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The little things add up at Ambler
Learning to like funny cake and wear batik
Stephen Kriss, Philadelphia Praise Center
We still eat Mrs. Benner’s funny cake* from Landis Supermarkets at the Mennonite Conference Center, though some days Claude Good or other staff banter in Spanish and someone could be caught decked out in Indonesian batik. In these pages, you’ll see not only the stories of who we are becoming, but who we are—an increasingly polyglot people ministering and witnessing through the strengths of a historic community. Diversity is more and more not a message we preach, but a reality that we live. We find ourselves both invigorated and challenged with the pushes and pulls that diverse communities encounter. For those of us who are legacy Mennonites with deep biological roots sometimes this is disorienting. For those of us who find our lives newly woven into the Anabaptist fabric, the navigation can be confusing as well.
These are exciting days to be a part of Franconia Conference, I think. Though it’s not an easy time, it is a time of re-imagining and re-discovery. In the pages of this issue of Intersections, we see how some of those possibilities are incarnated with gifted leaders who are responding to God’s call toward credentialed pastoral ministry. We see how Conference Related Ministries extend the mission of the church through ongoing work and new partnership. We can read about how the Ambler congregation responds to the pain and possibility in their community and about new opportunities to engage with our British partners through the Anabaptist Network.
It’s a different time in Franconia Conference. We haven’t any bishops and our newly credentialed ministers are as likely to be Asian as they are to be a Derstine. We’re invited to negotiate together differently, understanding differing priorities of time and money, ways of leading and following, of saving and giving away. And these differences don’t just exist on the conference-wide level, it’s the reality in the life of our congregations as well. Our leaders have a unique challenge to listen well and lead with clarity in the midst of changing dynamics.
As I read these stories and as I have traveled among diverse Franconia Conference congregations over the last few months, I wonder what it is that we need to learn. I’ve just started an Italian language class. It’s a few hours a week that pushes me to say things in new ways, to watch for patterns, to listen carefully. I know that these days, my Italian is about as fluent as a toddler’s. I need to keep focused on my work as I struggle to learn, following up on assignments and listening to Italian when I can during the week. This educational venture requires both my careful attention and a bit of vulnerability.
One of the things this issue of Intersections suggests is the hopeful possibilities that are out there when we keep learning, responding to our communities, to God and to the faithfulness of the past, the potential of the present and the mystery of the future. Slovene thinker Slavoj Zizek says that when everything seems to be askew we need to learn, learn, learn. In the midst of a time when diverse experience, background and perspective is our everyday encounter, we find ourselves pulled closer and closer to the realization that to glimpse the reign of God requires childlike openness as Jesus suggested in the Gospels.
Openness to learn—whether it’s learning to like new foods, speak new languages or respond to unfamiliar situations—requires both humility and boldness. It’s an opem admission that we don’t exactly know what we are doing and the boldness to be able to learn even in the midst of possible failure. In my Italian class, the more I speak the familiar words of Spanish, the less Italian I actually learn. It’s easier to fall back on the more familiar than to press into the struggle of learning something new. Learning requires us to confront what we don’t know and to move away from assumptions of our own omniscience, which we say belongs to God alone anyway.
Intersections continues to highlight how and what we’re learning and who we’re becoming. We tell these stories to offer hope for the journey, to equip us for the path we’re on and to strengthen our faith for the road ahead. May we continue to learn as we live the stories of fruitfulness from humble beginnings and illuminate the lessons that emerge in the midst of striving toward boldly embracing God’s mission in these days when some of us are learning to like funny cake and others are finding ways to sing God’s praise in languages we have never imagined.
*A vanilla cake and chocolate syrup breakfast pie distinct to the suburbs just north of Philadelphia.
A journey toward hope: Reflections from southern borders
To whom much is given: Cultivating peace in unexpected places
A familiar irony: Coaxed to leave the path of security
My call to ministry has similarities to my first experience with a high ropes course as a young adult leader nearly 15 years ago. My great fear of heights kept my feet firmly planted on the ground as one risk-taker after another shimmied up the tree to accept the challenge. I was content and quite comfortable in my role as “encourager,” coaxing others on from the safety and security of the solid ground below. Yet in spite of the overwhelming sense of panic and fear that gripped me to think about trying it myself, there was a still small voice deep within me calling and inviting me to step out and do it. After relentless prodding by the group I reluctantly stepped into the harness and cautiously shimmied up the tree. Somehow perched high above the ground desperately clinging to anything I could hold onto I was able to see with more clarity. It was clear that I prefer to be in control and that I tend to choose the pathway to comfort and security. However, as I cautiously eased my grip it also became clear there is greater freedom, life, adventure and potential when learning to trust God by surrendering my control.My journey in ministry began innocently enough as I accepted a three year term on our congregation’s Mission Commission in 1992. I was immediately given the task of being the point person in developing a relationship with our sister church in Puebla, Mexico. Within six months I was making my first of many trips to Puebla. In the following years my world view was challenged, expanded and reshaped by my interaction and relationships with our brothers and sisters from Mexico. I became increasingly dissatisfied with the “me generation” values that influenced my life and I began to more fully open myself to God’s leading and direction. Yet even this new openness did not prepare me for where God was leading.In the fall of 1996 our church leadership began to discuss the idea of sending a family from Franconia to Puebla as a next step in our sister church relationship. Although I felt a sense of God’s call the very first time I heard the idea I resisted by tightening my grip. My excuses for not considering a move to Puebla seemed valid and logical. Neither my wife nor I spoke any Spanish. I lacked training and formal education. I thoroughly enjoyed my occupation and had invested nearly 15 years with the same company. Our stage of life as parents with young children seemed to suggest this just wasn’t the right time. Truth be told, when I honestly allowed myself to process the possibility of pulling up roots from all that was familiar for the uncertainty and unknown of Mexico it seemed more terrifying than the experience with the ropes course several years earlier. Yet at the same time, with familiar irony, there was another voice deep within me encouraging and calling me to loosen my grip.After months of prayer, discernment and seeking counsel we came to believe it was God calling us to let go and set out on a new journey in Mexico. Mexico was a place of growth, learning, exploring and having our gifts affirmed. Our faith was both stretched and strengthened as we learned to minister and be ministered to in a new context. As God graciously transformed our lives we were blessed to see other lives powerfully transformed as well. Many times throughout our eight years in Mexico God would again invite me to surrender my control and more fully trust in God’s grace and goodness.In the fall of 2005 we returned to Franconia for a time of discernment, feeling God had released us from our ministry in Mexico, but not yet knowing what was next. With much prayer and counsel from trusted leaders and our discernment team we accepted our current assignment at Franconia Mennonite Church where I serve as an Associate Pastor with a focus on Mission and Outreach. Today I get excited about ministries like Celebrate Recovery and our Spanish outreach which open doors for the church to share God’s love with our wider community. I’m convinced there are many people outside our church walls who long to know Jesus and desire to be part of a life-changing community of faith. Yet I suspect that these persons too have fears and insecurities that keep them holding tightly to what seems most familiar and comfortable. So I continue to think of myself as an encourager coaxing others on in this journey of faith. However, I too continue to learn as I go. I’m learning that God’s love and God’s path often call me to let go of the comforts and familiarity I seek so that his blessing can flow through me. I’m learning that God is still encouraging me to loosen my grip. But I’m also discovering that in the process there is greater freedom, life and potential that God always meant for us to enjoy.
Stepping on rakes: Reflecting on a journey of adventure
When I was a kid I had an imaginary friend, which embarrassed me later because it seemed weird. Maybe it was, but it got me used to being slightly off, like when I have strange dreams that seem to mean something if I can only figure it out. That was the interior life of a farm boy from western PA. Looking back, it seemed like I was always leaning toward something, though I seldom knew exactly what. Somewhere along the way I got the impression that an imagination is something of a call to ministry, if not a qualification.One evening, waiting for a ride to Bible school, I stepped on a garden rake intentionally to see if what happened in cartoons would also happen in real life. That was not the last time I tried something just to see what would happen. Sometimes the result was painful but usually there was an “aha!” and I always learned something. I kept stepping on rakes through college at Eastern Mennonite and voluntary service (MVS). Fortunately there was often more joy and insight than facial injury. Joanne Brenneman and I met in MVS, married the following summer and moved to Richmond, Va., two weeks later. That too was an adventure – we knew almost no one and thought we might be there for two or three years.What fun to marry someone with a similar sense of adventure, who can walk into a rundown house and imagine what we could do. After a semester pilgrimage to Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary I finished my master’s studies at Union Seminary in Richmond. Joanne spied the rake of medical school, then stepped out.We did not need imaginary friends because we made hundreds in Richmond. I became pastor of First Mennonite, a church that accepts being Anabaptist and adventurous as the same thing. I have had the privilege of assuming an ancient Book with stories of God’s people can somehow enlighten our path, and finding that with imagination, it does.We had not envisioned that our two daughters would grow up with southern accents. After 18 years in Richmond, we looked north and spied a land across the Potomac. Joanne accepted a position as radiologist at Doylestown Hospital, where her father had practiced, and we found a place by the Indian Creek near Harleysville, Pa. This too was adventure. It is fair to say that something in our experience and outlook had us feeling both akin to and at odds with a traditional Mennonite setting. We found many people who like to laugh and dream, even though we might look around sometimes to see who is watching.I accepted a call to pastor West Swamp in Quakertown, Pa. The leaders of the congregation and I knew that I might stand alongside the mold of traditional pastor but would not fit into it. There was enough imagination that we could put together the beginnings of a new congregational structure and vision where leadership and responsibility are shared. I count it success that after six years most people would laugh at my humor. They gave me a rock from the oldest foundation of the church as a gift and the thought of that ebenezer still moves me. The foundation of a new core leadership had been laid, both fresh and deeply trusted.Soon after I went to West Swamp, the Eastern District Conference asked me to be moderator. When I was introduced as having also been moderator of Virginia Conference, one colleague murmured that I must be a slow learner. Sometimes it is more fun that way. A third term on the Penn View School board also keeps me among people who like to look beyond what is, who like to learn as much as the students do.A few months between calls brought rest and an adjustment in our family’s identity. Visiting and preaching in other congregations, travel and time to catch up on projects has been a privilege, but there was always the question of “what next?” The Bally congregation had a similar experience. They asked me late this summer to be Interim Preaching Pastor, to provide some continuity while they move through their transition. I have agreed to journey with them while we both discern the next steps. So here in yet another place we get to imagine how the ancient stories are lived today and how God can speak to us in our dreams.