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Visible and Invisible Realms

October 13, 2016 by Conference Office

By Noel Santiago

Colossians 1:16 (NIV), “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.”

While Colossians 1:16 clearly states that God created the “visible and invisible,” could we say that we in the west rely more on what we see than what we don’t see? Is it fair to say that we don’t always believe nor live as if the spirit world is real? I wonder if this is because we have grown up under the influence of the enlightenment movement, that swept Europe around 300 year ago, claiming if you can’t prove it scientifically, it doesn’t exist.

I appreciate and value much of what science has helped bring forth. Indeed, many of the early scientist themselves where Christians. However, there seems to be many challenges for us in the west when it comes to believing and living as if the spirit is real.

First, the challenge with the scientific method is: how do you prove the existence of say, angels, demons or God for that matter — especially, when they don’t hang around long enough for us to conduct reproducible scientific experiments that yield the same results, which is one of the fundamental requirements of the scientific method.

Another challenge is that while we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, we forget that it is also a Middle Eastern book whose worldview is quite different than the western worldview. In this worldview, the spirit realm is very real and evident in our lives. So as westerners, with a culture where anything not scientifically proven is superstitious or folk tradition, we have a greater challenge to see the spirit realm.

There is also the notion of the “God gap” that exists within in our society. The God gap says that science will eventually be able to answer all questions we don’t have answers to now and consequently we won’t need God or the spirit world to help us understand and explain what we don’t know.

The Bible talks about binding and loosing (Mt 16:19); whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven, etc. This is the interplay between these two realms, the realm of what you can see and touch and the realm of what you cannot see and touch.

The Colossian text tells us that the spirit world is real! It’s as real as the world in which we live, for out of it came all things that exist, into existence! Might we take some time to consider the possibility that the spirit world is just as real as the physical world? What, if any, difference might this make in our lives, our communities of faith and in the world?

Worthy of our Calling to Extend Christ’s Peace

September 29, 2016 by Conference Office

by Stephen Kriss

During the last staff meeting in this space in between, I invited my colleagues to share their celebrations and questions for the last month. Without exception, the celebrations and questions had to do with pastors. We celebrate the completion of pastoral search processes, with the beginning of Mike Spinelli’s leadership at Perkiomenville; the call of Maria Hosler Byler to an associate pastor role at Salford; Josh Jefferson’s installation and licensing last Sunday at Souderton as a youth pastor; and Sandy Drescher-Lehman’s beginning as pastor at Methacton. Many of these processes were lengthy discernments. We celebrate the new beginnings and new possibilities that leadership can bring in the life of our communities.

Conference staff took a road trip with Pastor Bruce Eglinton-Woods (Salem), to explore the community where the congregation is ministering.

Our questions had to do with how we walk with pastors and congregations through difficult times. We wonder how God will provide with prolonged pastoral search processes at Franconia and Taftsville. We prayed as John Bender from Allentown who was in the hospital making difficult decisions between life and death, as he was readmitted to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia (he made the decision by the time our meeting had ended). We prayed for an upcoming surgery that Charlie Ness from Perkiomenville will be undergoing. These are all things we attend to as staff beyond our meeting time and carry in our hearts and heads.

The last month has meant focused attention on planning for Conference Assembly — a great time to celebrate the work God is doing in our midst, and spend time discerning and equipping ourselves for the future. Registration and the docket are available at http://edc-fmc.org/assembly/ to help us, as a conference, prepare for assembly at Penn View Christian School. Postcard invitations and posters will be coming to your congregations in the next two weeks. We’ve hosted and gotten some feedback from our time with David Boshart (moderator-elect) from Mennonite Church USA. We’re prepping for his return at assembly to discuss more specific issues around human sexuality that continue to challenge our capacity to be church together, while going to the margins to be and proclaim the Good News.

Our conference executive minister Ertell M. Whigham comes back on the job on Saturday, October 1. My season of this stretch of the race as acting executive minister has passed. I’m ready to return the baton and responsibilities back to Ertell as he navigates the next few months. I’ve learned a lot in these months. I’ve been busier than usual with meetings, emails, texts and phone calls. I have lots of hope for us as a community, but recognize our fragility at the same time. God continues to bless us with flourishing, and challenges enough to test and grow our hearts, minds, and souls.

At the beginning of these three months, I felt drawn to the text to “live a life worthy of my calling.” This time, ending this stretch, I want to turn that text back over to us as individuals and a community, to stay focused on the things we’ve discerned together, and to live, work and minister together in such a way that honors the sense of call that exemplifies what God has invited us toward in extending the peace of Christ to each other and to neighbors nearby and faraway.

An Update on An Experiment in Going to the Margins

September 15, 2016 by Conference Office

By Stephen Kriss

“The first duty of love is to listen.”—Paul Tillich

As part of our practices in this summer space in between, we’ve taken our conference staff meetings “to the margins”, which so far has meant meeting at Doylestown and Alpha congregations for an afternoon to eat, pray and learn alongside the pastors who work in those settings before engaging our regular conference staff agendas. We’ll go to Quakertown to learn about the work of Salem congregation’s engagement with partners and neighbors yet for our last of these meetings later this month.

doylestown — Doylestown Mennonite Church

These going to the margins meetings have felt like holy disruptions of our routine. We’ve received the gracious hospitality of Krista at Alpha, and Randy, KrisAnne and Sandy at Doylestown. We’ve had great ice cream and burritos. We’ve learned by listening to both the possibilities and struggles for ministry and life in one of the wealthiest communities in Bucks County, as well as what it feels like to work and hope just across the Delaware River.

I’m noticing some things that have been happening through our experiment. Some of these things might encourage our continued journey of “going to the margins” for the sake of the Good News. This is a small disruption, a monthly afternoon staff meeting. But breaking our routines invigorates our conversations and builds our relationships together, differently. We carpool. We talk differently and about different things because we are in different spaces. In navigating the logistics of simply going to a different location, we think differently rather than simply showing up in the same place. Our two meetings at the margins have been times when we’ve been highly engaged with one another, even when dealing with routine tasks and procedures (seriously). I look forward to what we’ll learn later this month. A few staff members have asked if we can continue this kind of meeting alongside congregations’ into the future.

Admittedly, it does cost us some extra time and mileage resources to get to these places, which I’d say is well worth the effort thus far. By eating together, we create a different rhythm of gathering that opens conversation differently. By listening and praying with the pastors in their settings, we’ve had opportunities to both bless and to learn. In going to the margins, we find what happens when we respond to Jesus’s declaration to go and then the transformation that happens when we listen to each other and in the midst, to sense the presence of God and discover our hearts are still strangely warmed together on the way in this time in between.

Conferring and Expecting the Spirit to Show Up

August 31, 2016 by Conference Office

by Stephen Kriss

This fall is a season of conversation for Franconia Conference. As the summer winds down and the autumn is upon us, Conference staff are busy with meetings that come before our annual assembly. The Conference’s two task forces and the Faith and Life Commission that have flowed out of our Church Together Statements continue to be accompanied by staff. Aldo Siahaan is walking with the Faith and Life Commission while Ertell Whigham is on sabbatical. Jenifer Erickson-Morales is working with the Addressing Abuse Task Force and John Stotlzfus with the Israel/Palestine Task Force.

In addition, as we prepare for Assembly, we’re coordinating efforts for the upcoming meeting with Mennonite Church USA moderator elect David Boshart on September 10^th, open to all members of Franconia and Eastern District congregations and strongly encouraged for all Franconia pastors and delegates. This meeting will aid in preparing us for items related to assembly and discernment. This upcoming conversation and others that staff will be engaging with will include more information on our relationship with each other, with Eastern District Conference and Mennonite Church USA. These all are important conversations, conferring around healthy relationships that both give and receive counsel.

Board and staff are also fielding requests from congregations that may wish to join our Conference and will need consideration at this fall’s Conference Assembly. Some are new groups, others are migrations from other Mennonite Church USA conferences and some from other denominational affiliations. This is careful conversation and conferring work for sure. We’ll know more about the outcomes this fall.

Staff are also beginning to do some work as the board has requested, including analyzing the percentages of the budget used toward our goals of equipping (around 60%). We’re also taking a look at our staff salaries as the board looks toward the upcoming executive minister transition. It’s a time of evaluating and calibrating.

We’ve also spent some important time together as pastors and credentialed leaders. It wasn’t a formal conferring time, but nonetheless a time of gathering together in Princeton for rest and rejuvenation paid for through a grant given to Everence from the Lilly Foundation toward pastoral excellence. 50 of us gathered at the Erdman Center at Princeton Theological Seminary for a day away. We spent a night out on the town for dinner, heard jazz from the gifted Ruth Naomi Floyd, listened to the input from Calenthia Dowdy, a professor at Eastern University and Jon Heinly, a student at Yale Divinity School. Randy Nyce (Salford congregation) and Jeff Godshall (Franconia congregation) offered input and guidance toward healthy finances for pastors/credentialed leaders for the long haul. It was a good 24 hours together.

There is much happening in this space in between. While we prepare for our gatherings later this fall, we’re conferring and discerning. These conversations guide our patterns for life together as we seek to strengthen the life and work of congregations, ministries and leaders. After 300 years, we are still challenged and enlivened by the possibilities around us. We still gather to talk together, believing the Spirit shows up in our conversations, in our work, in our conferring together.

In other Christian traditions, liturgy is called “the work of the people.” In our tradition, where community is almost sacrament, these patterns of conferring are the work of us as a people together. May the Spirit continue to stir as we gather.

The Everyday Missionary

August 31, 2016 by Conference Office

by Jenifer Eriksen Morales

Jess McQuade and family — Jess McQuade with her husband, John, and children, Katie (15), Aiden (13) and Kieran (11)

Jess McQuade, an Everyday Missionary, is a member of Souderton Mennonite Church, Vice President General Manager for Allebach Communications, wife to John, and mother of three active children. Jess lives according to the overly demanding schedule these roles require. Everyday Missionaries are those who intentionally live the Great Commission to make disciples in the context of their jobs, relationships, homes and ordinary life activities. In her missionary role, Jess ministers to young people by leading a weekly Bible Study in the Souderton Park for swim team members before their morning practice. Her story is inspiring and challenging.

The Souderton Swim Team is one of the many extra-curricular activities Jess’ children participate in. In addition to meets, the family practices 7-10 hours per week nearly year-round. Clearly Jess spends a lot of time at the pool! A few years ago, a friend recommended a book called “Don’t Waste your Sports” by C.J. Mahaney. Jess says it reminded her, “sports are a gift from God, and that we can either use them to glorify God (allowing God to be our focus and priority) or we can use them to try to bring glory to ourselves (not just as athletes, but also as parents of athletes). The Bible study was just one way I thought I could help my kids, and hopefully others, keep focusing on God and give Him the glory in their sports.”

So, two summers ago, Jess began to meet with a group of young swimmers in Souderton Park at 8:00 am, before practice, and before she needed to be at work. All swim team members are welcome to participate. The group does a short game or ice breaker activity, reads a testimony from a Christian athlete with a corresponding Bible passage and discusses what it means to them in everyday life and athletics. Each meeting ends with prayer requests and prayer. According to Jess, “There are always kids who offer to pray for someone else’s prayer request – that is the most awesome thing to hear!”

Not only is Jess nurturing young Jesus-followers through the Bible Study, but she is cultivating leadership. For example, Jess’ daughter and son lead prayer, pick out Bible studies they think would be relevant, and lead some of the games. Next year they are hoping to lead a study on their own. A young adult who grew up at Souderton Mennonite Church, Jessica Wimmer, is a coach on the swim team. She participated with the swimmers and led some of the morning Bible Studies. Jessica notes, “It was great having her involved as an example and motivator for the younger swimmers.”

As the group grows in relationship with Jesus, Jessica hopes the kids “support each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. These swimmers spend a lot of time together. Wouldn’t it be awesome if they could have an opportunity to share their faith, pray for one another, and encourage each other in their faith walk? I want to help them see that God gave them Christian brothers and sisters to walk along with them – they aren’t alone.” Jess aims to “help Christian kids do ‘church’ in their natural, day-to-day environment and not just on Sunday mornings. This is something I still struggle with as an adult. How do you bring your faith into your job, social functions, daily life, etc.? Here’s one way.”

Through this two-year experience in the everyday mission field, Jess has learned that God, “will give you what you need to be able to do what He is calling you to do. I am not a super mom – life is busy and I often live in a state of feeling completely overwhelmed. Adding even a small, simple thing like this Bible study to my plate could almost put me over the edge, but I really felt [God] calling me to do this and each week He gave me the resources and the strength to make it happen. I left each gathering feeling completely energized, blessed, and excited by what God had done in our brief time together.”

The Space In-Between: Work, Hope and Missional Operations Grants

August 18, 2016 by Conference Office

by Stephen Kriss

Over the last ten years, Franconia Conference has released over $500,000 through the Missional Operations Grant (MOG) fund. These grants are tools that help instigate and cultivate missional initiatives connected with our Conference and congregations. They’ve been used broadly over the last decade to cultivate ministries in our local congregations and around the world from India to Indonesia to Mexico and the Caribbean, even assisting in the cleanup after Hurricane Katrina.

As staff work with congregations developing ministries to further the mission and vision of the Kingdom of God and Franconia Conference, they are able to help resource these initiatives with MOGs. Our last staff meeting involved a spirited discussion how to best continue to implement and inform the use of this significant tool justly, fairly, and openly across our congregations.

Congregations are able to apply for MOGs and with the blessing of the LEADership Minister and congregation leadership these applications are passed on to the Ministry Resource Fund Grant Committee. The MOGs approved by the committee focus on ministries within conference congregation or partnerships between congregations and other organizations/ministries. The projects funded are intent on mutuality, rooted in considerations of justice, building on strengths, and calling forth new and next-generation leaders. To see a list of the projects funded in 2015 visit the MOG tab at: http://mosaicmennonites.org/mission/stewardship/.

Last year, due to a change in allocation of funds in the account (reduced from 20% to 10% of total available dollars), there are less funds available causing us to be more strategic this year with the reduced dollars. Already this year 8 MOG grants have been approved mostly to our urban congregations (keep your eye on the MOG webpage at FranconiaConference.org for coming testimonies). With our average grant amount coming in at approximately $4000, we have only enough left in the fund this year to grant possibly two to three additional requests. We’ve capped the requests this year at $5000 per congregation with only a single disbursement likely. Grants are requested through an application process that should be done in consultation with the congregation’s LEADership Ministers and then approved by the Ministry Resource Fund Grant Committee. More information can be found on the MOG tab at: http://mosaicmennonites.org/mission/stewardship/.

The grants allow the Conference and LEADership Ministers to assist in funding creative spaces for our churches. The return on investment of these funds is high though the initiatives themselves don’t always seem successful in a traditional sense of understanding. The grants invite our congregations to take risks for the sake of the dream of God. We trust the outcomes into God’s hands.

Most MOG funds are sourced from estate bequests and contributions from the revenue from Conference-owned properties. This year we are expecting to receive an estate gift that will likely allow an increase in available funds for next year. If you’d like to help boost our ongoing capacity to instigate missional initiatives now and into the future, I’d be glad to talk with you or your congregation. You or your congregation are welcome to donate specifically to the MOG Fund as well. This is important and generative work. It’s a glimpse of the good that comes when we can share the labor together in times of opportunity and possibility.

We still work and hope. And we trust in the power of Christ to take our work and multiply it for the sake of the world.

Learnings from the Wilderness

August 18, 2016 by Conference Office

by John Stoltzfus

“There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.”
~ Wendell Berry

“Why are we doing this, Dad?” exclaimed my daughter in dismay, in one of her low moments, as we walked into the thin air of the Sangre de Cristo mountains high above the desert region of Taos, New Mexico.

In spite of the incredible scenery, I asked myself the same question at various points during our family sabbatical experience in New Mexico. The path we chose for this time away was often full of challenges and obstacles, not the least attempting to climb mountains of 12,000 feet!

One of the constant refrains from our sabbatical host in Taos and wilderness guide extraordinaire, Todd Wynward, is that there is more in you than you know. Wilderness, in the biblical narrative, is often that place where the people of God are transformed and led to discover anew the essential nature of God’s presence in and around us. Much like it was for Moses, it is the place where God shows up in a burning bush if we have the courage to draw close and observe.

My wife, Paula, and our three children spent three weeks this summer, as a part of my sabbatical, exploring this wilderness in and around Taos in an effort to provide an educational environment and pilgrimage for the entire family. After reading Todd Wynward’s book “Rewilding the Way: Break Free to Follow an Untamed God” we were inspired to embark on a journey exploring how we can be shaped into the kind of people God envisions to embrace a new day of justice, mercy and kindness for all the earth.

How can we model to our children and to our world a life that gives witness to the in-breaking wild and wonderful kingdom of God? How can we be made uneasy by, or as Martin Luther King Jr. says, “maladjusted” to, the ways our modern society and culture cause harm to the Earth, to each other, and to our spirituality?

In the pristine high wilderness region of New Mexico, filled with the stunning beauty of wildflowers, aspen trees and cool rushing streams, it is hard to come to grips with the harm we are doing to this planet, God’s good creation, and to one another.

Wen Stephenson, in his book “What We’re Fighting for Now is Each Other,” states that “we are not avoiding the catastrophe that is coming within our century and the lives of our children and grandchildren. Rather we’re plunging headlong toward the worst-case scenarios–critical global food and water shortages, rapid sea-level rise, social upheaval–and beyond.” And more importantly particularly to us as Christians, those least responsible for the climate change, the poor and marginalized, are often the most affected.

The climate is changing so why aren’t we?

My children inspired me on this pilgrimage. They met and surpassed every challenge we put before them. I owe it to them and to all of our children to leave our planet, our earthly home in better shape.

The task before us is difficult. Coming to terms with the climate catastrophe is hard. It is a spiritual struggle. It confronts our deepest questions and values about ourselves. It requires a radical necessity of moral change. It requires our being saved from business-as-usual. It requires us to be grounded in the strength of God’s faithfulness and a faith community where we live into the call to be good stewards of the planet for the well-being of all of God’s creatures.

God will provide in the wilderness. Do we have the courage to see this place as sacred ground and encounter a holy God in the burning bush of our time?

Holy Longing for Communion

August 4, 2016 by Conference Office

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