Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Articles

Building Jesus-Shaped Community in Bristol, PA

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by Gary Alloway

Editor’s Note: Redemption Church of Bristol was approved by Mosaic Conference’s board as a member congregation and will be welcomed at Mosaic’s 2025 Fall Delegate Assembly. 

Redemption Church of Bristol (PA) was founded in 2009 with a mission to breathe new life into Bristol Borough. Bristol is a historic riverfront community with a history beginning in 1681. By 2009, Bristol had emptied out, with chronic poverty issues and a main street that was 50% vacant.  Redemption was founded not only to create a new church community, but also to be the presence of Christ in the neighborhood and help all of Bristol to flourish again. 

Easter brunch with the Redemption crew. Photo by Susan Alloway.

 
After 16 years, God has done amazing things in Bristol! We have been able to help start a coffee shop and a street festival. We have rebuilt houses and helped church communities come back to life. We have walked with neighbors through trials and celebrated over Little League victories.  

We call ourselves a community of sinners and skeptics and have always tried to make spaces for those on the margins, both economically and spiritually. We have created everything from a tea shop philosophy group (PhilosTea) to a bakery bible study (Donuts & Devotions). Our goal is to build a Jesus-shaped community, where all people can rest and grow in the love of God. 

Easter Sunrise Service on the Delaware River in Bristol. Photo by Gary Alloway.
Fred and Augie share in communion together. Photo by Gary Alloway.

Redemption began moving towards Mosaic in 2021. While we had always had relational connections to other churches, during the pandemic, we began to long for something more formal to belong to. We have always structured ourselves as an Anabaptist community, but during those tumultuous years, the historic foundations of the Mennonite church seemed all the more valuable.   

We also wanted to have relationships with churches and leaders that were different from us. We have learned so much from both the historic congregations of Mosaic and the younger immigrant communities. We appreciate the history, vibrancy, and relational depth of Mosaic Conference. We have loved having a community that is bigger than ourselves.

Scotty leads our Ash Wednesday service at Naked Brewery. Photo by Gary Alloway.
Planting new trees at our meeting space in Bristol. Photo by Gary Alloway.

We covet your prayers as we formally enter into the Conference as a member. Redemption has never been a community that is afraid of risk-taking or missional adventures, and we hope we can share the fruits of these endeavors with the larger Mosaic community.   

We also pray for stability and long-term growth that can help Redemption be grounded for the future. And we hope these two goals never crush each other. What does it mean to follow the Spirit out in new ways, but also build something that can last? We would love your prayers in this tension.  

We long to always uphold the core Anabaptist value of keeping Jesus at the center of all things. We aim to be the aroma of Christ, or as we like to say, “We aim to stink like Jesus together!”  Please pray that we can keep Jesus at the center of all that we do. And pray we can live out our mission to build a Jesus-shaped community, where all people can rest and grow in the love of God. 

Gary Alloway

Gary Alloway is a pastor and church planter of Redemption Church of Bristol (PA), and also serves as a Leadership Minister with Mosaic Conference.

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To share your thoughts or send a message to the author(s), contact us at communication@mosaicmennonites.org.   

Delegate Affirmation Votes for Board and Committee Chairs November 2025

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At the Fall 2025 Mosaic Mennonite Conference Delegate Assembly, delegates will be invited to affirm several Board members and Committee Chairs for three-year terms. Get to know each of these leaders and their roles below.  

The Conference Board supervises the business of the conference, provides leadership to conference committees, and engages in strategic planning to ensure that the conference stays aligned with its vision and responds to the Spirit’s leading into areas of growth and change.  

The Nominating Committee ensures that those who fill these roles reflect the gender, racial, cultural, geographic, and historic diversity of the Conference, while also embodying a high level of intercultural competency and diverse giftings.

ROY WILLIAMS

College Hill Mennonite (Tampa, FL)

Role: Conference Moderator, beginning Jan. 2026

Since 1985, Roy Williams has served as Pastor of College Hill Mennonite. Williams has served the church in various roles during his career, including Moderator of Mennonite Church USA, Constituency Leadership Council Chair, Vice Chair of Mennonite Education Agency, Moderator of Southeast Mennonite Conference, the Board of Mennonite Publishing, and Urban Ministry Director for Mennonite Mission Network. He has been an evangelist, serving several denominations and independent churches since he was licensed for ministry at age 16 by the Wesleyan Church of Jamaica. Williams has worked as a Senior Vice President of real estate and commercial lending and a Chief Internal Auditor. Roy and his wife, Ruth Leair-Williams, have two children, Sherilee J. Samuel and Rian C. Williams, and four grandchildren. In his free time, Roy enjoys gardening, fishing, and building things.

JANET PANNING

Plains Mennonite (Hatfield, PA)

Role: Assistant Moderator, beginning Jan. 2026

Raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Janet Panning became a Christian at 14 through a Young Life Club. After graduating from Michigan State University, Panning was introduced to Mennonites through the Inter-Menno Program, spending a year in the Netherlands. Janet and her husband Steve spent much of the next 17 years working with MCC in Jamaica and Kentucky and raising two daughters, Megan and Molly. Since 1987, the Pannings have been part of Plains, becoming members in 2004. She has been a member of the Ministerial Committee for many years, with Franconia and Mosaic Conference, and has served as Chair of the committee since 2019. Panning retired in 2024 from the Montgomery County (PA) Office of Public Health and spent 18 years working in refugee resettlement.   

JIM MUSSELMAN

Zion Mennonite (Souderton, PA)

Role: Board Secretary (3rd term)

Jim Musselman was raised in Souderton, PA and worked for Musselman Builders, Inc. from 1979 until his retirement. He served as Moderator of Eastern District Conference from 2016-2019. His wife, Barbara, is a retired Registered Nurse and a certified holistic nurse who worked for 42 years at Abington Hospital in Lansdale, PA. Together they have a son, Matt, a daughter, Kate, and two grandsons, Liam and Gray. Musselman volunteers with Zion’s Table of Plenty and Bean Bag Project, as well as the Conference-Related Ministry Mennonite Heritage Center (Harleysville, PA). He enjoys genealogy, history, traveling, and camping with Barbara in their teardrop camper. 

LUCY HANANTO PARSONO

International Worship Center (San Gabriel, CA)

Role: Member-at-Large (2nd term)

Lucy Hananto Parsono is an elder at International Worship Center. She and her husband Alfred live in Hacienda Heights, CA. They have a daughter and three grandchildren who also live in Southern California. Hananto Parsono was born on the island of Sumatra but grew up in Tangerang, Indonesia near Jakarta. Her parents converted to Christianity from Buddhism, and she grew up in the church. She runs an import/export business with trade between the US and Indonesia. She moved to California in the 1980s. She felt encouraged to say yes to joining the Conference Board by family and mentors who said, “this kind of work is your life.” She loves to serve the church, and the board is a way to serve and learn within Mosaic. She receives strong affirmation for her role from Leadership Ministers Aldo Siahaan and Jeff Wright and her brother, Buddy Hananto, pastor at IWC. 

JENNY FUJITA

Blooming Glen (PA) Mennonite

Role: Member-at-Large (1st term)

Jenny Fujita is a credentialed itinerant preacher and former pastor with Mosaic Conference. She holds a master’s in theology with a focus in Anabaptist studies from Northern Seminary and a Certificate in Theology and Ministry from Princeton Theological Seminary. She is a partner with Fujita & Miura Public Relations, Inc., a Hawaii-based strategic communications consulting firm. She is also the Vice President of Friends of Jesus Collective, a relational network of Anabaptist leaders and churches worldwide. She grew up in Bucks County, PA and Puerto Rico and now lives in Coopersburg, PA.   

HAROLDO NUNES  

Resplandece Mennonite (Pembroke Pines, FL, Colombia, and hybrid)

Role: Member-at-Large (1st term)

(Former Chair of the Conference-Related Ministries Committee) 

Haroldo Nunes is an ordained pastor within Mosaic Conference in leadership within Resplandece Mennonite. He graduated from Universidade Federal do Pará in Brazil, from seminary classes at Mennonite Education Agency, and now is in post-graduate studies at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. He is married to Esmirna, who is originally from Bolivia. They have three young adult children. Nunes spent 17 years in Wayne County, Ohio, leading Salem Mennonite in Wooster for 13 years, and as executive director of Open Arms Hispanic Ministries for 17 years. He worked with immigrants from Latin America, accompanying and helping them with material and spiritual needs. The Nunes family moved to Florida in 2023 and currently lives in Sarasota county. 

LINDY BACKUES  

Philadelphia (PA) Praise Center

Role: Conference-Related Ministry Committee Chair (1st term) 

Lindy Backues, PhD, is Associate Professor of Business and Leadership at Eastern Mennonite University. Previously he served for 13 years as Associate Professor of Economic Development at Eastern University and for 18 years in Indonesia as an economic/community development theorist and practitioner. He speaks the Indonesian language fluently. Backues has written extensively in the fields of theology, anthropology, and grassroots development. He is Chair of the Advisory Board for the Christian-Muslim Relations Team (CMRT) of Eastern Mennonite Missions and serves on the editorial board for the anthropological journal “On Knowing Humanity.” He is also an ordained minister of Mosaic Conference.  

MICHAEL HOWES

West Swamp Mennonite (Quakertown, PA)

Role: Ministerial Committee Chair (1st term)

Michael Howes grew up in the bayou country of southern Louisiana and studied religion at Baylor University before earning his Master of Divinity in Fort Worth, Texas.   

Since 1991, Michael has been serving as a pastor in a variety of settings—rural, urban, and suburban—across Texas, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, and since 2019 at West Swamp. Michael is happily married to Rev. Sue Conrad Howes, who works as a mental health chaplain. Michael has two wonderful young adult children, Michael and Emily. 

EMMANUEL MWAIPOPO

Nueva Vida Norristown (PA) New Life Mennonite

Role: Intercultural Committee Chair (1st term)

(Currently completing a vacated term as Chair) 

Emmanuel Mwaipopo was born in Tanzania. Although his mother was a Mennonite, he was raised in his father’s Roman Catholic tradition. He moved to the US in his 20s to attend Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, where he studied computer information systems. A professor at Temple introduced Mwaipopo to a local Mennonite church in Philadelphia. Later he moved to Norristown, PA where he became involved with Nueva Vida Norristown New Life Mennonite, where he now serves as an elder. Emmanuel is a software engineer and works for Comcast. He and his wife care for four children. In his free time, he plays ultimate frisbee. 

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To share your thoughts or send a message to the author(s), contact us at communication@mosaicmennonites.org.   

Embracing the Center to Grow Together Amid Difference

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by Danilo Sanchez

On September 15, the Mosaic Mennonite Conference Board affirmed the Centering Document—a foundational framework that helps to clarify our identity and reinforces a centered-set posture as a conference. The Centering Document will serve as a guiding framework for how Mosaic Conference engages within its own diverse community and in its relationships with other Anabaptist bodies.  

The centered-set model is a new concept for many of our congregations within Mosaic, yet it offers a helpful way to navigate the cultural, theological, and geographic differences that shape our conference.  

We come into Mosaic with different understandings of power, authority roles, relationships and tasks, time, biblical interpretation, and sexual identities. Rather than seeing these differences as threats or problems to be solved, we choose to embrace that diversity.  

As the document states, “Mosaic sees diversity as a gift from God and believes that learning from one another will transform the community into the image of Jesus, becoming a witness of God’s love to the world.”  

The Centering Document propels us into a life of mutual transformation across the conference. Through our relationships with one another, the Spirit may use our differences to strengthen the body of Christ.  

Interculturally, this means examining our own values and assumptions with humility and openness to change. We want all to be welcome, so we may change our structures and systems, change our communication, or learn new ways of relating to one another that honor the different cultures present in Mosaic.  

Theologically, it means holding in tension views we may not fully agree with—sometimes even views we find challenging or offensive.  

We want all to be welcome, so we may focus more on the three Anabaptist essentials for what holds us together, do less theological gatekeeping, or not punish churches who choose to love their queer members as they follow the Spirit’s leading.  

Like Peter and Cornelius, our journeys of transformation may be both holy and unsettling. We recognize that as God’s people we interpret scripture differently and we don’t always agree. Like the early disciples, we come with different experiences, perspectives, and convictions. Yet we are all called by Jesus to come and follow him.  

The Centering Document makes it clear that we are shifting our posture as a community. Rather than focus on determining who is in and who is out, we are concerned about a community who is radically committed to following Jesus and seeking the movement of the Holy Spirit.  

Danilo Sanchez

Danilo Sanchez is the Leadership Minister for Intercultural Transformation for Mosaic Conference. Danilo Sanchez lives in Allentown with his wife Mary and two daughters. He is a pastor at Ripple and leads in the areas of leadership development, discipleship, and teaching.

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To contact Danilo Sanchez, please email dsanchez@mosaicmennonites.org.

You’re Invited: “Witness Together” – An Equipping Event at Mosaic Assembly Weekend

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This year during Mosaic Conference’s Fall Assembly Weekend, we’re excited to offer “Witness Together,” an evening of worship, equipping on Mosaic’s priorities of formational, missional, and intercultural transformation, and deepening intercultural relationships.  

Join us on Friday, Oct. 31 from 4-8pm at Zion Mennonite (Souderton, PA).  

Hosted by the Priority Leadership Ministers, this event builds on meaningful gatherings from past years and looks ahead to what God is doing in and through Mosaic. Even if you do not attend the Assembly on Saturday, you are welcome on Friday evening.  

In previous years, leaders of color gathered on the Friday before Assembly for Renewing Nations and Generations, which has now grown into Oasis, a retreat that is part of Vibrant Mosaic through a grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc.  

Past assemblies with Franconia Conference and Eastern District included equipping seminars, and in 2024, Mosaic hosted a brunch for leaders of Conference-Related Ministries, featuring dialogue with Assembly speaker Dr. Dennis Edwards. These past events sparked a desire to expand and deepen our opportunities to grow together during Assembly weekend.  

This year, “Witness Together” is open to anyone connected with a Mosaic congregation, Conference-Related Ministry, or partner in ministry. Whether you are a pastor, lay leader, volunteer, or someone curious about what God is doing through Mosaic, this is a chance to grow, be inspired, and strengthen your sense of belonging in God’s mission. 

Participants will gather for a time of worship, storytelling, and learning together alongside the 2025 Assembly preacher, Meghan Larissa Good. The first 50 participants to stop by the table will receive a copy of Good’s latest book: Divine Gravity: Sparking a Movement to Recover a Better Christian Story. 
 
Fellowship around the dinner table will increase connections across the Mosaic community. Through workshops on formation, mission, and intercultural transformation, participants will be encouraged and equipped for witness in their everyday lives and congregations.  

Learn more and register here: https://mosaicmennonites.org/assembly/equipping/ 

Workshop Topics: 

Formational: The Spirit’s Voice and the Mission of God 
Speaker: Meghan Larissa Good 
Discover how the Spirit empowers and directs our witness, with practical ways to listen and respond. 

Intercultural: Restorative Peace Circles 
Speaker: Maati Yvonne (Mosaic Executive Committee Member) 
Learn how peace circles can build empathy, resolve conflict, and strengthen church communities. 

Missional: God’s People Are Sent (Panel Discussion) 
Panelists: Ken Rush (Liberty Ministries), Paulus & Sumatha (PPMI), Bernie & Katie Chung (San Francisco Chinese Mennonite), Gary Alloway (Redemption Church of Bristol) 
Moderator: Noel Santiago 
Explore what it means to live missionally across diverse Mosaic contexts. 

The event will also introduce a new resource for your congregation: Mosaic’s Priorities Guide—a Bible study designed to help congregations engage more deeply with our shared identity and calling. A print copy of one of these is available for each Mosaic congregation.  

This equipping event will be capped at 100 registrants.

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To share your thoughts or send a message to the author(s), contact us at communication@mosaicmennonites.org.   

Come Write a New Song

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by Emily Ralph Servant

One of the most meaningful experiences I’ve had in recent years was participating in an Anabaptist songwriting retreat in 2023. I used to write worship music regularly when I was in my twenties, but ministry, life, and family had taken over and I had begun to wonder if that part of my creative expression had been only for a season. 

Reconnecting with the gift of songwriting brought a long-lost part of me back to life. In the process, I began collaborating with friends, both old and new, and discovered the joy of songwriting with others. Iron truly sharpens iron as friends take something you’ve created and make it infinitely better. 

On Saturday October 4, Mosaic Partner-in-Ministry Neffsville (Lancaster, PA) Mennonite is co-sponsoring a one-day songwriting retreat in Lancaster. Anyone is welcome, whether you’re an experienced songwriter, trying it for the first time, or returning songwriting after a decades-long dry spell. There will be opportunities for solo writing, collaboration, and sharing your music with other Anabaptist songwriters.

For more information to register please complete this form. 

As we await what the future holds for our conference, I truly believe that God’s Spirit is putting a new song in our mouths–a hymn of praise that tells the story of God’s surprising work among us (Psalm 40:3). May you hear the melody and have courage to sing it. 

In 2023, Ralph Servant collaborated with Makinto (LA [CA] Faith Chapel) to co-write a song that was shared first at the Mosaic Conference 2023 Fall Delegate Assembly. Here them reflect on the process of writing that song together:  

Emily Ralph Servant

Emily Ralph Servant is the Leadership Minister for Strategic Priorities for Mosaic Mennonite Conference.

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To contact Emily Ralph Servant, please email eralphservant@mosaicmennonites.org.

Celebrating 500 Years of Anabaptist Worship at Ripple Church

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By Charlene Smalls 

Ripple Church (Allentown, PA) in partnership with Whitehall (PA) Mennonite and the Mennonite Heritage Center (Harleysville, PA), invites you to a 500-Year Anabaptist Celebration Experience! 

Gather with us at 4 p.m. on Sunday, September 28, for a special event commemorating five centuries of Anabaptist history. This celebration will bring together many people from the local Mosaic Conference community to honor the traditions of worship that have shaped our shared faith journey. 

The afternoon will be a tapestry of music, storytelling, and visuals, designed to both educate and inspire. 

The event will feature a series of reflections and performances that bring our history to life. Joel Horst Nofziger, Executive Director of the Conference-Related Ministry Mennonite Historians of Eastern PA, will share about the character of Anabaptist worship over time.  

Mosaic Leadership Minister Jeff Wright will speak on new movements in Mennonite worship. Conference Moderator and Ripple Co-Pastor Angela Moyer Walters will reflect on worshipping as Mosaic.  

These storytellers will be joined by Dr. Rashard Allen, who will provide beautiful music to guide our time of worship. Allen was the Music Coordinator and part of the worship team for the Anabaptism@500 Celebration in Zürich, Switzerland on May 29, 2025, and co-worship leader for the 100th Anniversary of Mennonite World Conference (MWC) in Schwabish Gmünd, Germany on May 25. Read his reflections on this momentous experience.  

Visual elements during the event will give us a deeper understanding of our history—especially valuable for those new to the Anabaptist story. Together, these elements will create a vivid and engaging encounter with the past, grounding us in a legacy that continues to shape our present. 

Peter and the other apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than human beings! We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” — Acts 5:29, 32, NIV 

Charlene Smalls

Charlene Smalls is co-pastor of Ripple in Allentown, PA.

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To share your thoughts or send a message to the author(s), contact us at communication@mosaicmennonites.org.   

The Centering Document as a Pathway toward Deeper Shared Life

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By Marta Castillo 

Dear Mosaic Siblings, 

It has been a privilege to serve as a Mosaic Conference staff person for nine years, walking alongside congregations and credentialed pastors. What a joy it is to visit our churches and organizations, to learn from all of you, and celebrate the diversity!  

The depth, beauty, pain, and complexity of our Mosaic community is profound. If I close my eyes, I can see the multitude of believers from Revelation—each of you —worshipping before the throne. It is a gift to have a balcony view of this sacred community. 

You may have read the Centering Document for the first time last week. A group of us in the conference has been engaging with this work for over two years, praying, dreaming, editing, and discerning together. We weren’t aiming to write a new statement or develop policy, but rather to name a centered space of what God is calling us to do and be together. 

Marta Castillo took a photo of this mosaic tile tabletop in Puerto Rico.

As the document states, “Our community’s identity is as much about our posture towards one another and the way we act together as it is about what we believe together.” I’m grateful that the board has affirmed this clarifying identity document, and I’m hopeful about how this posture of high expectations and gracious hospitality will be owned and put into practice in each of Mosaic’s congregations and ministries. 

When I think of a local church—your church, or one like yours—I see a unique gathering of people who have chosen to be community together. Not because we are all the same, but because we care deeply for one another. Our churches, groups, and organizations are shaped by the needs, passions, gifts, and care of their members. In the times when we don’t agree, we continue to show up, week after week, to love and serve each other through the messiness of being church. It is our love for God and our love for our siblings in Christ that shapes how we act together just as much as our shared beliefs. 

As people within the conference respond to this invitation to “center ourselves on being community together that honors and values our differences as we partner to live, love, and become like Jesus in our broken and beautiful world,” we must remain open. Open to hearing words of disappointments, pain, challenge, curiosity, hope, compassion, and joy. Like any document, this one can be critiqued, word-smithed, and questioned. Even after all the edits, there’s always more it could say, or ways it could be clearer. 

It can also be read from a posture of someone who loves their community, seeks its flourishing, and seeks to find connections. It can be read with a vision for how it might take root in real practices. May our love for God, for our neighbors, and our enemies, guide us as we continue to center ourselves on Jesus and strive to be holy together. 

Marta Castillo

Marta Castillo is the Associate Executive Minister for Mosaic Conference.

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To contact Marta Castillo, please email mcastillo@mosaicmennonites.org.

Finding Our Way Through an Impasse

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by Stephen Kriss

The conflict between Paul and Barnabas in Acts has always unsettled me. Why couldn’t the brothers work it out? Their conflict was about who to include in their journey, and it was also about a difference in posture.  

They were at an impasse. The need to share the Gospel far and wide was better served by parting ways than remaining in their relational quagmire.  

Were there personalities at play? Absolutely. Were the frustrations real? Certainly. Were their separate endeavors successful? Seemingly, yes. Was the Gospel harmed in their solution which meant separation? Ultimately, no. But this story reminds me that even necessary partings can be painful.  

Mosaic Mennonite Conference faces a similar moment. We have spent significant energy and time considering how Mosaic might realign our relationship with Mennonite Church USA. After years of negotiation, the Mosaic Conference Board is advocating that it’s time to discontinue the relationship in its current form. 

The Mosaic board’s recommendation is an invitation to focus on what is possible together outside of our current denominational alignment and toward global relatedness through Mennonite World Conference. 

I believe this is the best choice for our Mosaic future. Though I am deeply rooted in the communities that make up Mennonite Church USA, I recognize that the fragmenting of our denomination has been part of our Conference’s beginning. 

Eastern District Conference split in half rather than join Mennonite Church USA. Southeast Mennonite Conference split into multiple parts. Over a half dozen former Franconia Conference congregations have left Mosaic since our formation in 2019. We have not always been prepared for how costly the journey would be. Shifting alignments and connections are part of our Anabaptist story. It is not new. 

Paul and Barnabas were not caught in an impasse for as long as we have been with Mennonite Church USA. Though at the beginning of Mosaic Conference, the question of alignment with the denomination came into play, the struggle boiled over in 2022. Questions of inclusion of BIPOC and queer persons have driven much of this conversation (not dissimilar from the ongoing conversations in the Book of Acts). These questions address how people are honored and their voices valued.   

In our conversations with Mennonite Church USA, some of us have, for years, felt minimized and that our concerns were not validated.  

Though Mennonite Church USA is now only about one third of the size it was when created, the denomination operates with bylaws and structures that were created for a much larger system, and that at times have not responded to concerns from people of color, have taken years of advocacy for inclusion of queer persons, and been slow to respond to changing financial and demographic realities. Many in the denomination have accepted a narrative of decline while hoping for renewal. 

We sought to negotiate with Mennonite Church USA open handedly. We followed through on all that was requested from us. We showed up consistently. We asked for counsel. We met face-to-face and on Zoom. We moved forward in good faith. We maintained relationships with other Conference leaders in the USA and Canada. 

We believe that we are struggling with systems and powers, not individuals. We believe that our siblings in Christ are acting with good intentions. We recognize that change is difficult and takes time in large structures. 

At the same time, communication has been difficult. Public communication that has come from Mennonite Church USA has often felt condescending rather than collaborative. We have been willing to lean in and share resources. Yet there has been very little movement.   

Mennonite Church USA’s invitation for mediation in May came too quick for our board. We followed up in July with a willingness to move forward with a conversation (mediated or not) between Mosaic moderators and executive staff with Mennonite Church USA moderators and executive staff. 

We have received no indication of a willingness to move forward. We are left owing our delegates a recommendation without what feels like good faith negotiation or clarity from leaders in Mennonite Church USA. 

At the same time, we are ready to pursue a path as Mosaic. After settling on the affiliation question this week, our board affirmed a centering document (also available in Spanish, Indonesian and Haitian Creole) that names how we have been operating and represents the direction we are moving.   

We are recognizing Jesus as our Center. We are orienting around Mennonite World Conference’s Seven Shared Convictions (an intention that we delayed at the formation of Mosaic due to counsel we received from Mennonite Church USA). We are living into restorative practices rather than punitive conversations around our differences.   

This will allow Mosaic, and the diversity of communities that already exist within us, to flourish. This is our path ahead. 

Sometimes we have to let go of the familiar to discover our future. Our Mosaic future is bright though the way forward might be turbulent.  

We will seek to cultivate partnerships that allow us to both give and receive. We will be gracious and generous. We will anticipate that the Spirit will bring forth and sustain the fruit we need. We come to this place with humility, with lament, and with hope for Jesus’ ongoing redemption for us and for our broken and beautiful world.   

Stephen Kriss

Stephen Kriss is the Executive Minister of Mosaic Mennonite Conference.

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To contact Stephen Kriss, please email skriss@mosaicmennonites.org