News

Krista Ehst
kehst@mosaicmennonites.org

When considering what a typical Franconia Conference gathering might look like, most people familiar with the conference would probably not describe an intergenerational and multiethnic gathering in an urban meeting space. On Saturday, June 9th, this was indeed the picture as thirteen persons gathered for the first session of the School of Leadership Formation, held at Nueva Vida Norristown New Life, a Franconia Conference congregation in Norristown, PA, located just outside of Philadelphia.

Led by Franconia Conference staff Steve Kriss, Director of Communication and Leadership Cultivation, and Ertell Whigham, Director of Congregational Equipping and Resourcing, the School for Leadership Formation aims to better equip people for conference and congregational leadership roles. The school includes possibilities for equipping pastoral and congregational leaders while creating broader accessibility for all persons within Franconia Conference congregations to respond to their sense of call as leaders and contributors within the conference community and broader reign of God.

The School for Leadership Formation will likely take many forms, from providing graduate level studies, to holding workshops for young leaders, to meeting with individual congregations. No two persons or groups will participate in the same way, but the classes held this past Saturday will be a standard for everyone intending to serve in conference leadership roles. These classes, entitled “Called to God’s Work” and “Intercultural Leadership and Service,” exemplify the goals of this program.

Thirteen people met for this first training session, representing six conference congregations: Alpha (NJ) Mennonite, Franconia Mennonite (Telford, PA), New Beginnings Community Church (Bristol, PA), Nueva Vida Norristown New Life, Philadelphia Praise Center and Perkasie (PA) Mennonite. With an array of experiences, backgrounds, and ways of serving as leaders, the initial group found points of connection in their desire to serve within the Mennonite church.

Whigham led the first session, titled “Called to God’s Work,” using Isaiah 61:1-4 as a lens for discerning a personal sense of identity and calling in Christ. Several voices from the group led out in repeated readings of inspiring and challenging words: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives…” With these words in the foreground, Whigham led out in a discussion of what it means to be called to God’s work, sharing his own perspective and experiences, but also allowing space for questions and varied experiences of the group to be shared. Isaac Landis, Jr. High Youth Minister at the Franconia congregation, found much value in this first session. “For me as a pastor, it was especially helpful to think again about calling and passion. These are things I thought a lot about during college, but now that I am in the ministry and into the day to day stuff, I don’t listen enough to God and what he is calling me to do and how he has called me.”

The very makeup of the group proved that being called to God’s work often means serving interculturally, which was the basis for Kriss’ session on “Intercultural Leadership and Service.” The group once again found a starting point in scripture, discovering how the story of the early church in Acts 2 & 11 offers possibilities for leadership within a diverse body of believers. Kriss invited the class to think about intercultural praxis, not only acknowledging or talking about intercultural churches, but allowing that reality to inform interactions within and between congregations. Alejandra Lopez, a member of the predominantly Indonesian Philadelphia Praise Center (PPC), found this section especially helpful in her quest to develop a Spanish-speaking ministry through PPC. “I really enjoyed the intercultural praxis section. I do so much with multiculturalism and feel that God has called me to break the barriers that arise in that area. Meetings like this are great ways to begin breaking some of those barriers.”

Conversations and learnings of the day were no doubt relevant to the changes and possibilities occurring within Franconia Conference’s 300 year-old community. “It is both scary and exciting,” Landis said, “to think about how the conference is changing and what that will mean for our future. If we truly want to be a missional people, then we will need to learn how to include persons who are not traditional Mennonites. Talking and thinking through these things was a good experience, and really got me thinking. How can we not only welcome these persons into our fellowship, but include them as brothers and sisters? What will it look like when our churches are filled not only with Moyers and Derstines, but with Moyers, Derstines, Lopezes, and Siahaans?”

The School of Leadership Formation exists to respond to these and other emerging questions and possibilities while embodying the Franconia Conference mission of “equipping leaders to empower others to embrace God’s mission.” Kriss believes that Franconia Conference has a hopeful future. “I am convinced that in our learning and listening together, we’ll continue to be formed and challenged by God’s calling and our interactions with people who transform our worldview.”

Christopher Dock Mennonite High School, Penn View Christian School, and Quakertown Christian School, in partnership with Eastern District Conference and Franconia Mennonite Conference, recently completed a strategic planning process to shape the future of Mennonite/Anabaptist education in the Bux-Mont area. A launch of the five-year plan – GPS 2012: Boldly Opening Doors to Christ-Centered Mennonite Education – was held at the three schools in May. GPS refers to “globally positioned students,” the goal that graduates of all three schools are prepared to make a positive difference around the globe.

The four primary goals of the strategic plan are as follows:

1. Connections
Mission-driven, action-oriented collaboration among schools, families, congregations, and conferences advances Mennonite education in the tri-school area.

2. Accessibility
Mennonite education in the tri-school area is more accessible to our core constituents.

3. Educational Excellence
Mennonite education in the tri-school area is exemplary in its continued pursuit of excellence in Christ-centered teaching and learning with a defined and articulated Mennonite/Anabaptist worldview.

4. Impact
Tri-school community members are recognizable by their Christ-centered impact as pilgrim servants building God’s kingdom locally and globally.

“It is exciting to see the energy of the three boards working together at common issues that we all need to address,” said Bradley C. Landis, chair of Dock’s Board of Trustees. “We need to continue to find ways to reduce the redundancy that we have in our three separate schools and join together in new ways to reach out to our congregations, conferences, and community to support and strengthen Mennonite Christian education in our area.”

Consultant Christina Drouin, executive director of the Center for Strategic Planning, has been working with the three schools since February 2006. Students, families, faculty, staff, administrators, and pastors attended a symposium in September of 2006 to determined vision and goals.

The next step is to carry out the plan through specific initiatives. Each school has an action team that will oversee the implementation of the plan. An immediate area of focus is the three schools collaborating on the accreditation process.

Published with permission from Christopher Dock Mennonite High School (http://dockhs.org).

Sheldon Good
scgood@mosaicmennonites.org

Three Philadelphia region high school students were honored with the Student Citizenship Award, an annual award given out by the Philadelphia Inquirer to those who demonstrate outstanding scholastic and community service.

All three students are high school seniors who attend a Franconia Mennonite Conference related organization and/or congregation: Aaron G. Allen of Philadelphia Mennonite High School; Bobby Wibowo from Preparatory Charter High School and Philadelphia Praise Center, a Franconia Conference congregation; and Steve Rittenhouse from Christopher Dock Mennonite High School and the Souderton congregation.

Allen is a frequent volunteer at school, where there are opportunities to serve with such organizations as the Salvation Army and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). He is the director of the audio/video crew at his home church, Sharon Baptist Church. Allen has also been the treasurer of student government for four years. He plans to attend Shippensburg University next year, where he will be undeclared but will most likely move towards a business major.

This is not the first time Wibowo has been recognized for his contribution to the community, as the Boys’ and Girls’ Club of America named him Youth of the Year 2007. He is heavily involved in school clubs and serves as the president of the “One World Keystone” club, an extension of the Boys’ and Girls’ Club. “The One World Keystone is a place where teenagers can hang out together once a week, kind of like a youth group,” he said. “We do a lot of fundraising to help get rid of malaria.” Wibowo plans to attend Temple University where he will be majoring in communication. He is also participating in Eastern Mennonite Seminary’s LEAP program this summer.

Rittenhouse shares the interests of Allen and Wibowo, as he acts as Christopher Dock’s National Honor Society treasurer. Like Allen, he has been involved in volunteering. Rittenhouse has served various times with his church youth group, helped out at Souderton Mennonite Homes retirement community, and participated in collecting cans for Manna on Main Street. He enjoys music and is a member of the school touring choir and chamber choir, his church choir, and a community orchestra.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has been awarding students who “actively participate in our community’s civic life” since 1829. Seniors from schools in and around the city of Philadelphia are chosen based on the qualities of “civic or community contribution, good scholarship, and school participation.” This year’s awards ceremony was held at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Sheldon Good
scgood@mosaicmennonites.org

A record-setting 10 students will begin their internships through Franconia Mennonite Conference next week as part of the Mennonite Church USA’s summer inquiry program. Two college students will work directly with the conference, while eight will intern at various ministries across the United States.

The ministry inquiry program is an 11-week internship traditionally available to any student attending a Mennonite college. Students interested in a specific area of ministry — usually, but not limited to, pastoral ministry — are able to gain hands-on experience by working alongside a supervisor in their respective discipline. The inquiry program is offered year-round but is most popular in the summer, and all participants are given a stipend for their work.

“The conference is blessed with the presence and ministry of 10 interns,” said Franconia Conference executive minister, Noel Santiago. “This represents the value our delegates place on ensuring that young adults have the opportunity to not only connect with the church, but to help shape it as well. Along with the gifts, vision, passion, questions and ‘new eyes’ they bring to our various context, inquiry program participants contribute to the ongoing unfolding of God’s reign as we seek to Equip leaders to Empower other to Embrace God’s Mission.”

This year, through a grant from Eastern Mennonite Seminary, three Franconia Conference students attending non-Mennonite institutions have been given the opportunity to participate in the ministry inquiry program: Tim Moyer, a sophomore at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia from the Blooming Glen (PA) congregation; Felicia Moore, member at New Beginnings Community Church in Bristol, PA, who is in her second year at Indiana University of Pennsylvania; along with Philadelphia Praise Center attendee and first year Penn State University student, Andrew Liemon. Moyer will work with Franconia Mennonite Conference, while Moore and Liemon will assist with ministries at their home congregations.

Moore is thankful for the grant and is excited about her opportunity to gain knowledge and experience in a ministerial role. “I chose to do the inquiry program because I saw an opportunity to learn and grow,” she said. “I hope that this experience teaches me more about the numerous talents in the Franconia Conference and how churches relate to each other.”

Two students will intern with congregations in the mid-west: John Tyson, a sophomore at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) and a member at Souderton Mennonite congregation, who will intern at Christ Community Church in Des Moines, Iowa; and EMU sophomore Jordan Good, a member of Bally Mennonite congregation, who will spend his 11 weeks with Walnut Hill congregation in Goshen, IN.

Three students will work with congregations on the East coast: Jessica Cassel, a sophomore at Bluffton University, will work in the area of youth ministry at her home congregation, Souderton (PA) Mennonite; Emily Derstine of Plains Mennonite congregation, a sophomore studying at EMU, will spend her summer in suburban Washington, D.C. with Nueva Esperanza/New Hope Fellowship; Peter Koontz (don’t know his congregation), a Goshen College junior from Elkhart, IN, will intern with Oxford Circle congregation. Both Derstine and Koontz are working in congregations that are Franconia Conference Partners in Mission.

Along with the nine students in the ministry inquiry program, there will be one Goshen College student who will participate in each of the college’s unique inquiry programs — camping inquiry and service inquiry, both students listed respectively: Mercy Oyama, a Goshen College sophomore from West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship, will work alongside various managers at Spruce Lake Camp; Krista Ehst, junior at Goshen College and member at Perkasie (PA) Mennonite congregation, will work alongside Moyer at Franconia Conference.

All of the participants will begin their work at the end of May and finish towards the beginning of August. Eight of the students are sophomores in college.