Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

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What Does it Take to Prepare for a Virtual Assembly?

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by Brooke Martin, Conference Assembly Coordinator

Phone calls, emails, Zoom meetings, processing, testing, writing, texting, researching, discussing, and more is happening in preparation for Mosaic Conference Assembly weekend on November 7-8, 2020. With virtual Zoom delegate sessions on Saturday the 7th and live-stream, conference-wide worship on Sunday, November 8, there is much to do.   

The conference board is preparing for the delegate gathering to take place in the space of a few hours through Zoom on Saturday, November 7,  instead of through the traditional in-person sessions for an entire day. 

Our Sunday worship planning includes both live and pre-recorded multilingual elements. César García, president of Mennonite World Conference, will bring the morning message. Sunday’s worship will offer a glimpse of the depth and breadth of the Mosaic Mennonite Community, who worships and lives for Jesus. 

The communications team is carrying a much heavier load this year with a lot of coordination and detailed planning around Saturday’s large group Zoom sessions.  Simultaneous interpretation is needed and being prepared for in Vietnamese, Cantonese, Indonesian, Haitian Creole, and Spanish. 

How can you prepare and help?  

  • Read and watch for weekly updates about the assembly in Mosaic News.
  • Write the assembly weekend dates (November 7-8) on your calendar now. 
  • Delegates, please read your emails. 
  • Encourage your congregation to join in the conference-wide worship on Sunday, November 8 at 11am (EST)/8am (PST).    
  • Contribute to Sunday’s worship by sending in a recording of you (or someone in your congregation) reading the Lord’s Prayer in the language of your choice (click here for more information).
  • Pray for all 2020 delegates, the Mosaic Conference Board,the conference-wide worship service on November 8, and for the assembly planning team as preparations continue. 

I am so thankful for the Mosaic Conference Assembly Team of staff and volunteers who are giving their time and energy into preparing for this time together. Thank you Cindy Angela, Tami Good, Kristine McClain, Emily Ralph Servant, Hendy Stevan Matahelemual, and Scott Roth for your prayers, energy, and time.

The theme for the fall assembly, “On earth as it is in heaven,”  is based on the Lord’s Prayer. As we prepare for our virtual gathering,  let us pray (Matthew 6: 9b-13, ESV):

“Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
   on earth as it is in heaven.

 Give us this day our daily bread.
 And forgive us our debts,
As we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from evil.” 

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. 

Amen.

Seeing With New Lenses

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by Hendy Matahelemual, Indonesian Light congregation (Philadelphia, PA)

When I was a little boy, I wanted to wear glasses. I used to play with my parents’ glasses. I would put them on, but of course, I could not see clearly.  My parents would discourage me from playing with their glasses. But I felt so cool when I did. Both of my parents wore glasses and some of my friends at school did too. So for me, glasses were cool. That’s why I was a bit disappointed knowing that my vision was just fine, 20/20, and I didn’t need glasses. That was a long time ago.  

“20/20 vision” is a term used to describe normal visual acuity measured at a distance of 20 feet. At the beginning of 2020, I was excited in my faith, believing that God would give me a “perfect vision,” but my excitement changed after the pandemic hit. Now six months have passed. Seeing God’s vision each day is not easy in 2020, or maybe we just need to see it with a new lens. 

What is God’s vision for me this year? The writer of Proverbs said, “When there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18, KJV).  I often pray, “God, I want to see what you see, I want to feel what you feel.” Sometimes I get a revelation, and sometimes I don’t. But one thing is for sure: God always gives me a new lens. God always shows me a new perspective. 

No one could predict 2020 was going to be like this: pandemic, war, police brutality, racial justice issues, wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes, economic crises, and more.  No one saw it coming, but is this a new thing?  

The book of Ecclesiastes (1:9) says,  “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (NIV). Maybe this is right; there is nothing new.  Maybe the reason that we don’t see it is because we choose not to see it. 

Every aspect of humanity has fallen. In the era of the fastest 5G internet connection, humanity is still very slow to forgive and forget. Most humans still choose to retaliate rather than turn the other cheek. It feels like the four horsemen are just around the corner. 

My friend said to me recently, that at this particular time, she can really understand the proverb, “Ignorance is bliss.”  It’s easier for us to wear our comfortable glasses instead of wearing the glasses that see all this messy reality. God wants us to have “perfect vision,” seeing the world as this big mess that only Jesus can heal (both in Spirit and with His second coming). Or as my friend said, “There’s no Messiah without a Mess.” 

Seeing with a new lens means that we see reality as it is, fully embracing pain, fear, struggle, and suffering to the fullest before giving it to God. Sometimes seeing with a “perfect vision” means that you will have blurry vision, a vision with less clarity, due to the tears in your eyes. These tears come because you finally understand the pain, struggle, and suffering in our humanity.  

Sometimes seeing with a new lens is seeing with a grieving eye. As Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4, ESV).

Congregational Profile: Shalom Evangelical Mennonite Church

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by Javier Márquez

Editor’s Note: Mosaic Mennonite Conference anticipates welcoming eight Florida congregations (that were formerly part of Southeast Mennonite Conference) at this fall’s conference assembly.  For the next several weeks, we will be sharing the profiles of each of these congregations.

Members of Shalom Evangelical Mennonite Congregation pray together. Photo credit: Javier Márquez

Iglesia Evangélica Menonita Shalom (Shalom Evangelical Mennonite Church) began in 2019 and continues to grow and strengthen through prayer, evangelism, and service to others. Currently 20-25 adults and children gather regularly in the church building on Machado Street in Tampa, Florida. 

The congregation began as a church plant on May 26, 2019. Pastor Secundino Casas and his wife, Jesenia Casas, were leaders of this “cell” in the house of a member of the congregation. 

Now the congregation meets in the same building as College Hill Mennonite Church. The College Hill congregation has opened their doors so that this community of Spanish-speaking believers can carry out their faith activities. The two congregations share service opportunities, like a community food, clothes, and toy distribution every Wednesday, for those in need in Tampa.

Pastor Secundino Casas preaches on a Sunday morning. Photo credit: Javier Márquez

Pastors Secundino and Jesenia Casas, a married couple from Mexico, promote the church’s mission, “Share Jesus’ love for others, serve, and evangelize.” This vision is clearly reflected in the different actions they perform as a community of faith.

Church members actively work at discipleship and evangelization through community Bible studies and outreach. One day in the midst of an outreach campaign, a man, who did not speak Spanish, asked the members to pray for his life because he “could feel the presence of God in them and in what they are doing.”

Pastor Secundino (on truck) delivers food to the community. Photo credit: Javier Márquez

Despite having little time to attend church activities, many single working mothers living in Tampa have found a place of welcome at Shalom Evangelical Mennonite Church. This reality has motivated church leaders to organize help for these families, offering childcare at the church  for women who work.

Shalom Evangelical Mennonite Church is a community committed to building peace.  On their church sign, along with service times, is the verse, “Blessed are the peacemakers because they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9).

What I’ve Been Reading on Faithful Living

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by Josh Meyer, Leadership Minister

“What an astonishing thing a book is,” writes Carl Sagan,  astronomer and author, who captures my love and appreciation for books quite well. “It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”  

Here are a few of the magic-working, shackle-breaking, people-binding books that I’ve been reading lately.  

The Sacred Overlap: Learning to Live Faithfully in the Space Between by J.R. Briggs

Back in February 2019, I had the privilege of serving on a team of “readers” for this book, tasked with reading and providing feedback on an early manuscript of the project.  Now, a year and a half later, the book is finally out and I couldn’t be more excited to recommend it. The widening political, racial, generational, and religious differences in our society all too often lead to an “us vs. them” mentality.  

In The Sacred Overlap, Briggs lays out a biblical, Jesus-centered vision that embraces tension and invites us to live between the extremes that isolate and divide people.  But rest assured – this isn’t a spineless call to a kind of “mushy middle” that fails to take a stand on things that matter.  This is an invitation to convicted civility that emphasizes both grace and truth.  

Finding Holy in the Suburbs: Living Faithfully in the Land of Too Much by Ashley Hales

Suburbs reflect our good, God-given desire for a place to call home.  And suburbs also reflect our own brokenness.  As Hales writes in the introduction, “The suburbs – like any place – exhibit both the goodness of God’s creative acts (in desiring to foster community, beauty, rest, hospitality, family) and sin (in focusing on image, materialism, and individualism to the exclusion of others).”  Quite simply, places form our loves.  

Hales’ book raises provocative and profound questions for suburbanites like myself: Are we bending our lives around the spaces we occupy, the things we acquire, the homes we build, and the positions we’re climbing toward?  Or are we willing to let the triune God straighten out the narrative of safety and control, and pull us closer to the Divine Story of love and belonging?  

Something Needs to Change: A call to make your life count in a world of urgent need by David Platt

Is Jesus really the hope of the world?  David Platt poses this question as the centerpiece of his new book.  While I don’t agree with Platt on every point of theology, I was challenged and convicted by his account of his recent trek through the Himalayas.  

Platt, a megachurch pastor, realized it’s one thing to consider the injustices of the world from behind a podium in a comfortable building on a Sunday morning.  It’s another thing to face the realities of human suffering, sex trafficking, urgent physical need, and deep spiritual loss face-to-face.  

I appreciated and resonated with Platt’s struggle, his honest wrestling with the deepest questions of our faith, in light of the human suffering of our world.  Read this book and consider the questions…if you dare.

Conference Announces Growing Staff

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by Sue Conrad Howes, Communication associate

As of September 1, Mosaic Conference has added two new staff members: Cindy Angela, full-time Digital Communication Associate, and Margaret Zook, part-time Director of Collaborative Ministries.

Cindy Angela

Cindy Angela will provide direction for digital and virtual resources, including vision-setting and implementation of social media strategy, leading the video and translation teams, and providing other artistic expressions including photography and graphic design.  She has a degree in communication from Temple University and is a member of Philadelphia Praise Center, where she coordinated much of its virtual worship services during the COVID-19 quarantine.

“Communication has been a growing edge in our conference for several years now. We continue to see the changes in our conference as opportunities to connect across cultures, languages, geographies, and theological worldviews,” said Emily Ralph Servant, Mosaic’s Director of Communication.  “Cindy is a huge gift to us at this crossroads.  She brings technical skills that we desperately need as well as relational and intercultural capacity, enthusiasm and creativity, and a passion for contributing all of who she is to joining God’s work in the world.  We couldn’t be more excited to add her to our team!”

Margaret Zook

Margaret Zook will lead the conference’s team of staff relating to Conference Related Ministries as Director of Collaborative Ministries. Before coming to this new role, Margaret served with three Conference Related Ministries, including a decade on the board of Penn Foundation (Sellersville, PA).  Margaret was also the Executive Director of Souderton (PA) Mennonite Homes for more than twenty years before serving Living Branches (Lansdale, PA) as the Director of Church and Community Relations.  She is an active member of Salford congregation (Harleysville, PA).

“Margaret brings deep commitments to the church and extensive leadership experience within our Conference Related Ministries community,” said Steve Kriss, Executive Minister.  “I’m grateful for her willingness to lead the work of strengthening relationships with our broad array of non-profit ministries that extends our work in Pennsylvania, Vermont, Honduras, India and Indonesia.”  

The staff of Mosaic Conference has grown to twenty-one full-time and part-time individuals since the reconciliation of Eastern District Conference and Franconia Conference in February 2020.  Conference staff provides accompaniment to congregations, credentialed leaders, and Conference Related Ministries, administrative support, and resourcing through youth formation, intercultural, and missional teams.  Staff members currently live in four states and work regularly in English, Spanish, and Indonesian languages while also producing materials in Cantonese, Haitian Creole, and Vietnamese.

Congregational Profile: Homestead Mennonite Church

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Editor’s Note: Mosaic Mennonite Conference anticipates welcoming eight Florida congregations (that were formerly part of Southeast Mennonite Conference) at this fall’s conference assembly.  For the next several weeks, we will be sharing the profiles of each of these congregations.

by Rick Lee, Pastor

Homestead (FL) Mennonite Church began in the 1950s by Mennonite Volunteer Service (MVS) workers who were in Homestead, FL working at Redlands Migrant Workers’ Camp. The church has expanded and contracted over the years. The building itself has been built and expanded three times during the life of the congregation. In 2000, the church burned down, by an unknown arsonist, but was rebuilt and expanded. 

Presently, there are few ethnic Mennonites in the congregation.  The majority of the congregation is senior citizens and young adults.  There are a few teens and a few middle-aged families. The group is diverse ethnically, culturally, and economically. Our church worship is in English. 

One goal of our church is to continue to grow and mature in our faith, in order to become more faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Most of the outreach is done through individual efforts and relationships. Members reach out to people in prison, single moms, undocumented immigrants, alcoholics, the poor, senior citizens, and children through tutoring and after school programs.  

Over the years, the church has been connected and helped with many community events.  In 1992, Hurricane Andrew devastated most of the entire city of Homestead, FL. However, the Homestead Mennonite Church building was fortunate to survive this disaster. Many citizens gathered at the church for help and consolation for many months following the hurricane. 

More recently immigrants gather to hear from government officials, officers, and social workers about their rights as immigrants. The congregation values the opportunity to work with the community and its officials in an effort to help promote and keep peace with all people. 

The church building is also offered to others for ministry use, including helping new congregations establish themselves, home schooling groups, senior citizens, mothers of preschoolers, and weight management groups.  Seasonally a local community choir uses the church building to perform their holiday concerts. There have also been times that free health clinics were performed in the church building. 

In the past decade, four or five churches have used our facility to try to start new churches. One Mennonite church has succeeded thus far. One of another denomination has folded. Two other congregations are still trying to establish themselves or save up money for their own building. Therefore, currently three congregations, including our own, share our facility.

Although there are many activities in the church building, the congregation is still working on finding ways to reach out to their neighborhood. Presently we try to connect through Facebook and also by encouraging our church members to love our neighbors as a source of witness. 

Over the past several years, we offered Vacation Bible School. Some years we designed our own curriculum and other years we partnered with other churches of various denominations to provide a witness and activities for children during their summer break.  

During a recent Advent season, an adult member of the congregation wrote reflective public readings on the themes of Advent.  A youth of the congregation used pastel chalk to illustrate the theme on sidewalks and parking lots, while a reader’s group from the church presented the readings in public. Younger children also learned an increasingly complex choreography to the Advent hymn, “O Come Emmanuel,” each week.

School Year

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by Brooke Martin, Community and Youth Formation Coordinator

Brooke Martin with 2 of her siblings on her first day of kindergarten. From left to right: Caleb, Brooke, Jessica.

As a young fearless extrovert, I was giddy with excitement on my first day of kindergarten. I had been watching my older siblings ride on that big yellow bus for five years and wanted to join in the fun. Less than two minutes into my hour-long bus ride, I had compared lunchboxes with another girl and launched into a best-friend relationship that continues strong to this day. 

I never expected my son to have the same experience I did, yet my daydreams also never included him starting school during a pandemic.

Our recollections of our own school experiences did not prepare us for the realities of the 2020-2021 school year.  Decisions may or may not be a household’s to make. In-person, virtual, hybrid, homeschool co-ops or not, the educational experience is different. This COVID-19 time has impacted students, faculty, and staff alike. We see it ripple through how each classroom is set up, what teaching approaches are available, how different learning-styles are addressed, lunchtime, learning to read facial cues behind masks, and more time staring at an electronic screen, and/or more time at home.

Brooke Martin with one of her brothers, Caleb, on her Brooke’s first day of first grade.

This is a call to prayer for all students and faculty for the 2020-2021 school year. Lay our personal viewpoints and agendas down. This is not that prayer time.  

Sit at a shoe rack and pull on any student and/or faculty member’s shoes and mentally prayer walk in them. Not just the first dutiful-mile, but walk that second uncomfortable mile as well.  Then pause … and take note of how your soul is calling out … offer the prayer of your soul before the Lord. The place you are standing is Holy Ground. Yes, Holy Ground, God is present. 

We can and should allow space to grieve the change. Some days will be easier than others. This school year is different and may change its rules 1,000 times, but how are you breathing Life, Hope, and Joy into a student, teacher, school staff, or parent?

 “Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.” (Matthew 5:15, NIV) This school year, with renewed vigor, take the Light out from under the bowl and set it out to light the classroom. Pray the beatitudes from Matthew 5 over educators and students. Send acts of love throughout this school year. 

We have not been promised freedom from hardship, but we have been promised that we will not be alone during hardship. God is with every student, teacher, and staff member. With the Holy Spirit, we are the faith community sharing the burdens and joys of this school year together.

Navigating Hospital Visits During COVID-19

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by Sue Conrad Howes, West Swamp (Quakertown, PA) congregation

Hospital chaplain, Sue Conrad Howes, wears 2 masks and a face shield at work. Photo provided by Sue C. Howes.

Hospital visitation is an important part of pastoral care. However, hospital life, like so many other things, is not business as usual these days.

As a hospital chaplain, I have been asked a lot about hospital visitation. Here are my thoughts regarding caring for your hospitalized congregants during COVID-19.

Each hospital is implementing different visitation policies. Most hospitals are restricting visitors in some capacity. Some are allowing only immediate family. Some are allowing only one visitor at a time. Some are still not allowing visitors (or it depends on what unit the patient is in.)

Be sure to call the hospital to get the specifics before going. Not only are visitor restrictions in place at most hospitals, many have adjusted visiting hours and visitor entrances. Because most hospitals are requiring you to register and get your temperature taken, hospitals have designated only certain entrances for visitors.  

If you are unable or uncomfortable with an in-person visit, phone calls are very welcomed. Check if the patient has a cell phone with them. If not, typically the nurse can get access to a landline in the patient’s room. (Call the hospital and ask for the nurse’s station for that patient.)

If the patient has a cell phone, facetime might be appropriate.  Again, medical staff are typically very accommodating during this time in assisting patients to use technology to connect with others.

Of course, cards can be a great option. Drop them off at the front desk of a hospital if you live nearby and it will be delivered to the patient. You can mail it, but that takes longer and the patient may not be in hospital for long. Cards, balloons, or plants fill a hospital room nicely for a patient and are a constant reminder of your love and support.  

Remember, patients don’t need long visits or phone calls. Most patients just need about 5 minutes to check on them and then to offer prayer. They need rest. 

If you don’t feel capable of visiting the hospital, but feel like the patient would benefit from a pastoral care visit, call the hospital and request to speak to pastoral care or a chaplain. You can put a request in to the pastoral care office and a chaplain on-site will go visit your patient. If you leave your name and contact information, most chaplains will even let the patient know that you were the one who requested the visit. If you are very concerned about the patient, as they may not have any family visiting, you can even kindly ask the chaplain to give you a call back after the visit for an update, if the patient gives permission.

While an in-person visit can be valuable, check in with the family of the patient, if you are able. They perhaps could also use support, as having a loved one in the hospital right now is stressful. A regular check-in with the family might be where pastoral care is most needed.

Hospital visits, like almost everything else, have changed since March. Hospital patients need to be especially protected from viruses and other germs, but they also need prayer, support, and love. Use your best judgement when considering a hospital visit, and be sure to stay at least 6 feet away from the patient, even if you have a mask on. We want to do our best to ensure the safety and well being of all.