpful? 

One Perk Up in Prayer participant finds the prayer meetings corporately enriching. “As we gather weekly for prayer time, we’re learning more about humbling ourselves before God and each other, praying with expectation, seeking the face of God, and repenting of sin,” says Dennis Detweiler.  Others are grateful for increased personal and spiritual strength.  

For Sarah McCarthy, the meetings are “refreshing and help me get through the week with a thankful heart.”  We encourage churches to find creative ways to enliven and deepen their prayer life. 

Paula Marolewski

Paula Marolewski leads the prayer ministry at Perkiomenville (PA) Mennonite Church. She writes faith-centered blogs, Bible studies, and fiction, all of which are available at www.prismaticjoy.com.

Pathway Steering Committee Nominations Now Open

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At the November Assembly, Mosaic Conference delegates affirmed the Pathway process for strategic planning.  The Board intends to name a Pathway Steering Committee to begin to work with a consulting team in February 2023.   

This steering committee will serve the Conference broadly for the next two years (2023-24) through prayer, listening, collaborating, and creatively imagining our next steps of life together.  The Pathway Steering Committee will include up to 12 people, comprised of broad representation from across the Mosaic community including staff, board, pastors, and congregational members. 

Effective candidates will be committed to Mosaic’s Mission & Vision and come with a level of openness to discern and listen together with others across our 8,000 bicoastal member community. Steering committee members should expect monthly meetings on Zoom and/or in- person. As outlined in the Pathway document, this process will be highly relational and rooted in our commitments to prayer and fasting together.  

To nominate someone for this role, please email Mary Nitzsche, Mosaic Leadership Minister, and include the name of the nominee, their email address, phone number, and Mosaic affiliation (congregation, CRM, etc.) Nominations will be received through Friday, January 13, 2023.

Giving and Receiving Counsel Update

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At its November meeting, the Mosaic Board affirmed the recommended actions regarding a Giving and Receiving Counsel process with Beth Yoder. In April, Yoder officiated a same-sex wedding.  

The discernment process, as outlined in the Giving and Receiving Counsel document, included a conversation with a review team comprised of members of both the Ministerial Committee and Credentials Committee. Yoder was not employed as a pastor in a Mosaic Conference congregation at the time of the officiating, though remains a member of Salford (Harleysville, PA) Mennonite Church where she was most recently part of the pastoral team.

The following recommendation came from the review team which was then affirmed by the Ministerial Committee and forwarded for final processing to the Mosaic Board: 

We find Beth Yoder’s actions in officiating a same-sex wedding to be at variance with the policy and teaching positions of Mosaic Conference, specifically with Statement Three of the Church Together Statement Grace and Truth, which states that pastors credentialed in the Conference may not perform same-sex covenant ceremonies. We reaffirm that the Grace and Truth statement is the policy and teaching position of Mosaic Mennonite Conference. In accordance with the Giving and Receiving Counsel document, each incident is to be handled on a case-by-case basis. We recommend that Rev. Beth Yoder’s ministerial credentials with Mosaic Conference be placed on probation for a period of two years. Probation is defined by A Mennonite Polity for Ministerial Leadership as “the credential held by those…who are placed under close supervision for a specified period of time in order to determine whether the credential will be continued.” 

Review team members included: Sherri Binder (Ripple), Tami Good (Souderton), Josh Meyer (Franconia), Michael Howes (West Swamp), and Aldo Siahaan (Philadelphia Praise Center). 

Moderators Share Letter with MC USA Executive Board

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In response to a recommendation of the Listening Task Force, Mosaic moderator Ken Burkholder (Souderton [PA] congregation), incoming moderator Angela Moyer Walter (Ripple congregation [Allentown, PA]), and incoming assistant moderator Roy Williams (College Hill congregation [Tampa, FL]) sent a letter to the Executive Board of Mennonite Church USA (MC USA).  The letter was initially shared with Jon Carlson, the assistant moderator of the MC USA Executive Board, and Michelle Dula, a member of the MC USA board, at an in-person meeting on November 15.   

The letter shared words of affirmation and gratitude for gifts Mosaic Conference has received from participation in Mennonite Church USA.  It also described some of the challenges the conference has experienced in the rapid growth of recent years and identified areas where the conference could work on improving its relationships with the wider church community. 

The letter expressed the unease that has increased in Mosaic Conference in response to the Mennonite Church USA special delegate session in Kansas City in May, including discomfort with both the process and content of the Resolution for Repentance and Transformation. It shared the decision of Mosaic delegates to engage in a two-year discernment process and articulated some of the reasons that members of the conference desire to reconsider affiliation with the denomination. 

Finally, the letter committed to staying in relationship with the staff, board, and other members of Mennonite Church USA during the discernment process and requested that the Executive Board and staff also walk alongside the conference until a decision has been made. 

Read the full letter here. 

After receiving the letter, Carlson and Dula then distributed it to the rest of the MC USA Executive Board.  In response, the Executive Board invited Burkholder, Moyer Walter, and Williams to attend their January meeting for further conversation. 

Meet Turan Rush, Mosaic’s Newest Staff Member

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By Eileen Kinch 

Turan D. Rush, Mosaic’s newest staff member, is a Leadership Development Associate with passion and energy. He is also the Chief Operations Officer (COO) at the Midian Leadership Project (a Mosaic Conference Related Ministry) in Charleston, WV. Rush grew up in Charleston and graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 2021. Rush is employed for his Mosaic work a half of day per week, which is funded through Mosaic Conference, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), and the Midian Leadership Project.   

Midian Co-founder Turan De’Angelo Rush speaks at a community non-violence event following the shooting of a local high schooler. Photo provided by Midian Project.

Rush returned to his hometown after college because he wants to see positive change in his community, especially in the schools. “I want to master the concept of restorative justice,” Rush said and looks forward to learning from the Mosaic community as well as giving to it. 

Restorative justice is based on relationships. If students throw food in the cafeteria, the usual course of action is detention because the students broke the rules. With restorative justice, however, students work at repairing the relationships that were harmed because of their actions. If the students were assigned to janitorial duty, they would need to work with the janitors and learn how throwing food affected them. 

For restorative justice to work, students need relationships with teachers and staff. Rush pointed to time in his own life when a teacher inspired him to succeed. He was a self-described goofy, immature high schooler, but his English teacher, Miss Garrison, believed in him. “You’re a leader,” she told him.   

Miss Garrison emailed Rush over the summer before his junior year of high school and explained that she was putting him on student council. “I had to hold myself to a higher standard. I had to push myself to be a better person,” said Rush.  Miss Garrison could have labeled him as a troublemaker, but instead she put him in a leadership role. 

Rush wants to bless others in the way he has been blessed. In addition to his duties at the Midian Leadership Project, which include hiring staff and running meetings, he is also a teacher in a virtual homeschool. A local middle school student couldn’t focus in typical a classroom setting and got kicked out of public school. Rush went to the school and asked if he could teach the student.  

Rush wants to start his own high school someday, and he sees his teaching role as an opportunity to test possible ways to run the future school. He dreams of an all-male Christian high school to help build up young men to be leaders and better fathers. The school would incorporate restorative justice with its disciplinary structure. 

Rush is also interested in trauma healing through sports. As a football player at Eastern Michigan University, he understands firsthand how physical movement and team accountability can relieve stress and trauma. “When you play sports, you forget about all the negative things and trauma in your life…. It releases some type of positive energy where you can just be you.” Rush is eager to do more research to understand the connections between sports and trauma healing. Meanwhile, the Midian Leadership Project has already placed 15 trauma-trained coaches in schools and local community sports teams. 

Photo of Turan Rush from Midian Leadership Project’s Website.

“Youth are the people who are going to change the world,” Rush explained. The Midian Leadership Project’s goal is to make sure the youth have what they need so that they can. To know that God is working through him is exciting.  

“Every time I wake up and am blessed with another day, I have an opportunity to help,” Rush said. “I just [want] to serve and help the community and the world as much as I possibly can.”

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.

Mosaic Board Begins Pathway Process

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At their November 21 meeting, the Mosaic Conference Board developed the next steps in moving on the Pathway that was affirmed at our fall Assembly.  While not the only agenda item for this meeting, the Board discerned the following actions to keep pace with the two-year maximum timeline for strategic planning and affiliation clarification for Mosaic Conference: 

  • The Board affirmed the staff to begin leading our time of prayer and fasting.  Noel Santiago, Leadership Minister for Missional Transformation, will serve as the primary staff person for this process, which will run alongside and integrally with the strategic planning in the coming months.  Noel will begin to introduce a process of praying Scriptures developed in collaboration with other staff and leaders from Faith Chapel (Los Angeles, CA), including Pastor Grace Pam and George and Mukarabbe Makinto.  These prayers will begin our process of praying the text as we listen to the Spirit together. To learn more about praying scriptures, please watch this short video.

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Download the Praying Scriptures

The Board also laid out plans for the strategic planning process itself.  A request for proposals will be developed and shared with numerous consulting options who fit Mosaic’s specific needs of experience with faith-based communities, strategic planning, and intercultural capacity. The Board hopes to name this group at its next meeting in January 2023.   

  • In January, the Mosaic Board will receive nominations from across Mosaic membership to serve on a Steering Team.  The Steering Team (6-12 persons) will be a mix of Board, staff, and Conference members who bring a strong commitment to Mosaic’s missional, formational, and intercultural priorities and our shared vision to embody the reconciling love of Jesus in our broken and beautiful world. 

Here are some important actions for Mosaic delegates and leaders to do now, as we journey on this Pathway together: 

  • Continue to watch, pray, and fast as we seek God’s direction for us together.   
  • Initiate groups to pray with you in your community or individually, as guided by the praying the Scriptures model. (Watch this video now and watch for more information coming in Mosaic News.)
  • Prayerfully discern persons you might nominate for the Steering Team in January. 

This Advent, I’ll Take a Look Across the Street

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By Hendy Matahelemual

Growing up in a Christian family in Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country, I didn’t often see Christmas decorations. But we always knew where we could find a Christmas display. It was at a car dealership in a corner of the city. The owner must have been Christian.    

Every year at the end of November, my family and I were excited to find out what kind of Christmas exhibit the owner would put up: Santa and his sleigh, a snowman, a nativity scene. Each year was different.  

He also put up colorful lights, so at night it was wonderful to see — sacred and secular Christmas decorations, including symbols of cold weather and snow, in a tropical climate.  

As the years passed, the car dealership moved and there were no more Christmas exhibits on that corner. But the colorful lights and snowmen will stand forever in my Christmas childhood memories.    

Not quite satisfied with a mental picture from memory, I opened up Google Maps to see what that corner of Bandung looks like right now. As I scrolled the surroundings, something came up. I realized that right across the street stands one of the city’s Great Mosques.   

As a child, I never noticed the mosque. It did not matter to me. But now it does.  

As followers of Jesus, we need to change our attitude toward people with different beliefs.   

In his ministry, Jesus interacted with people of diverse backgrounds: Romans who believed in multiple gods, Canaanites who worshiped Baal, Samaritans who worshiped Yahweh at Mount Gerizim rather than at the Temple in Jerusalem.    

Jesus didn’t try to convince people to join his religion. He healed the sick, delivered the demonically oppressed, told people to tell others what God had done for them, praised people for their faith, and announced they would feast in heaven with the prophets.   

Jesus simply loved them, praised the good in them and answered the questions they were asking — sometimes by pointing them toward finding the answers for themselves.   

Mesach Krisetya, an Indonesian Mennonite leader who died earlier this year, said Christian missionaries in Indonesia often posed a conquering strategy. It is common for Christians to feel threatened by Islam and for Muslims to feel offended by former colonial powers, politics, and cultural arrogance. Krisetya urged pluralist sensitivity, aware that neither Muslims nor Christians lose identity through a careful exchange.   

Recently we invited a Jewish rabbi to speak at our Mosaic staff meeting. Her congregation is just two blocks around the corner from my congregation in South Philadelphia.    

We invited her to share her knowledge of chesed, a Hebrew word meaning God’s steadfast love, in light of our fall Assembly. As she explained the love of God and the practice of chesed, I was amazed by her insights on the Old Testament. She invited us to their Shabbat dinner, which I’m very interested to experience.    

During Advent this year, I will try to be aware of my surroundings. I will try to find God in other people and in every corner of my life. I will try to love even when it hurts. I will try to extend grace to everyone, regardless of their actions, beliefs, status, politics or nationality.   

“Praise the Lord, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples! For great is his steadfast love (chesed) toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord! (Psalm 117).  

I believe one thing unites us as humans: God’s constant, steadfast, faithful love.   

Let us show the world that we are Jesus’ followers, not by how many Christmas decorations we put up, but by how much we love strangers as well as friends.  

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in Anabaptist World on Nov. 18 and is used here by permission. To read the original article, please click here.  

Hendy Matahelemual

Hendy Matahelemual is the Associate Minister for Community Engagement for Mosaic Conference. Hendy Matahelemual was born and grew up in the city of Bandung, Indonesia. Hendy lives in Philadelphia with his wife Marina and their three boys, Judah, Levi and Asher.

Yet Even Now

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By Noel Santiago 

As Mosaic Conference, we have affirmed what has become known as the Pathway Document. The first action step listed in this document states: “We believe that we are called by God in this time: To share in the practice of continued prayer and fasting so that we may discern, yield, and listen to the Spirit among us.” 

In John 11, two sisters are concerned about their brother Lazarus. He’s not doing well and could die. They send word to their close, personal friend Jesus, asking him to come. Their hope is that he would heal him, and all would be well. 

As we know, Lazarus dies, and the sisters are in deep mourning and distress. All seems lost. What do they make of this close friend who could have done something about it but didn’t? 

Jesus finally arrives. He is informed of how things could have been different had he arrived sooner, but it’s too late. Lazarus has been dead now four days.  

However, in John 11:22, even though her brother is dead, Martha knows something: “Yet even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You” (HCSB). 

 Yet even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You.

John 11:22 (HCSB)

Three little words make a huge difference: “Yet even now.” 

As Mosaic Conference, we have affirmed the Pathway Document which calls us to prayer and fasting. Might these three little words, “yet even now,” still hold possibilities for us? 

  • Yet even now, though we are unsure of what the future holds. 
  • Yet even now, when we wonder how things will work out? 
  • Yet even now, when we ask what the relationship will be between Mosaic and Mennonite Church USA? 
  • Yet even now, when we wonder will Mosaic thrive, survive, or struggle? 

Yet even now … what is it that Jesus knows? 

The beauty we find in the midst of a painful situation is that Jesus was getting ready to show a new side of himself no one had seen before, the side of being the resurrection and the life. 

Could “yet even now” lead to newness of life, to renewed energy, commitment, and lasting life? As we pray, fast, and yield to Holy Spirit, may we experience God’s renewing life!

The beauty we find in the midst of a painful situation is that Jesus was getting ready to show a new side of himself no one had seen before, the side of being the resurrection and the life. 

Noel Santiago

Noel Santiago is the Leadership Minister for Missional Transformation for Mosaic Conference.