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Read the articles online:

• Opening God’s Kingdom: Two leaders share a vision for Franconia Mennonite Conference– Forrest Moyer
• On becoming an open community: Offering light to the world– Noah Kolb
• All are called to minister: On a Sunday morning…– Tom Albright
• From Iowa to Pennsylvania: Ministering along Interstate 80– Firman Gingerich
• Equipping congregations to embrace God’s mission: Two congregational communities seek membership– Lora Steiner
• Learning about God’s creation, in God’s creation: Spruce Lake Outdoor School– Grace Nolt
• What’s in a name? Life With God moves beyond broadcasts– David Kochsmeier
• Blessed are the peacemakers: Finding forgiveness in an unexpected place– Mary Jane Lederach Hershey
• Welcoming the stranger: Opening our homes to international guests– Betsy Moyer

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Forrest Moyer, Blooming Glen
moyerf@mhep.org

Redemptive renewal…a fully-engaged peoplehood…drawing on the best of the Anabaptist tradition…God’s unfolding reign in our midst…opening up to the world…coming together…appreciating differences…a passionate call and gifting…offering ourselves like Jesus did…

These are words used by Franconia Mennonite Conference leaders, Noel Santiago and Blaine Detwiler, to describe a vision for the conference. The two men have recently been appointed to conference leadership roles, and they are united in a desire to see this community follow in the way of Jesus.

Noel Santiago is now serving as Franconia Conference’s Executive Minister. He is responsible for overall leadership of conference staff and operations, oversight of conference ministry, and coordination of missional partnerships with ministries beyond the conference structure. Noel came to Franconia Conference ten years ago to serve as part of a Mission Leadership Team that worked to help the conference develop a missional orientation in its focus and activity.

Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Lancaster County, PA, Noel describes himself as a “Puerto Rican – Dutchman.” Eating shoofly pie in Pennsylvania Dutch country and visiting relatives in Puerto Rico, he grew up “in between” two vibrant cultures, an experience that prepared him at an early age for reaching beyond borders of culture and language. After college, Noel spent time working in Costa Rica through Mennonite Board of Missions and gave leadership to study-and service semesters in Central America for college students from the United States and Canada. From He came to Franconia Mennonite Conference in 1996. Noel says that during his time of work with the conference, he has been blessed to see its community opening itself up to the world and especially the global south and east. Noel and his wife Juanita and their four children are part of the Blooming Glen congregation and live in Souderton, PA.

Blaine Detwiler’s story is different, but also about reaching beyond borders. Blaine was born in Franconia Township, PA, near to Franconia Mennonite Church, where his family attended. In the late 1950s, his parents sold their farm and moved to Susquehanna County, PA, as part of a small migration of farming families from this community who moved to that region and formed Lakeview Mennonite Church. Blaine spent his growing up years far from the geographic center of Franconia Conference and understands what it means to have a peripheral relationship with the conference community. After studying at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, PA, he returned to his home community and worked as a dairy farmer for 18 years, until he sensed a call to study at seminary. In 1992, he sold his interest in the farm and went to school at Eastern Mennonite Seminary. Upon graduation, he was called back to ministry at his home congregation of Lakeview and has served there as pastor for over a decade. He and his wife Connie have two grown children and three grandchildren.

Blaine began a term of service as Assistant Moderator of Franconia Conference in 2006. He serves on the Conference Board, the Faith and Life Advisory Council, the Vision and Financial Plan Team, and as a representative of Franconia Conference to the Mennonite Church USA Constituency Leaders Council. He sees in Franconia Conference great potential for sharing Christ’s love with the world, and he hopes to work for positive growth, as one would work to cultivate a crop or a tree—pruning a bit here, digging around the roots there, “doing what is needful to spur growth.”

Both Blaine and Noel hear the call of God to expand the Kingdom, to include more, to reach beyond what we know and are comfortable with. And with most of the Franconia Conference community situated in a diverse urban/suburban environment, close to urban centers like New York, Washington and Philadelphia and millions of people from all parts of the globe, and with Franconia Conference people living and traveling around the globe on a daily basis, the call to expand our vision becomes all the more compelling.

Franconia Mennonite Conference has a long and rich heritage of Christian faith and witness, but historically the conference has been a closed community that allowed for little diversity in culture, language, and ethnicity. Even in the 20th century, our congregations often remained oriented to a plain Pennsylvania German lifestyle and revolved around extended family relationships. This was a strong culture sometimes difficult for new disciples from varied backgrounds to find a home within and real acceptance.

Nevertheless, Noel has been impressed with the longevity and resilience of the Franconia Conference community. “With its many up and down times, the people of Franconia have adjusted, readjusted, and refocused their efforts on that which they believed God was calling them to. I have seen and experienced this response…I have experienced Franconia opening herself up to the world…in ways that demonstrate the goodness of God in those who came before us.”

Blaine also celebrates the past and the way that Franconia Conference has maintained an Anabaptist witness over the years. He hopes that we can draw from our history the good of Anabaptist faith—for instance, emphasis on practical living of faith and an understanding that we are “Christians first and citizens second”—and leave behind any tendency to work for the status quo or maintain privileged positions.

Blaine speaks of the vision of Christ in Luke 13:29: “People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.” This vision calls us to embrace various origins, cultures, and languages, even here in the Northeast Corridor. It calls us as a conference to expand our vision, to reach beyond our own culture and language and to give ourselves to our neighbors in the way that Christ gave himself to the world.

Noel shares his vision for the conference community in simple form: “That in all we do we end up seeing three things: 1) new believers and, from these, new leaders, 2) freed disciples of Jesus who are passionately living out their call and using their gifts in all arenas of life, and 3) transformed society that has been impacted by the collective engaged alignment of all of God’s people in this region being united in Jesus Christ!”

Surely this is vision for a healthy, growing Christian body, equipped to share good news in a diverse environment. May Franconia Conference, with all her strengths and weaknesses, find a part in this expanding community of God’s Kingdom.

Forrest Moyer is the Project Archivist for the Mennonite Heritage Center. He is a graduate of Kutztown University and grew up attending Finland Mennonite Church.

Tom Albright, Whitehall
traveltip80@hotmail.com

It is 9:00 a.m. on Sunday morning; I am eight years old and walking across the lawn from our house to our church’s Sunday School. Mrs. Dech, my teacher, is playing the worn upright piano – Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy In Jesus, but to trust and obey… Later she will be using the flannel graph and I’ll try to pay attention, but the wall of windows in the folding doors makes me wonder what all the kids out there are doing. Mrs. Dech seems so old, but I believe she loves us despite the fact there are a lot of active boys in this class and we do not always pay attention.

It is 10:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning; I am18 years old and fast asleep at Muhlenberg College. Campus Worship services do not begin until one o’clock in the afternoon, but I will not be going. Our religion professor has made me question much of what I learned of God, the Bible, and faith. He indicates to us that the Bible is a flawed book filled with mythical stories. I wonder…and not wanting to be a hypocrite, I choose to stay in bed until I can figure all of this out.

It is 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning; my wife and I are preparing for our baptisms. I am 34 years old. We have two small children and have been attending a Mennonite church, after searching for a place where our children will be able to learn and we’ll be able to grow spiritually.

I accepted Christ as my Savior in college, following an intellectual search for truth and finding that truth in Jesus. We had been active in a large Presbyterian church but were looking for something more personal. We would never have known the Mennonite church in Whitehall existed if a small postcard had not been delivered in the mail. My wife suggested we go, but I informed her you had to be born into that kind of church. Besides Mennonites dress strangely, and I was not even sure of their theology. My wife assured me that one of the ladies in the photo on the card attended a community Bible study and she seemed quite normal. I reluctantly agreed and now, a year later, here we are in a pool celebrating our baptisms.

It is 12:00 p.m. on a Sunday morning; we are meeting in our home with a group of five people from our community. We call this meeting “Ripple Effects”. Lunch has been cleared and we are asking about their week. A young man shares that he went to church when he was small and realized in his teen years it was a place filled with hypocrites. A woman with two children shares her grief over her husband leaving her and asking for a divorce. I wonder, “God, what am I doing here, what are they doing here? Surely you have people who know how to answer, help, and care for these people better than I can.”

No answer except that still, small voice encouraging us to keep going. We listen to their stories, their pain and joy. “How should I point them to you? Maybe I should just tell them my story. All right, Lord, I’ll tell them I had a Sunday school teacher named Mrs. Dech who taught a group of active children…”

I realize that, if ministry is a river, I am standing in the middle of it and wondering how I got out this far. I know I am called to ministry because I believe all followers of Jesus are called to minister. I see my life as preparation leading to this time, place, and calling. I know it is the Holy Spirit’s leading, preparing, and protecting that has gotten me safe this far and I know he will continue to lead. And so through the grace and mercy of God I continue to reach out in his name as pastor of community outreach for Whitehall Mennonite church and its emerging ministry, Ripple Effects

Lora Steiner
lsteiner@mosaicmennonites.org

At this year’s Assembly Gathered, to be held November 9-10 at Franconia Mennonite Church, assortment of facts, figures, and tidbits to help you get to know them a little better and welcome

Who: Peace Mennonite Church of East Greenville, (PA) pastored by David Benner.

Where: Peace Mennonite Church is located in the building that formerly housed
Shalom Christian Fellowship at 104 Main Street in East Greenville, PA.
The building was built by an Evangelical Congregational Church in 1929 and includes many intricate stained glass windows.

What: Each service includes a time of lighting candles to remember regions of the
world and ministries for which the church is praying. After the service ends, there
is time for coffee and snacks, which allows for fellowship and further discussion
on the sermon.

Peace Mennonite places a special emphasis on learning about and praying regularly
for many countries around the globe, as well as those who live in the neighbor-
hood. The congregation is working to send deworming medicine to a village in
Southern Sudan; is a supporter of the MAMA project (whose founder, Priscilla Benner, is a leader in the church); and has also befriended a group of persons with disabilities who live across the street from the church building.

Challenges: Peace Mennonite is a small congregation which brings with it the same challenges of any small church, such as making sure that someone is always available to preach the sermon or help lead other parts of the service, if those who regularly do it are away.

What you should know about the church: Peace Mennonite Church is a rejuvenation of what was Shalom Mennonite Church. In 2005, after a number of families left the area, Shalom decided to close its doors for a time of rest and revisioning. The church reopened in March 2006 as Peace Mennonite Church. Sunday morning gathering are intimate with around 20 persons gathered.

In their own words:
“A lot of what happens with church doesn’t just happen on Sunday mornings.”
Above: Margaret Mower lights a candle during a Sunday morning service at Peace Mennonite Church.

From left: Duane Hershberger leads a discussion on encouraging your neighbors. Carson Hershberger plays guitar during fellowship time.

Who: Nations Worship Center, pastored by Beny Krisbianto. Yunus Perkasa is the associate pastor.

Where: Nations Worship Center is located in the buidling that formerly housed Philadelphia Praise Center, at 1715 McKean Street in Philadelphia, PA. Nations Worship currently rents space in the South Philadelphia neighborhood and is hoping to purchase its own building soon.

What: A typical service includes time for giving testimony, sharing what God is doing in the lives of those who make up the congregation; attendees also read scripture aloud together. Nations Worship has a communal meal most Sundays and shares communion once a month.

The church offers assistance to the Indonesian community in Philadelphia from translation for hospital visits to navigating the immigration process.

Challenges: Like three-quarters of the estimated 10,000 Indonesians living in the city, many of the members do not speak English. Some are also first generation
Christians.

What you should know about the church: The congregation is primarily Indonesian and worship gatherings are held primarily in Indonesian. Some Indonesians who’ve migrated to the United States have come for economic reasons, but many of them left Indonesia after the Jakarta riots of May 1998. The riots were directed at the Chinese minority in the country, many of whom are Christians. After that Indonesian Christians did not feel safe or had their businesses closed. Many came to the United States to start over. Some seek religious asylum status. The congregation includes about 70 persons on Sunday mornings and features table tennis tournaments in its worship space throughout the week.

In their own words:
“We are different but we can be used by God . . . We are one body.”

from left: Lora Steiner (foreground) interviews Yunus Perkasa, associate pastor, who recently arrived in South Philadelphia. Wanda Pesulima gives her testimony.

Photos by Timoyer