Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

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Opening communication with Haitian partners, fund established for relief and restoration

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Steve Kriss, skriss@mosaicmennonites.org

Franconia Conference has established a fund to assist the Grace Assembly Network congregations in the rebuilding and reconstruction sure to follow the Haiti earthquake. While communication with key Grace Assembly Network leader, Pastor Lesly Bertrand, has been limited, phone calls and a visit form Mennonite Central Committee staff assure us of his and his family’s well-being. They are sleeping out doors at a church compound just outside of the city and have a generator that provides water from a well on the church grounds. Pastors from the Hopewell Network of Churches are setting out for Port-au-Prince today to learn more.

Initially, the Conference is sending a satellite phone, to be delivered this week to Pastor Bertrand to help establish more regular contact. Mennonite Central Committee has also opened conversation with Grace Assembly about the possibilities of working together to bring healing and hope to Haiti. The phone is intended to empower Pastor Lesly in his work and ministry by opening doors for conversation that will allow movement of goods and lifting of spirits as the recovery continues in Port-au-Prince.

In the meantime, the work team from Souderton Mennonite Church has returned to Pennsylvania safely on January 18, after an only a few days extension of what was intended to be a week-long project of service near Haiti’s southern coast.

Franconia Conference is actively soliciting contributions toward the ministry of Grace Assembly Network in this critical time for our brothers and sisters in Haiti.

To read the initial release from Mennonite Central Committee visit
mcc.org/stories/news/mcc-respond-haiti-earthquake-donations-welcome

MCC asks for relief kits, comforters, sheets for Haiti

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by Linda Espenshade

In addition to donations of money, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is asking the public to supply 20,000 relief kits, 10,000 heavy comforters and 10,000 sheets to be sent to Haitian earthquake survivors.

The supplies will help relieve the discomfort and suffering of Haitians who are sleeping on streets and open areas because their homes are destroyed or because they don’t trust the safety of the buildings that remain.

MCC’s staff in Haiti and the initial support response team that arrived there Saturday are requesting these supplies as one way MCC can respond to the needs they see around them.

Relief kits include personal hygiene supplies, laundry soap, towels and bandages. People who donate kits are asked to provide complete kits with only the specific items on the list of relief kit supplies that can be found at mcc.org/kits.

The relief kits can be packed in a box or bag and delivered to any of the drop-off locations in Canada or the United States listed at mcc.org/kits/dropofflocations by Feb. 28. MCC will then repackage the kits in new, five-gallon buckets.

Heavy comforters and sheets also are being accepted at any drop-off location until Feb. 28.

MCC asks that the comforters be new and filled with quilt batting or a blanket for extra warmth. Twin-size comforters are preferred, but double/full-size comforters are accepted. Specific requirements are online at mcc.org/kits.

Flat sheets, which also will be used as mosquito netting, can be double-, queen- or king- size. Sheets, with at least a 300-thread count, should be new, cotton and light-colored, which is not as attractive to mosquitoes.

MCC is grateful for the generous financial gifts that people have given to MCC for the people of Haiti, starting just hours after the 7.0 earthquake devastated the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Some of those funds are already at work in Haiti, being used to purchase food and supplies that are available there. MCC is airlifting 70,000 pounds or 31,750 kg of canned meat and 1,000 water filters into Haiti as soon as possible. Another shipment of at least the same amount of meat, probably more, will be sent by sea. MCC is also purchasing thousands of tents and tarps.

MCC is planning a multi-million dollar response over a number of years, focusing on rebuilding homes and livelihoods.

Donations to MCC’s response in Haiti are welcome. They should be designated Haiti Earthquake. Donations can be made online at www.mcc.org or by telephone, toll free, 1-888-563-4676 (U.S.). By mail, donations may be sent to MCC and MCC U.S., P.O. Box 500, Akron, PA 17501.

Shared statements a major step as MCC reshapes its future

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by Gladys Terichow

It was a historic moment when the delegate body at Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada’s annual meeting held here in November endorsed seven foundational statements to guide the work of MCC, the final of the 12 MCC entities to do so.

Arli Klassen, executive director of MCC binational (Canada and the U.S.), said the statements represent the first time these 12 entities have expressed a shared vision. “It is a sense of coming together in unity and affirmation of what God calls us to do. The statements bring new clarity that will inspire MCC’s work in the name of Christ. That is powerful, very powerful,” said Klassen.

The statements, also referred to as the “new wine,” were developed through a re-visioning and restructuring process called New Wine/New Wineskins: Reshaping MCC for the 21st Century. They articulate MCC’s identity, purpose, vision, priorities, approaches, values and convictions. The recommendations for the “new wineskins” – a new structure for MCC – are still in the development stages.

New Wine/New Wineskins was a listening and consultation process that involved more than 2,000 people from 50 countries participating in 60 meetings.

One of the core statements is MCC’s purpose – “MCC endeavors to share God’s love and compassion for all in the name of Christ by responding to basic human needs and working for peace and justice.”

“This is the statement that people should memorize,” said Klassen. “This is what we believe God has called MCC to do in its history and in the future. Now we have found shared words to express it.”

Klassen points to two key elements of the purpose statement – that the motivation for MCC’s mission is to share God’s love and compassion for all in the name of Christ, and that MCC intentionally works both to meet basic needs and for peace and justice. She notes that for the first time the words “in the name of Christ,” which have expressed MCC’s Christian witness for decades, are incorporated in its foundational statements.

MCC priorities identified through the New Wine/New Wineskins process are justice and peace-building, disaster relief and sustainable community development. The new statements, explained Klassen, both reflect MCC’s historic commitment to relief, development and peace and clearly state that peace cannot be built without addressing injustice.

MCC does its work in partnership with churches and other partner agencies and builds bridges to connect people and ideas across cultural, political and economic divides. “We don’t do our work just by giving out financial grants – we work at building relationships,” Klassen said.

MCC’s identity as a worldwide ministry of Anabaptist churches is strengthened through including in the statements the “Shared Convictions” of global Anabaptists as adopted by the Mennonite World Conference General Council in March 2006.

This is the first time MCC has had a statement of faith, Klassen said, noting that it has always drawn theology from the churches to which it is accountable. Many churches, she said, expressed strong affirmation for MCC including these shared Christian faith convictions in its foundational statements.

The MCC statements were developed by an Inquiry Task Force of 34 people that was given the task of engaging, listening to and representing the various MCC constituencies through summits and regional meetings. The group synthesized what it heard and offered recommendations. The recommendations were endorsed by a group of 95 people, representing the 12 MCCs and the church denominations they are accountable to in June 2009. The next step in the process was endorsement by the 12 MCC boards, MCC Canada’s annual meeting being the last scheduled.

Klassen said the MCC system-wide endorsement of the “new wine” foundational statements is encouragement for the next step in the process – consensus on a revised structure. The “new wineskins” recommendations are expected to be endorsed in 2011 and fully implemented in 2012.

“There were points of despair or frustration in this re-visioning process, but there also was always a sense of commitment to listen to God through the voices of the faith community. I believe the Holy Spirit has been at work, leading MCC,” Klassen said.

The full MCC foundational statements are at newwineskins.mcc.org.

Schrag offers words of encouragement to denomination as he writes history

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by June Krehbiel

The words of Isaiah 6:8 didn’t impress 13-year-old Jim Schrag at the time. His pastor, Arnold Epp at First Mennonite Church in Newton, Kan., presented “Here am I, send me” to young Jim in 1958 along with similar verses to other baptismal candidates. Only later, when his dad called attention to their meaning, did the young man recognize the significance of the words.

During three decades of church leadership, the Isaiah verse has inspired Schrag, who retired Nov. 30 from his position as executive director of Mennonite Church USA. He has ministered a total of 36 years within Mennonite congregations and in denominational leadership. Beginning in 1996, he served three years as general secretary for the General Conference Mennonite Church, two years as project leader for the team which guided the former General Conference and Mennonite Church toward a merger and, since 2001, at the helm of the fledgling denomination.

Someday Schrag might put stickers on a map to show all the airports he’s been at, especially the last 13 years, while attending denominational and area conference meetings.

His most recent call from God, however, finds him not on the way to a meeting, but writing a book-length manuscript about the years leading up to and including the merger. Faith and culture stand together as his way to describe the coming together.

“God is in the future more than the past, but God is certainly in the past,” he said last month at his office in Newton, Kan. Favorite quotations and Bible verses, including the Isaiah words, hang on the walls. Boxes crammed with paper files cover a table. Three-ring binders fill the shelves. A laptop computer sits on his wooden desk.

He has picked Bethlehem (Pa.) 1983 to begin the retelling. At the time he’d pastored Tabor Mennonite Church near Goessel, Kan., for 10 years and was co-chairing the planning committee for the meetings. These were the first joint delegate sessions of the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church. A statement on inter-Mennonite cooperation was one item discussed in joint sessions—the first step toward a merger between the two denominations.

In 1995 delegates to sessions held in Wichita, Kan., granted approval to integration. By then Schrag had pastored the Oak Grove Mennonite Church congregation near Smithville, Ohio, for 10 years. The next year the General Conference called him to the position of general secretary, and his tenure in churchwide leadership began. Because he was relatively new to the work that had been done on the institutional level, with a smile he describes that time as feeling like he was “thrown into the water and asked to swim.”

The theme Schrag is pursuing in his book is change. Amid the changes the new denomination has experienced lie cultural differences.

“The culture brought us together, and the culture kept us apart,” he says, describing the peoples of both groups. “I used to think that the forces for integration and merger lay basically on an Elkhart and Newton axis. But then I realized that’s just a smattering of the historical pieces that have been trying to bring parts of the church together for decades.”

He’s learning that change within the church is best measured in decades or even centuries. And organizational questions “spiral along,” resurfacing regularly to be talked about again and again.

“Spiritual issues, too,” he says, “draw people together and keep them apart. The experience of being the church is not entirely a spiritual or cultural human experience. It’s both. We get confused when we emphasize one over the other.”

Where is the church headed? Referring to Phyllis Tickle’s book, “The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why,” Schrag believes the church is in another reformation. “About every 500 years since the time of Christ, something has been an important hinge point in the church,” he says.

Just like Protestantism was connected to the fall of feudalism and movement to the cities, the current reformation connects with modernization, science and other changes in society.

“Part of what Mennonite Church USA is, in my understanding, is a logical result of the 150 years preceding. The distinctions between us are blurring—not just between Mennonite groups but also between churches. The question for us today is: What direction is the church pointing from here? Can we be Anabaptist with a different suit of clothes?” Schrag asks.

He hopes Mennonites will seriously consider the call to be missional.

“We used to say, ‘We know who God is. We just need to know what God wants us to do.’ Now the missional understanding calls us to switch those around to say: ‘We want to know what God is doing so we can get an idea who God wants us to become.’ When you switch the two, you emphasize the becoming part and trust the doing part of it to God. That describes the church’s transformation,” Schrag says.

The missional calling of the church is “the best thing we have going for us,” he says. “It takes us from our history of separation for the sake of purity and preservation on a slow odyssey toward engagement with the world where God is active.”

“God has provided some new people, especially from other cultures, who have said to us, ‘We share your understanding of scripture; that’s us too,’ Schrag says.

To the person in the pew, Schrag counsels to “be attentive as we always have, to what God is doing now. Right now, it’s not what God wants us to do, but rather who God wants us to become.”

As Schrag continues writing the history of Mennonite Church USA and following his call, he offers his favorite Pauline benediction:

“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.” Ephesians 3:20-21 NRSV

Schrag’s writing project began in August. Since then Ron Byler of Elkhart, Ind., has served as acting executive director for Mennonite Church USA. Beginning in January, Ervin R. Stutzman of Harrisonburg, Va., will lead the church as the denomination’s next executive director.

Conference gathers for holy extravaganza

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Franconia Conference Moderator Blaine Detwiler of Susquehanna, Pa, suggested that the annual Conference Assembly might be a “holy extravaganza.” And indeed it was, held at Souderton (Pa) Mennonite Church on November 13 and 14 around the theme of “Cultivating Healthy and Growing Leaders.” The extravaganza kicked off with a multiethnic worship team from across Conference congregations and singing that moved seamlessly amongst the Conference’s four worshiping languages—English, Indonesian, Spanish and Vietnamese, the assembly pulled together persons from global partners, denominational ministries, congregations and conference-related ministries for stories, worship, business, fellowship and workshops.

While business was limited at this year’s gathering, those gathered heard stories on how the Conference’s Vision and Financial Plan is incarnated. Those stories were designed to give insight into how the outcomes of healthy and growing disciples, leaders, congregations and connections are moving toward fulfillment of congregational vision. Conference Executive Minister Noel Santiago suggested that this year’s assembly offered insight into how God was moving “the tent stakes” of the Conference. Specifically, this was noted with the acceptance of the largely Indonesian speaking Atlanta Revival Center as a member congregation. This is the Conference’s first member congregation south of the Mason-Dixon line and likely the largest Mennonite Church USA congregation in Georgia.

Sara Lapp Kolb of Telford, Pa., a delegate from Plains Mennonite Church, suggested that there was something significant happening in how the gathering marked a new “being together.” Special guests at this year’s assembly featured gifted worship leader and musician James W. Crumbly, Jr. an instructor at the Patel Conservatory in Tampa, FL and Heidi Rolland Unruh of Hutchinson, KS, policy analyst and staff associate at Evangelicals for Social Action. Unruh spoke on the issues of cultivating healthy and growing leaders and congregations, focusing on a conversation in Ephesians 3. Rolland Unruh challenged the conference toward “multiplying, including, reconciling, participation in seeing God’s will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”

Newly credentialed pastors were recognized—including Connie Detwiler, associate pastor at Lakeview Mennonite Church (Susquehanna, Pa); Donna Merow, pastor at Ambler (Pa) Mennonite Church, Joe Hackman, youth pastor at Salford Mennonite Church (Harleysville, Pa) and Scott Franciscus, associate pastor at Covenant Community Fellowship in Lansdale, Pa. Special prayer was offered for Conrad Swartzentruber of Sellersville, Pa, who has been named principal at Christopher Dock Mennonite High School in Lansdale, Pa. Jim King from Telford, Pa, a member of Plains Mennonite Church was unanimously affirmed to serve a three-year term on the Conference Board. The Conference also marked several ordinations and a transfer of pastoral credentials, along with the deaths of four retired pastors—J. Lester Eshleman, Henry Kulp, Harold Miller, and Paul Yoder.

International guests from Haiti, Mexico and the United Kingdom were present, along with representatives from Mennonite Church USA agencies and institutions. Over 100 delegates participated in the weekend events, including representatives from most conference congregations and the majority of the Conference’s 23 related ministries. Ongoing worship and prayer were offered and prayer stations set up by the host congregation at Souderton provided points of reflection for the two-day event.

Click here to view photo highlights from Assembly09, photos by Andrew Huth