Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Articles

Enjoy and Relax

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by Aldo Siahaan, Leadership Minister

At the beginning of October, I returned to Jakarta, Indonesia with my wife Viviani and my son Eden. It had been almost three years since my last visit.  It was a short visit, but I knew I would love to see the location of my parents’ new grave. Originally, both my parents were buried in the Pondok Rangon Cemetery, but two years ago, their graves were moved to a new place called the San Diego Hill Cemetery. The distance to the San Diego Hill Cemetery was only 40 miles.

Aldo and family, visiting his parents’ gravesite

On the appointed day, Vivi, Eden, and I were joined by two of my nieces and three of my siblings; my sister Lita drove us. Before leaving, Lita had warned us: “Get ready—this will be a long journey. San Diego Hill Cemetery is in a suburb of Jakarta and we may get caught in traffic jams.”

On the way there, the journey to San Diego Hill Cemetery took only 90 minutes! Those who knew the traffic jams in Jakarta said, with joy, “Wow, our trip was very fast this morning!” After visiting my parents’ new grave, we returned to the car to go home.      

Coming out of the cemetery complex, we were immediately confronted with traffic.  When we checked the GPS, it said it would take 2.5 hours to get home. In the end, we had to travel 4 hours for the 40-mile distance.

What is interesting for me is how my sister Lita, the driver, stayed calm. No matter how many times other family members or I complained about the length of the trip or the traffic jams that didn’t move, Lita always said, “Just enjoy it” or “All passengers just relax!” How many times did Lita share stories or engage us in conversation so that we wouldn’t focus on the traffic? She made jokes or asked us to sing, reminding us to “just enjoy.”  There was nothing we could do to get out of the 4-hour traffic jam—it was a tough test for someone as impatient as me.

In today’s world, people want everything to be instant. The word patience is easy to speak but hard to live. Many people don’t want to be matured by God. What would have happened if Noah had been impatient or disobedient to what God had told him to do? What would have happened if Joseph had been impatient waiting for God’s promises through his dreams? Or Abraham, David, and others?

Maybe these heroes in the Bible said to themselves, “Just enjoy, just relax, engage in the process.” Yes, God wants me to learn to be patient, enjoy this life journey, and not run away from the process. I will say to myself, “Aldo, just enjoy the problem you have, relax, and engage in the process.”

“[It is] better to be patient than a warrior, and better to have self-control than to capture a city.” (Proverbs 16:32, CEB)

Appreciate Your Pastor

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(reprinted with permission from Mennonite World Review)

by Stephen Kriss, Executive Minister

October is Pastor Appreciation Month. While one month is not enough to show appreciation to pastors, it’s an opportunity to focus on the work, ministry and difficulty of being a pastor.

I was called to a pastor role in my 20s. I threw my young energy into the life of the congregation. I wasn’t paid for full-time work. But that didn’t keep needs from arising at all hours of the day and night.

I worked other jobs. I went to grad school. What our young team lacked in experience we made up for in passion, care and long hours. Truth be told, I am not sure I have ever worked so hard and so long as those six years at Carpenter Park Mennonite Church in Davidsville, Pa. Now, in my conference-level role, there are rarely emergency calls at midnight or odd times.

Pastoring congregations in Anabaptist settings is not for the faint-hearted. Because of our understanding of the shared priesthood of all believers, we’re quick to share opinions and responses. To pastor and preach is to put your thoughts and actions to the test for public commentary on a weekly basis. Communities share feedback about the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, our haircuts and weight gain or loss.

But there are privileges in pastoral work. The schedule is often flexible. We get glimpses into people’s hopes and dreams, intimate moments of life’s critical passings. We carry the goodness and the best of community.

There are pitfalls. Demanding schedules disrupt family life and rhythm. Salaries are often unsustainable without second jobs. The cultural conflict that rips through our congregations often puts pastors on defense. It can be lonely and exhausting.

At the same tine, recent research indicates the pastoral role’s significance is on decline. There’s an erosion of trust due to abuses of the role and changes in our sociopolitical reality. The work of making those abuses public is essential for clergy to have any respect, but it can further erode trust. The humanity and fallibility of clergy can become all too real.

With all of that on the table, how might we appreciate pastors? Each pastor is his or her own person. But as I listen to pastors who feel close to burnout, sustainable salaries and expectations help. Acts of appreciation that go above and beyond expectation underscore value. Cutting back on criticism and heightening words of honest encouragement matter.

Let’s allow pastors to live into their role, to speak the words they feel the Spirit has given them, even when it makes us uncomfortable. Treat pastors as people with valid training and experience who can’t be debunked by a Google search or something we read on Facebook.

Let’s share honestly with pastors in our life struggles and experiences. This has been some of the most holy work for me. It requires pastors to settle ourselves enough to listen to the wildness of the soul — and depends on church members to be brave enough to bring forth more than “Good sermon, pastor.”

Whether or not your congregation marks this month, I hope we can extend appreciation for pastors. When we can’t figure out the right words or actions, there’s chocolate, coffee, plants, beef jerky, simple expressions to acknowledge the hard work.

Taking care of pastors extends the Good News, because leadership longevity contributes to the growth of faith communities.

Stephen Kriss is a teacher, writer, pastor and follower of Jesus living in Philadelphia.

A New Conference, A New Creation

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by Mary Nitzsche, Franconia Conference Associate Executive Minister

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-18).

Eastern District Conference and Franconia Mennonite Conference are on the verge of becoming something new, a new conference with a new name and structure. Since our joint Assembly meetings last November and May, our journey of becoming a new, reconciled conference has been a work in progress.

Over the summer months, four committees were formed—Business of the Conference, Implementation, Conference Related Ministries, and Naming committees—to give more definition and detail to the Structure and Identity Taskforce recommendations.

As a staff member, I was appointed to the Implementation Committee, charged with creating bylaws for the new conference. The rest of the committee members included Sherri Brokopp Binder, Scott Roth, Charlotte Hunsberger, Ken Burkholder and Danilo Sanchez. Our committee met seven times over the past five months.

Working on bylaws is tedious and time-consuming. Much of the current Franconia Conference bylaws content remains in the new bylaws with minor revisions. Some sections in the current bylaws were deleted, since they contained outdated information or unnecessary detail. Some sections were added to reflect the Structure and Identity Taskforce recommendations.

Input of delegates, staff, boards, or the three other committees was gathered. Since the May Assembly, many opinions were given voice and consideration; conversations were engaging and sometimes intense.  Focus groups offered feedback on a name for the new conference.  The four committees and the Structure and Identity Taskforce shared information and exchanged suggestions.

By the beginning of September, the work of the committees was entrusted to the Structure and Identity Taskforce for final review and revision. The Scattered meetings this month were intended to inform delegates of the refining work of the four committees and invite clarifying questions or suggestions before the Fall Assembly affirmation to be one reconciled conference.

As two conferences come together in a spirit of reconciliation, this process of birthing a new conference has been one of prayerful, discerning, and compromising work.  The new structure represents a more congregational model of relating and sharing together in a common mission rather than a hierarchal structure where the staff and board dictate.  As congregations join the new conference, we commit to building relationships with other member congregations and its people: hearing and valuing one another’s stories (I hope you are reading congregational profiles) and discerning together what is best for the whole. This relational and congregational model takes more time and requires listening, humility, flexibility, and openness to mutual transformation to be a conference reflecting the diversity that God’s Spirit is continuing to call and form.

Many of us will not be able to affirm every detail of the new structure and bylaws. May we all come to Assembly in a spirit of openness, humility, trust, and commitment to the new thing God’s Spirit has been doing among us. The “old conferences” are passing away and a new conference is being created as a sign of God’s ongoing reconciliation ministry in the way of Jesus.

Called as (Youth) Leaders

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by Heidi Swartley, Doylestown congregation, and Kate Hockman, Deep Run East congregation

Over the first weekend of September, we had the wonderful opportunity to attend  Franconia & Eastern District Conference’s youth leadership retreat. During this retreat we learned many lessons and met many people who we probably wouldn’t have met otherwise. It was a fantastic feeling to spend time with other people from separate churches in our conference who had the same willingness to lead. The weekend included a wonderful speaker, awesome team building exercises, and an overall feeling of excitement to learn and lead.

One of the first things we recognized on our retreat is just how hard leadership is. Showing up, being present, putting yourself out there, and trying with all of who you are, is taking a huge risk. Our doubt and fear will convince us that it is not a risk worth taking, and we are not the right people for the job. This doubt is a part of life. Our speaker for the weekend, Pastor Joe Hackman (Salford congregation), assured us that all leaders experience doubt—a reality we don’t often name or recognize. But as leaders, we do not stand alone, relying on our own strength.

Our theme for the weekend, “I Am Called”, grounded us in the confidence that we have been called: He will never leave us nor forsake us, and He will go with us as we work for the glory of His kingdom.

Scripture. As Pastor Joe talked to us about how we stay grounded in our faith in the midst of our doubt, he turned us to Scripture. The Bible tells the stories of many great spiritual leaders, who all grappled with doubt the same way we do today. Our theme verse from the weekend was 1 Timothy 4:12, in which Paul comforts Timothy in the midst of doubt over his young age. Timothy also had struggles with his family and his health, which likely contributed to the doubt. Jeremiah, in the Old Testament, tells the story of God using people, even in their doubt. God calls Jeremiah, and Jeremiah retreats into doubt saying: “I don’t know how…” and “I’m only….” Scripture not only tells us about the doubt of past leaders, but also provides verses of comfort and instruction in what to do with our doubt.

Values. Everybody has them, but sometimes it’s hard to tell what they are. Joe suggested saying the following statement. “If I took away___ from ___, they would cease to exist.” For example, If I took away empathy from Kate or love from Heidi, they would cease to exist. Identifying and knowing what your core values are is another way to handle our doubt. In order to identify our core values as leaders, we were given small cards with different values on them, values such as freedom, empathy, and helpfulness. After Pastor Joe told us to split our cards into different groups based on their importance, he asked us to pick three to five core values that were important to us. We realized that if we were ever experiencing doubt, we could fall back on the values that we picked. 

Community. Community is one of the most powerful ways to cope with doubt, and as Pastor Joe told us, “fear fears community.” In order to be a successful leader, we need to realize that somebody is always on our side. Our church community is always there to support us in any way they can, especially in times of doubt; they’re right there, cheering us on from the sidelines. Community helps to root us in the truth, in how truly loved, supported, and valued we are. Community is patient with us, in our fear, brokenness, and weakness. Seeing Christ’s love reflected in another’s love for us is a powerful thing. 

Overall, this experience taught us so much, and we are grateful we had the opportunity to go to this retreat. We learned so much about God and what it means to be a leader.

Expanding the Vision at Pinebrook

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by Grace Nolt, Spruce Lake Retreat

On October 17, 2018, Spruce Lake took over stewardship of Pinebrook Bible Conference to refine and rededicate the ministry around its founding purpose of “Pointing People Toward Christ.”

The vision now, as then, might seem crazy at the start. Dare we believe that God is not done with Pinebrook, and wants even more people to see Christ through this property?

Young people gather in front of the sign for Pinebrook’s newly established “Church of the Air” Bible Conference. Circa 1933.

Percy Crawford, the charismatic pioneer radio and TV evangelist of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, founded Pinebrook Bible Conference in 1933 to strengthen the reach of his radio ministry, “The Young People’s Church of the Air.”

The property, located at what is now 5339 Pinebrook Road, East Stroudsburg, PA, was just what Percy and his team were searching for. “We must have it,” Percy said to the real estate man. Never mind that they wanted too much money.

Furthermore, the bank would not even consider a deal without cash, and other buyers were closing in. But the bank conceded, giving them about four weeks to raise the money. This turned out to be rough as banks were closing right and left.

“Immediately I went to good Christian friends and explained my plight, “said Percy. “The day the money was due, I walked in and placed it in the bank’s hands.” Pinebrook had been acquired for God, and for the young people of the Pocono Mountains. Immediately they dedicated the place to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Percy brought the nation’s leading Bible teachers and musicians to Pinebrook – Billy Graham, George Beverly Shea, Cliff Barrows, Jack Wyrtzen and many others. He directed Pinebrook’s ministries for the next 28 years.

In 1968, the Bible Fellowship Church became the next stewards of Pinebrook, continuing it as a retreat and conference center with a “mission to the world.” Ongoing programs offered special ministry to the Bible Fellowship Church.

Representing PA Senator Mario Scavello, Jonathan Allotey (center) presented Mark and Jackie Swartley an award of recognition for investing in the community by revitalizing Pinebrook.

Then, on a day filled with bright sunshine and wind, over 200 people gathered at the open house service June 30, 2019, to witness the uniting of Pinebrook and Spruce Lake as one, refounding Pinebrook for “this day and this age.”

“I cannot tell you,” spoke Executive Director Mark Swartley, “how many people have stopped me since we have gotten involved with Pinebrook and said things like: I love that place!  I accepted Christ on those grounds.  I found my spouse at Pinebrook.  Those hills sing to me when I walk on the grounds.”

Pinebrook has had an amazing impact for Christ. As Billy Graham once said, Pinebrook is “where so many hundreds and thousands of young lives have been touched, and people are now around the world who were led to Christ and dedicated their lives to Christ at Pinebrook.”

Several hundred youth attended SnoGlo weekends in January at Pinebrook, programmed by the Bible Fellowship Church.

So, this is the day to carry forward the vision to reach more people for Christ through Pinebrook!

What might this look like? Spruce Lake is planning to:

  • Serve the Bible Fellowship Church and its members through its retreat ministries.
  • Invite churches in the surrounding local area and nearby states to retreat and seek a deeper relationship with Christ. As many as 13,000 new and returning people are expected through 2019.
  • Start a children’s Day Camp ministry the summer of 2021 to allow us to share Christ with Stroudsburg area children day after day.
  • Restore a ministry in this community so that it is fully flourishing – giving all glory to God for His provision and grace!

We will trust God and see where He leads as Spruce Lake continues “Pointing People Toward Christ” in the future at Pinebrook.

To this purpose we dedicate this property, O Lord!

For more information on the history of Pinebrook, visit pinebrook.org.

A Delightful Surprise

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by Mary Nitzsche, Associate Executive Minister

My husband Wayne and I recently attended a benefit event for a local non-profit, which included an auction.  Surveying the silent auction items, Wayne spotted a beautifully-crafted Martin guitar and asked if I had any interest in it.

I had not played a guitar for over 10 years and had donated my old guitar to a thrift store with no intentions of ever playing again.

The Martin guitar’s beauty and three-quarter-size caught my attention. I agreed to add our bid to the sheet.

Periodically, Wayne checked to see if others were adding their bid. Several times he asked my permission to increase our bid.

Doubt began to creep into my mind each time I consented.  Could I relearn the chords? Would playing the guitar aggravate the pain in my hand? Would I gain confidence to accompany singing in my congregation since I was never that accomplished before? At my age, could I improve my skill?

As the bids increased, I wondered about our dollar limit. The five-minute call came for the close of bidding. Wayne noticed a person at the table increasing their bid. One last time he asked me if I wanted the guitar. I was non-committal, but Wayne was determined, yet courteous. He asked the other bidder how badly she wanted the guitar and learned she was not as serious as he thought.

At the conclusion of the benefit, Wayne and I returned home with the guitar, knowing our donation would make a difference in the lives of people.

After arriving at home, I gently lifted my new guitar out of the case. I attempted to tune the guitar and was amazed that I remembered how to tune it without consulting Internet instructions! When I attempted to play a chord, I couldn’t remember any fingerings. Several days later, I printed a chart of the primary guitar chords. I struggled through the first song, looking back and forth from the chart to the song sheet while playing very slowly.  My confidence was rattled, yet I persisted with a different song.

All of a sudden, something clicked.

My long-term memory caught up with my short-term memory. It was an “ah-ha” moment that I couldn’t explain: the C, G, A, Em, and Am chords came naturally, without even looking at the fingering chart! After playing 20 minutes, my hand ached and my fingers were tender (a sign that I needed to develop calluses). That evening I went to bed cautiously optimistic that the purchase was a good thing.

Several days later, I spent an hour playing my guitar. To my surprise and delight, my ambivalence for purchasing a new guitar and the lack of confidence that I would regain the limited skill I once had was fading. Wayne’s persistence, encouragement, and generosity has inspired me to rediscover my love for singing and playing guitar.

This unexpected gift, a nudging of the Spirit, has given me a renewed spiritual practice for expressing and nurturing my faith.

A Home for Every Culture at Conference Assembly

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by Emily Ralph Servant, Director of Communication

For this year’s Conference Assembly, several Franconia Conference congregations are providing side dishes of traditional foods for Saturday lunch.  “Having food from our home country means that we are welcome in the space, and the Conference is our home and not a foreign place where we are not welcome,” reflects Hendy Matahelemual, pastor of Indonesian Light Church and a member of Franconia’s intercultural team.

For recent immigrants, food from their home country is like “food for the soul,” Matahelemual observes, and having those foods at Conference Assembly is about more than just “bringing our home with us”; it’s also about redefining the norm of common experiences like Assembly.

“As time marches on and our world changes, we sometimes have to look at our practices to see how we can do an even better job,” says Scott Roth, Eastern District’s Conference Minister.  “It seems that in our past, we just assumed that everyone will be assimilated into what ‘we’ do.”  As the two conferences move toward reconciliation and as the new conference continues to grow across geographies and cultures, Conference Assembly has become an important time and place to “take into account a grafting of some practices, whether they are from churches, cultures, or whole conferences.”

Together, the two conferences have congregations that worship in six languages: Cantonese, Creole, English, Indonesian, Spanish, and Vietnamese; within these congregations are people who come from many more countries, cultures, and traditions.

In the past, the joint Eastern District and Franconia Conference Assembly has worked on integrating languages by providing simultaneous interpretation through individual headsets, singing songs from a variety of cultures and in multiple languages, and translating conference documents.

Building on these practices, this year’s Assembly will feature voices, languages, songs, and styles from the cultures that make up the conference community.  Worship planners are working to include more than just participation from members of the conference who aren’t from the dominant culture; they are actively seeking to give space for shared leadership in the design and implementation of Assembly itself.

Working toward interculturalism at Assembly can be messy, time-consuming, and difficult: translators and designers spend months preparing documents and PowerPoint slides; musicians wrestle with learning new music and blending as a team; planners explore the meanings of words, themes, and imagery within a diversity of cultures.

“We are all learning to be good hosts and we are learning to be good guests,” suggests Marta Castillo, Franconia’s Leadership Minister of Intercultural Formation.  “The rules are often unclear but we can always choose to be kind and we can choose to be gracious.”

And in the midst of the challenges, the process can also be beautiful.

The goal of intercultural practices is mutual transformation, Matahelemual stresses.  This sharing of food and language and culture is simply the starting point; as we continue to get to know one another, we become changed by our relationships.

Then, he says, we create a home for every culture, where, together in community, we can enjoy “a Tamales of Christ, a Nasi of Christ, and not just a Bread of Christ: a food of heaven for all cultures.”

Come enjoy Soto Betawi, tamales, sandwiches, ice cream, and more at Conference Assembly this November 1-2, 2019, at Souderton Mennonite Church.  There is no charge for the meal, however generous donations will be accepted to help cover food and Assembly costs.

Learning to be a Peacemaker

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(leer en español)

by Jennifer Svetlik, Salford congregation

Javier Márquez, IVEP’er serving with Franconia Conference

“One of my greatest dreams is to learn how I can be a peacemaker. But before I go to the peace academy, the best way for me to learn is from other communities. I want to learn about their pain, their happiness, dreams, frustrations, and concerns. So I want to learn about you,” says Javier Márquez, an intercultural communication associate with Franconia Conference this year. 

Javier is a member of Mennonite Central Committee’s International Volunteer Exchange Program (IVEP). His placement is to work with the Conference communication team and record immigrant stories. IVEP is a yearlong volunteer work and cultural exchange opportunity for young adults.  

“I have been considering this opportunity with IVEP for a long time. I am so excited to have this amazing work,” Javier shares. 

Celebrating his sister’s birthday with two of his four siblings and his parents at their apartment in Bogotá.

Javier grew up in his ancestral home of Suacha, a city in the center of Colombia. He now lives in Bogotá, the capital. He has four siblings and his family is large, “like most Latin families,” Javier says. He is part of Teusaquillo Mennonite Church in Bogotá, and he is proud of his community because they take very seriously the call to be peacemakers.

Javier has also taken this call seriously; he refused Colombia’s obligatory military conscription for young men, and in doing so entered a two year legal process. With the support of the Mennonite church in Colombia and the nonprofit organization Justapaz, Javier finally won his case as a conscientious objector. “I believe that the nonviolent path of Jesus goes beyond refusing to be a part of wars and violence but also to work for peace with passion and commitment,” Javier reflects. 

Four years ago with friends and the support of the Mennonite church and Justapaz, Javier began an activism project about becoming a conscientious objector. The group is now called CoNova and is comprised of many different kinds of young people: students, writers, nurses, DJs, lawyers, psychologists, and more. 

Javier dancing salsa with Evie, an IVEPer from Canada at Orientation in Akron.

“Colombia is the land of coffee, salsa and Vallenato music, orchids and emeralds, traditional dishes litke sancocho (soup), aguapanela (hot sugary drink), arepas (cheese and corn flour cake), ajiaco (chicken, potatoes, and corn on the cob) and bandeja paisa (fried pork belly, red beans, plantains, and more),” Javier says.  “And it is impossible not to mention that Colombia is the land of Love in the Time of Cholera (a classic novel by Gabriel García Márquez) and of Macondo (the fictional town in another famous work by García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude).”

Javier arrived in Pennsylvania in mid-August and is living in South Philadelphia. Each morning he drinks Colombian coffee and tries to read a poem in English to learn new words. He is still learning what a typical day will look like; so far he has tried to always listen with intense focus and open his eyes to everything around him so that he can understand the different ways of doing things here. 

“I have learned that the streets are too similar here; I say this jokingly because I have gotten lost twice. Never in my life have I learned so many new words, but at the same time, I’ve never been so quiet. I have learned a lot,” Javier shares. 

Javier has been visiting immigrant churches such as Centro de Alabanza, Philadelphia Praise Center, and Indonesian Light, to connect with people and write about their immigrant stories. He hopes to meet others who dance salsa, as he loves to do. When he returns to Colombia after his time with IVEP, Javier would like to work in community-oriented journalism.