By Josh Meyer, Pastor of Discipling and Preaching at Franconia Mennonite Church
To serve in the role of spiritual leader is a sacred trust. Sometimes, without intending to, we exploit and hurt those we want to teach and nurture by inappropriately crossing boundaries.
This was, in a nutshell, my major takeaway from the recent Healthy Boundaries 101 training provided by Franconia Mennonite Conference. The training consisted of resourcing from trained facilitators, DVD instruction, small group discussion, large-group sharing, and personal assessments. I’ll admit: I wasn’t particularly looking forward to a full-day of training when I had so much other work to do. It seemed excessive and came during a particularly busy time in my schedule. However, the experience proved not only worthwhile, but stimulating and enjoyable as well.
As spiritual leaders, we hold power – it is given to us whether we want it or not. Therefore, it is important to understand and establish proper relational boundaries. Such boundaries help us maintain clear professional relationships and signal to others that it is safe to trust us. They aren’t intended to shackle us but to free us in our work as pastors and leaders. Healthy boundaries protect both us and our congregations: us from other people’s problems becoming overwhelming, and congregants’ from our unintentional misuse of power.
While the concepts of power and boundaries may seem abstract, the training itself was quite practical. I walked away with a number of concrete tools for guarding against violating boundaries inappropriately:
Awareness. Be aware of my own needs and find healthy ways of having them met other than by people I am supposed to be serving.
Motivation. Ask myself these questions when engaging in care for people: “What is my role here?” “Who is this for – is this in the best interest of the other person or does it only satisfy my needs?” “Would I be comfortable if all my acquaintances knew I was doing this?”
Accountability. Establish a system of accountability. One practical way of doing this would be to arrange to meet regularly with a spiritual director or colleague with whom to share honestly.
Something from vs something for. The teacher should never want something from the student, other than for them to be their full self. When I start wanting something from a person I am leading, I need to reassess.
Prevention. It is my responsibility to ensure prevention. The obligation is always on the pastor/leader – not the congregant – to set proper, healthy boundaries.
Intervention. When prevention fails, intervention is necessary. Having established policies and procedures can be very useful in these situations.
Discernment. Boundaries are not always easy to discern and there are often no clear guidelines for the best action to take when confronted with an issue. Therefore, we need spiritual wisdom, divine prudence, and godly insight to help us faithfully navigate such encounters.
To serve in the role of spiritual leader is a sacred trust. As a result of this training, I have a greater appreciation for the power I hold as a leader and a greater awareness of how I can appropriately use this power to serve, bless, and protect those God has entrusted to my care.
Healthy Boundary 101 Trainings are being offered by Franconia Conference to anyone who would like to attend. All those in a leadership role within their congregations are encouraged to attend. Credentialed leaders in Franconia Conference are required to complete the training for their 2018 credential renewal cycle. For more information and to register for a training click here (link closed).
Nathan Good, Pastor at Swamp Mennonite Church had this to say about the training held on March 15: “I was not at all excited about attending the mandatory boundary training event held two weeks before Easter in the midst of my busy schedule. I have already been trained on boundaries multiple times and have even taught others about healthy boundaries. But, it was the only training session that fit into my schedule and it was required for maintaining my ordination credentials, so I went. At the end of the day, despite the sacrifices I needed to make to be there, I was glad that I had attended. Barbie and John did an excellent job presenting the material and creating a safe space for open storytelling. It was encouraging and helpful to hear how other leaders wrestle with boundary questions within their role and to realize that I am not alone. Even though most of the material was not new, it was presented and facilitated in a way that was refreshing, brought healthy reminders, and served as a sounding board for real life scenarios I found myself in at that time. Despite my reservations about attending an 8 hour training event on boundaries, it was time well spent and I am glad I attended.”
Since the end of 2017, when I resigned from a pastoral role at Nueva Vida Norristown New Life, I have been living in the space between church homes and between work roles. It was strange and exciting to know that in this in between space, I could visit other churches and experience worship and Word in new ways. However, there was no church home because I was “in between”. The ministry that I was involved in was my responsibility no longer and it was freeing to dream and envision what shape my role will take as Leadership Minister of Intercultural Formation with Franconia Conference, but hard to leave behind the relationships that I had nurtured for years. In the first two months of 2018, I was in interspace, in between, waiting for my new role to begin. Then in the beginning of March, I began my international adventure with a trip to Indonesia with the purpose of studying Indonesian, a language that I had once learned and spoken as a child, to enhance my future intercultural ministry within the conference.
What an experience! The food, the culture, the language, and the people brought my childhood in Indonesia flooding back. I kept moving between being so comfortable and so uncomfortable, so quickly it was disorienting. I was delighted to experience familiar tastes, words, and culture while feeling so humbled as a person who was learning a language and speaking it so poorly and who didn’t know the cultural expectations, so I embarrassed myself. This interspace of being in a different country required courage, creativity, willingness to fail, and engagement with people who were different. It was the perfect connecting space between my past experiences and my future hopes and ministry.
In our conference, we have a shared priority to be intercultural, meaning that we seek to connect, stand, and live in the space between the cultures represented in our conference and the world. This is different than being multicultural which advocates for equal respect and promoting cultural diversity. When “multi” is not enough, we seek “inter”. With multicultural, we still have a sense of “us and them”. With intercultural, a between space is created where “we” belong. Our conference priority is for networking and cultivating intercultural ministry relationships. This process is described as “including an assessment of current and emerging relationships that work cross-culturally while building further capacity toward mutually-beneficial relationships among ministries and congregations. Increasingly, these relationships will be defined by reciprocity and transformation rather than paternalism and patronization. Relationships will be built around both work and celebration, both doing and being together.” 
I wonder if the Biblical story of Samuel and Eli provides a glimpse of the need for the intergenerational witness of the church community. In Eli, we have the elder who knows that God has spoken in the past and holds the treasured words of response when God does speak. In Samuel, we have the young whose ears are open to the new words of God and can speak them courageously. Samuel needed Eli and Eli needed Samuel. In their relationship a door was opened to hear and understand the voice of God more clearly.
On Friday, March 16, close to 150 youth and adults representing Conference churches from Allentown to Philadelphia and in between, came together. They gathered together in worship and fun for the annual Junior High Late Night Blast. They played intense games of dodgeball, soccer, bubble soccer and the ever popular gaga pit.
During worship, 
Here are a sampling of their responses:
Yvonne Platts was baptized at an early age in the Mennonite church and has grown up at Nueva Vida Norristown New Life. Yvonne serves within her congregation on the Enlarging Our Place in Gods World Leadership Team. Her primary work is with 
Cory Longacre comes to the Conference Board recently finishing his third-and-final three year term on the Souderton Mennonite Church Board where he spent the last three years as chair. Cory grew up at 
Jeff Wright will serve as a LEADership Minister, specifically working with Franconia Conference’s three congregations in Southern California: Indonesian Community Christian Fellowship, International Worship Church, and Jemaat Kristen Indonesia Anugerah (JKIA or Grace Indonesian Christian Fellowship). Jeff has served in a dual role as pastor of 
Chantelle Todman Moore comes to Franconia Conference as Intercultural Leadership Coach, where she will focus her work with our 15 urban congregations, looking at cultivating next generation leaders, focusing on persons age 15-35. She has also been tasked to think about what it takes for persons of color in ministry leadership to flourish and how that can be cultivated within Franconia congregations.
Marta Castillo is not new to the Franconia team, but will be increasing her time. After serving almost five years on the Conference Board, Marta joined Franconia Conference as a LEADership Minister in in 2016, while simultaneously serving as co-pastor at Nueva Vida Norristown New Life. She stepped away from the position at Nueva Vida in December, as she felt the Spirit leading her elsewhere. At the time she did not know that “elsewhere” would include increased time with Franconia Conference. The Conference is grateful to have Marta move into the role of LEADership Minister of Intercultural Formation. The daughter of Franconia Conference-rooted mission workers, she has been shaped by all four of the linguistic cultures in Franconia Conference, growing up in both Vietnam and Indonesia. While being a primary English speaker, she lives in a bilingual family and community of English/Spanish speakers.
There was food afterward the worship services. After over a decade of walking alongside Indonesian congregations, I recognize the gracious island hospitality and celebration that remains intact here in the States as well. At IWC, I had a bowl of spaghetti brought from the kitchen, when the servers realized that I didn’t eat seafood, which was the main dish provided for lunch. At ICCF, there was an anniversary celebration which included traditional Indonesian satay, rice and soup, along with karaoke that was a mix of pop, praise songs and traditional hymns.
There is still a sense of surprise for me that we are here in this time and place. This trip meant beginning to think and care for California in a way that I haven’t before – as a pastor. What is the Spirit provoking through this holy experiment? In what ways can we live and move into this time and space, where God’s capacity is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or imagine through the power at work within us (Ephesians 3.20)?
How extraordinary that night was! Thousands of people went out into the streets, walking towards Center City, celebrating with enthusiasm and spontaneity. What I remember is people gave each other a smile, high fives, shouted “E-A-G-L-E-S, Eagles,” hugged, shared food and drink. Regardless of the color of your skin, without asking for immigration status, regardless of belief and background, all celebrated victory and joy. One friend said “Aldo, this is a bit of the taste of heaven, where there is excitement, there is unity.”
