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Blog

A Village Boy was Chosen

June 9, 2020 by Conference Office

by Pastor Joshua Daichor So, San Francisco (CA) Chinese Mennonite Church

I am very thankful to have the opportunity to write my call to ministry story again after 55 years.  It sounds like I should already be retired by now but God still gives me the grace to be part of His story.  I also appreciate the Conference giving me this chance to share.  It was 1965 when I was first asked to write my call to ministry story as part of my entry application to study at The Hong Kong Alliance Bible Seminary.  How can I not be thankful?

I was born in a remote village in Mainland China and was raised in an idol worshiping family.  As the Bible said, “God knits me together in my mother’s womb and I am chosen!”  God had a plan for me!

Our family moved to Hong Kong when I was around 11 years old.  We lived very close to a church and with my curiosity, I stopped in and attended their Sunday school class with my neighbors’ kids for the first time.  From that time on, I became a regular Sunday school attender.  Listening to the Bible stories was always the highlight of each Sunday.  But most of all, receiving awards from the teachers was powerfully motivating to me. 

I accepted Jesus during Sunday school one week and gradually joined a small group.  With my diligent and optimistic character, I was selected to be on the staff of the small group and also serve as a Sunday school teacher.  I was amazed to find blessings and joy from serving the Lord in those roles. Besides attending the small group and Sunday school, I also attended the worship service regularly. The senior pastor, the minister, Sunday school teachers, and brothers and sisters were very proud of me and set me as a role model to other worshippers.  I was also blessed with ample opportunities to serve the Lord at church.

As I remember, I was asked to be the moderator of the Sunday worship when I was only a middle schooler.  I accepted that offer without hesitation.  I strongly believed that serving the Lord is what is pleasing to the Lord and a blessing! I was also in charge of a Sunday evening outreach.

My youth group leader encouraged me to pursue seminary after high school in my last year of middle school.  Even though I was quiet at that time, the Holy Spirit already began to mold me.  Our senior pastor couldn’t be at church regularly and our minister left to further his studies in the US. This left no one in charge of the church.  In my heart, I sensed the urge from the Holy Spirit.  

One day at a school worship service, the preacher invited the audience to accept Jesus’s invitation by using Isaiah 6:8, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?”  I replied, “Here am I, send me!”  After I finished my high school in 1966, I attended Hong Kong Alliance Bible Seminary and graduated in 1970.  This year marks 50 years since I first graduated. 

God called me from Hong Kong to Los Angeles in 1975 and a year later to San Francisco. There I completed a BA in Sociology, an M.Div (Sociology major) at Golden Gate Baptist Seminary, and finished a D. Min (Cross Cultural Study major) at San Francisco Theological Seminary, with God’s grace. I will continue to serve the Chinese in the San Francisco area with my wife (Anita) and daughter (Sharon).  Praise the Lord!

Filed Under: Articles, Blog, Call to Ministry Stories Tagged With: Call to Ministry Story, intercultural, Joshua So, San Francisco Chinese Mennonite Church

A Call to Lament, Repentance, and Action

June 4, 2020 by Cindy Angela

We are the newly named “Mosaic” and find ourselves immediately facing a challenge to this new picture of “us” together.  Can the pieces of the “mosaic” lament, repent, intercede, and act together in a way that reflects the whole body of Christ?

But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. (1 Corinthians 12:24-26)

We must remember the radical Anabaptist history and origin that we claim as Mennonites. This legacy is grounded in a costly and visible resistance to both the State and Church of that day, who sought to maintain the rule of “law and order” through domination. Anabaptists were ready to resist to the point of death so that the law of love and the way of Jesus would be amplified and accessible to all people.

To those within our conference who identify as Black, African American, Afro-Latinx,  Caribbean American, of African descent or part of the African Diaspora. First, we want to emphatically affirm that your lives matter and that you are made in the image of the Divine. Your pain is our pain, we will mourn when you mourn and laugh when you laugh. You are not alone and we commit to stand by and with you—following your lead and taking responsibility for our part in dismantling the evil forces of racism, white supremacy, and anti-blackness that seek to harm and hurt you.

To those who are People of the Global Majority, with an identity other than Black. We also see your pain and struggle to not to be crushed by the systems of white supremacy. It is critical to find new ways not to segregate nor assimilate with the white dominant culture. Our goal is mutual transformation, but in order to get to that, the evil spirit that is at work must be identified. Siding with the dominant culture without awareness will not only make People of the Global Majority lose their identity but also part of the problem. Also—it is crucial to find ways to be in solidarity with Black people, sharing in the struggle, knowing that any beliefs that say that Black Lives don’t matter also applies to other minoritized groups. Because when Black lives matter, all lives will matter.

To those who are white within our conference. Choose to commit to your own work of repentance by educating yourselves about our shared, complex, and painful history of race in this nation, which has resulted in the inequities, injustice, and disparities of today.  Examine yourself in the light of Scripture and the Spirit of truth, written and spoken work of people of color, and the numerous resources that are available on the topics of equity and social justice. Have ears to ear and a heart to understand and move to lament and repentance for the ways whiteness and white supremacy have lived in our hearts and in our churches.  Act for racial justice.

Below is a list of resources we have compiled to support you in this critical time of resistance in our shared history as Anabaptists in the U.S. Please know that the Mosaic Intercultural Team is available for continued support and as a resource as well. 

Resources:


 

Recursos para hablar sobre Racismo

 

From Mennonite Church USA

  • Mennonite Church USA statement on racial injustice by Mennonite Church Executive Board staff
  • Prayers of Lament, compiled by MC USA
  • We need to engage in more costly peacemaking by Glen Guyton, MC USA Executive Director

Articles

  • Finding Steady Ground, 7 behaviors to cultivate spiritual and internal strength in these times.
  • Stop Talking About Racial Reconciliation and Start Talking About White Supremacy by Erna Kim Hackett
  • Racial Trauma is Real, a guide to developing self care practices to recover from racial trauma for People of Color/People of the Global Majority in the U.S. by Maryam M. Jernigan, Carlton E. Green, Leyla Pérez-Gualdrón, Marcia Liu, Kevin T. Henze,  Cynthia Chen, Kisha N. Bazelais, Anmol Satiani, Ethan H. Mereish, Janet E. Helms.
  • White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
  • 20+ Allyship Actions for Asians to Show Up for the Black Community Right Now
  • ANTI-RACISM FOR ASIAN AMERICANS

Podcasts and Videos

Irresistible Podcast, a podcast with interviews, practices and resources for healing justice work.

White Women’s Toxic Tears – Lisa Sharon Harper conversation with Jen Hatmaker.

https://www.facebook.com/lisasharonharper.page/videos/252787745783037/

13th,  is a 2016 American documentary by director Ava DuVernay. The film explores the “intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States;” it is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1865, which abolished slavery throughout the United States and ended involuntary servitude except as a punishment for conviction of a crime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8

Just Mercy– a movie about the work of Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative (free movie rent on YouTube)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7MxXxFu6fI

Additional list of Intercultural Resources from http://mosaicmennonites.org/intercultural/

 

Filed Under: Articles, Blog

The Work of Mourning and Speaking

June 4, 2020 by Steve Kriss

by Steve Kriss, Executive Minister

“Blessed are those who mourn …
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after justice.”
—Jesus, Sermon on the Mount

“We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
—Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

I was horrified watching the video of the arrest and killing of George Floyd from Minneapolis last week.

I mourn the loss of Mr. Floyd’s life. I lament that his death is part of the 400-year legacy of violence against Black people and African Americans in the United States. I cannot simply look away from the history or the current reality. I extend my sympathies to the family and community that knew and loved him.

Over the last week, I have reflected on the story of when Jesus turned over the tables at the temple. Jesus was also angry about injustices that denied the image of God imprinted on all people. I want to seek justice and move toward holy anger like Jesus. In today’s context, this means moving toward understanding the anger of others who carry the fear and consequences of generations of white supremacy and racial injustice. This means moving toward seeking racial justice that allows the full flourishing of all people and all places as God intends.

I acknowledge the pain, frustration and fear of my friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors who are Black and African American. My silence betrays my friendships, my commitments, and my understanding of God’s call in my own life and within my role as Executive Minister in our Conference. Silence becomes complicity in systemic violence against Black and Brown people. As a white male Christian, I want to continue to find ways to name and dismantle white supremacy in all the ways that it manifests both personally and corporately. I have to do my own work of addressing power, privilege, and responsibility. This means learning to share power, to openly share resources, and to actively resist narratives that seek to dehumanize or devalue the lives of Black and Brown people.

I feel particularly raw these days as my own city of Philadelphia has erupted in protest and disruption. I am currently writing while we are under curfew. I hear and feel the weighty concern and frustration of colleagues.

I am committed to our work together of intercultural transformation and racial justice. Part of that work means sharing the struggle of Black and African American members, neighbors, colleagues, family, and friends. This means bearing witness to anger, fear, and frustration. Mutual transformation can be long and uncomfortable work but it can also be hopeful and joy-filled. This means to be changed in relationships and through what I am learning about us as a mosaic of people with different backgrounds and experiences—Black, Brown, White, Asian, Latinx and even more specifically as African, Indonesian, Slavic, Colombian, Vietnamese, Mexican, Germanic, Indian, Jamaican, Haitian, and Chinese.

I am committed to continuing to lead us in ongoing repentance, mutual transformation, and dismantling the framework of white supremacy. I am committed to acting in ways that exhibit and proclaim that Black lives matter. We cannot embrace silent complicity while embracing our new Mosaic Conference identity. God is calling us into something new that means leaving some things behind, including our history as the Quiet in the Land.

One of our legacies as Mennonites in Philadelphia was to be part of the first public protest from white folks against slavery in this hemisphere. I want to lead in ways that help us recover the well of spiritual depth that empowered our Mennonite forebearers to speak out against injustice and inhumanity. Those of us who are white Mennonites have lost some of that spiritual fire and capacity in our relative comfort. Jesus did not hesitate to speak truth and to bear witness to both religious and civil authorities. Neither can we.

In our newness as Mosaic Conference, in the midst of social upheaval, in the midst of a pandemic, I still believe that the Spirit is upon us with power to be witnesses. These days, that witness includes underscoring the value of Black lives. It means crying not only for peace but also for justice. It means mourning together and seeking justice together knowing that Jesus promises we will both be comforted and satisfied.

The work lies ahead of us, within us, all around us.  And I know for sure that God is in it with us.

Filed Under: Articles, Blog

A New Name on Pentecost Comes with Power and Possibilities

June 3, 2020 by Emily Ralph Servant

Eastern District & Franconia Conference has become Mosaic Mennonite Conference, a change that was announced during a conference-wide virtual worship service on Pentecost Sunday.

“As the reconciled Eastern District & Franconia Conference, we are excited about the future that God is calling us into,” conference moderator Ken Burkholder (Deep Run East congregation, Perkasie, PA) said in the announcement video on May 31. “We believe it is appropriate to mark this transition in our collective history with a new name.”

This new name, Mosaic Mennonite Conference, was affirmed by the conference board in February 2020 after a year-long process that included two rounds of focus groups over four months.  The Naming Task Force received suggestions of nearly fifty names; “Mosaic” was a clear favorite in the focus group testing, popular across the conference’s cultures and geographies, and translates well into the conference’s other five worshiping languages: 匯聚愛門諾區會 (Chinese), Konfwanz Menonit Mozayik (Haitian Creole), Mosaic Konferensi Mennonite (Indonesian), Conferencia Menonita Mosaico (Spanish), and Giáo hội Mennonite Đa chủng tộc (Vietnamese).

This creation of something new out of many parts was central to the choice of the new name.  “We’re different people—we’re allowed to experience Jesus in different ways,” reflected Danilo Sanchez, Conference Youth Formation Pastor.  “Each piece in this new mosaic that we’re forming has the ability to shine and be bright and to feel like they have value and worth.”

The name “Mosaic” also captures the “celebration of lots of things coming together in explosive and creative ways,” observed conference board member Yvonne Platts (Nueva Vida Norristown [PA] New Life congregation).  “I go back to an African proverb that we’ve been using lately that ‘I am because we are.’”

Mosaic Mennonite Conference was formed by the reconciliation of Eastern District Conference and Franconia Conference in 2019 and the transfer of congregations in California and Florida from Pacific Southwest and Southeast Conferences in 2017 and 2020.  The new conference is now one of the largest and most diverse in Mennonite Church USA.

Pentecost was chosen as the day for stepping into a new name and a new identity because it’s about transformation, Executive Minister Steve Kriss said in his Pentecost message.  “The times when names of people are changed in the biblical story represent a turn.  We are turning in the midst of a crisis,” he said, referring to the COVID-19 quarantine, the economic downturn, and the waves of #BlackLives Matter protests around the country.  “We did not plan this time.  This is God’s time for us to gain a new name.  To receive power.  To recognize our gifts.”

Steve Kriss brought a live message via Zoom during the Pentecost worship service.

Part of the transformation the new conference was experiencing, Kriss acknowledged, was to move away from an identity of “The Quiet in the Land.” To be true to the conference’s missional, intercultural, and formational commitments, Mosaic Mennonites will be a people who speak boldly and express the justice of God. “It’s a vulnerable time,” he said.  But “the Spirit has given each of us unique gifts that are held together ‘for the common good’ [1 Corinthians 12:7, NIV].  We recognize that it is time, also, to raise our voice.”

The fire of the Spirit is “not only upon us, not only around us, but deeply inside of us, individually and together,” Kriss reflected.  “May our new name, on these most strange days of Pentecost, shape new possibilities: for us, for our neighbors, and for the whole world.”

Watch the video announcement or the Pentecost Worship service.  Learn more about Mosaic Mennonite Conference at MosaicMennonites.org.

Filed Under: Articles, Blog

Bicycles, Fishing, and Bacon – But Mostly Bikes

June 3, 2020 by Conference Office

by Scott Roth, Leadership Minister

Many of you know I have a passion for bicycles, fishing, and bacon.  These have always been little hobbies of mine and throughout them I have put Jesus at the center.  I know it sounds silly to say bacon and Jesus, but there has been fruitful ministry with bacon over the years.

There is an old phrase that I love, “When life gives you lemons…make bacon.”  Well it seems this phrase has been rewritten during this season of COVID-19 to be, “When life hands you a pandemic…go ride a bicycle!”

There is a bicycle revolution happening right now in the United States.  Bicycle shop sales are up 71% and inventory of new bicycles is scarce.  People are out riding bikes in record numbers!  We have not seen this transportation trend in our culture since the car revolution.

Bicycling ministry has been a passion of mine over the past five years.  As the director of Bike & Sol and a pastor, I have been afforded so many opportunities to enter into people’s lives in deep meaningful ways.  Bicycles can make someone very approachable when riding around. When someone rides a bike, they may be enjoying the natural high that happens when endorphins run through our body, letting us know we are having a good time.

Why do I promote bicycles so much? The answer: Church. If you want a really, really, really easy way to be missional and get to know people in your neighborhood, go ride a bike.  Ride around and say hi to your neighbors.  Find others that want to ride and go connect.  Riding is such a safe and easy way to social distance and get around.

You can ride on trails, roads, or wherever makes sense to ride.  This is a really low hanging fruit way of doing relational ministries.  It’s really simple.  You pedal and talk about your life and ask questions about the people’s lives around you.  How was your week? What was work like? How’s the family?  Listen and engage.  Bicycles create such a neutral ground for us to interact.

What about discipleship ministry?  Just as you can reach out missionally, you can also reach those who are within your own faith community.  Pray for someone that God may be calling you to mentor and disciple and ask them to go for a ride.  Just ride and talk and enjoy the nature around you.  Maybe a peer of yours needs some time with you, or maybe there is someone in your congregation who needs an invitation to ride.

There are so many opportunities that are available right NOW for being Christ-like in a healthy, positive way with a bicycle. But what happens after the pandemic?  We hope that we can keep this momentum going and keep on pedaling with our neighbors and folks in our communities at large.

However you choose to use them, bicycles are an opportunity.  With our bicycles, there are simple ways that we as the church can be relevant and relational in our neighborhoods and our faith communities.  If you have questions or thoughts or want ideas on riding ministries, please contact me directly at scott@bikeandsol.com

Filed Under: Articles, Blog Tagged With: Bike and Sol, coronavirus, formational, Scott Roth

Considerations for Community Gathering During a Pandemic

May 21, 2020 by Steve Kriss

Many churches are turning to the question of re-gathering in person for worship. How does re-opening, re-gathering, or refraining from gathering express our love of God?

by Steve Kriss, Executive Minister

Two months ago, I wrote an article about why we might postpone, cancel, or shift to online meetings. Now, many of us are approaching months of physical distancing and social/spiritual solidarity.  For most, the time has felt long. We have been challenged in ways we couldn’t have predicted.

Many of us are turning to the question of re-gathering in person.  Throughout this time as a Conference, we have emphasized the “Jesus Creed” of love of God and neighbor.   As we consider possibilities, I suggest several postures while keeping these questions at the center of our discernment:

  • How does our re-opening, re-gathering, or refraining from gathering express our love of God?
  • In our in-person or dispersed acts of community, how do we embody and extend our love for our neighbors?

Posture 1: Consider the vulnerable.

Paul reminds us that, as one body, we honor those who are vulnerable with a heightened sense of care.  Does our gathering together increase our risk?  Yes, inevitably it does.  But how can we release more vulnerable persons from responsibilities in ways that also honor their desire to be in community?

Ripple Community Inc, in Allentown, PA, did this well by introducing new precautions and by shifting staff members who are over the age of 60, to more behind-the-scenes roles. Younger staff remained in forward facing/interactive roles.

Considerations for persons over 65, immuno-compromised, and/or caregivers for vulnerable persons must be in our minds as we think about what it means to gather together again. Jesus promises that he’s present when just two or three of us are together.  How can we create environments that are welcoming, hospitable, and minimize the negatives of risk?

Posture 2: Consider guidance from local public health and government leaders.

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, where Conference offices are located, had requested that religious communities not gather in person. I appreciated that this was a request not a mandate. We are reminded in our gathering of our witness as salt and light in our communities. While we understand the laws of the land do not establish our moral compass, we encourage communities to cooperate with local public health directives and government requests regarding in-person gathering. This means keeping up to date and aware of changing contexts and situations in our local communities.

Posture 3: Consider responsibilities over rights.

Sometimes in the United States, our go-to response is to point to the Bill of Rights.  We have the right to assemble and the privilege of religious freedom.  But as Christians, we know that freedom in Christ also comes with significant responsibility. For some of our congregations, this has meant using our meetinghouses to provide food for neighbors or opening our spaces for blood drives. We have the freedom to not be overcome by fear, but we have the responsibility to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.  We live in tension between seeking the common good and individual conscience.  We recognize that others might make different decisions in discernment of how to live our responsibilities as a witness of Christ’s healing and hope in our communities.

Posture 4: Consider new possibilities.

The pandemic has been an interruption in our regular lives and schedules.  It has indeed been stressful.  However it has also opened new possibilities. Some of us have moved to online worship.  Some of us have planted gardens.  Some of our churches report new faces in worship. There have been new opportunities for witness.  How do we not too quickly jump back to “what was” out of familiarity?  How might the Spirit be inviting us to change and respond?

We believe in a God who sustains, redeems, and brings transformation in the midst of struggle. As we consider how to creatively extend Christ’s peace, we have opportunity to bear witness of God’s love and care for one another, both nearby and around the world.

Filed Under: Articles, Blog Tagged With: coronavirus, Steve Kriss

Shalom Fund

May 15, 2020 by Conference Office

Give to the
Shalom Mutual Aid Fund



See our video gallery of Stories of Conference Life during Quarantine

“With great power, they gave witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.  Great grace was upon them. And no one among them lacked anything.”  (Acts 4.33-34)

The COVID-19 virus outbreak has brought unprecedented change and challenge across the communities in our Conference, unlike what many of us have experienced in our lifetimes.  In our Conference’s most vulnerable communities, the needs have become apparent immediately: food and support, shelter and prayer. Alongside the needs have come opportunities to offer relief in ways that allow us to express our love of God and neighbor so that “no one among us will lack anything.”

Our Conference launched the Shalom Fund to help our congregations and ministries respond to members and neighbors in ways that provide support for basic and essential needs. Our goal is to raise at least $100,000 to sustain congregations and communities through this crisis.

Leadership ministers have done initial assessments around four areas of need:  congregations, pastors, members, and neighborhoods. The needs have been immediate for those who have lost employment (at least 1 in 6 workers in Pennsylvania) and for those who fall in the gaps of government social service initiatives.   This is our opportunity to be the Church, remembering that Jesus tells us that he is present whenever we feed the hungry or provide water for the thirsty.

Our congregations and ministries have already begun to respond:

  • In North Philadelphia, Crossroads Community Center is a long-term presence that has become even more crucial in a time when critical needs for food and support become more apparent.
  • In South Philadelphia, Nations Worship, Centro de Alabanza, Indonesian Light, and Philadelphia Praise congregations are joining together to provide food and support, distributing potatoes, rice, noodles, and eggs to members and neighbors.
  • In Allentown, PA, Ripple Community Inc and Ripple Church are meeting the basic needs for food and support for persons who live on the margins in one of the Pennsylvania cities where COVID-19 has become most prevalent.
  • In Tampa, FL, Pastor Roy Williams of College Hill congregation has declared, “We made a commitment that people wouldn’t die of hunger in the midst of the virus.”  College Hill joined with Shalom and North Tampa congregations in extending their ministry of food and support in this vulnerable time.

The Shalom Fund empowers our congregations and ministries by making sure our members have enough resources to represent the peace of Christ in their neighborhoods.  This is a real and immediate crisis. Our Conference is uniquely positioned to respond in tangible ways that care for the most vulnerable members of our body and, at the same time, to extend that care to our communities, in the way of Jesus.

We have already begun to respond to urgent needs.  Will you consider sharing your resources—rainy day funds, congregational endowed funds, stimulus checks, gas money—so that our witness can together go out with great power across our Conference?

Our Christian witness is tested and strengthened in times of crisis.  Now is such a time, as we extend the great gift of grace that we have received in this season of remembering and celebrating the resurrection, and as we look toward Pentecost … with hope.

In the name of the Risen One,
Stephen Kriss, Executive Minister
Ken Burkholder, Moderator

(Download PDF: Why Support the Shalom Fund?)

Filed Under: Articles, Blog

Jesus Never Said You Should Use LED Light Bulbs

May 13, 2020 by Conference Office

by Jennifer H. Schrock, Mennonite Creation Care Network

Members of Taftsville (VT) Chapel Mennonite Fellowship participated in a spring clean-up of their native plantings around their church building last month. Photo credit: Jennifer Schrock

Mennonite Creation Care Network (MCCN) has selected an Eastern District & Franconia Conference congregation, Taftsville (VT) Chapel Mennonite Fellowship, to receive its first annual Art and Jocele Meyer Award.

The award recognizes exemplary creation care at the congregational level and the creation care liaison’s role in communicating with the broader network. It includes a $500 donation to the congregation’s creation care efforts.

Taftsville’s liaison is Heather Wolfe, a dietician and wellness coach who has also authored the forthcoming Herald Press book, “Sustainable Kitchen: Recipes and Inspiration for Plant-based, Planet-Conscious Meals.”

Wolfe has been in the role since 2016 and spearheaded a number of initiatives. These range from installing solar panels to landscaping with native plantings to holding an intergenerational conversation on climate change. Wolfe has created a webinar outlining the steps that their congregation took to create a culture of creation care as a guide to help other churches do similar work.

Many of the church’s actions stem from completing MCCN’s Greener Congregation Score Sheet. The scoresheet encourages congregations to look at creation care from multiple angles, from identifying green leaders to landscaping decisions to worship. The results can provide a road map for years to come.

An intergenerational discussion on climate change at Taftsville (VT) Chapel Mennonite Fellowship allows those under 40 and over 40 to take turns listening to each other. Heather Wolfe, the congregation’s creation care liaison, is in the center facing forward. Photo credit: Jennifer Schrock

Taftsville Pastor Steve McCloskey said one of the first things he knew about the church before his initial interview in 2017 was that the members had chosen to install solar panels.  “I saw life in the church,” he said. “I saw that this church is not just thinking about themselves as a congregation but asking, ‘How can we be part of a solution to a broader problem?’ ”

To McCloskey, it showed a seriousness about loving one’s neighbors, even if the neighbors were on the other side of the world or still unborn. He said his role is often to help clarify the connection between the Bible and an emphasis on caring for the Earth.

“Jesus never says you should put LED light bulbs in your home or ride bicycles,” McCloskey said. “Why does our faith imply that we should make decisions that are healing to the Earth? I like wrestling with those questions, and Heather does a good job of keeping those questions on our minds.”

Wolfe said she’s always giving credit to the Holy Spirit. “We are just vessels of this Spirit at work in our congregation,” she said.

She is grateful creation care has made the church visible to the local community and attractive to new attendees. “People associate our faith tradition with care for creation,” Wolfe said.

 

A version of this article originally appeared in Mennonite World Review and is used with permission.

Filed Under: Articles, Blog Tagged With: creation care, Heather Wolfe, Mennonite Creation Care Network, Steve McCloskey, Taftsville Chapel Mennonite Fellowship

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