Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Bethany

Gwen Groff Concludes 24 Years of Ministry at Bethany

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by Eileen Kinch

On November 30, Pastor Gwen Groff concluded 24 years of ministry at Bethany Mennonite Church (Bridgewater Corners, VT). A few days later, she finished her final term on the Mosaic Conference Board. Groff served on the Board for nine years. 

Groff grew up in Lancaster County, PA. Initially, she worked with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in several roles. After she completed her Master of Divinity degree at Lancaster (PA) Theological Seminary, she sought work as a pastor.  Bethany Mennonite Church seemed like the best fit, so Groff and her family moved to Vermont. She began her pastoral role in 1999. 

Groff’s favorite thing about Bethany’s worship service is that after the sermon, the rest of the congregation shares their thoughts and responses. “It does feel like the other half the message,” she said. When people talk about their connections to the sermon, “it just feels very lively.” 

Bethany Mennonite Church began in 1952 as a church plant by Blooming Glen (PA) Mennonite Church. Today, Bethany, a rural congregation, has about 40 regular attenders. Some join by Zoom for health and distance reasons. 

As Groff considers her two and a half decades at Bethany, she feels very good about the labyrinth that is mown into the church’s large meadow. The church holds an outdoor summer communion service there. She likes that the labyrinth encourages contemplative practice. Groff is also grateful that her congregation passed a clear affirmation of welcome for LGBTQ folks in 2020. 

Groff joined the Franconia Conference Board in 2015. A significant event during her tenure was the reconciliation between Franconia Conference and the Eastern District Conference — and then the process of choosing a name for the new conference. She emphasized her gratitude for Mosaic’s commitment to intercultural priorities.  

“I think our challenge [as a conference] is what to do with our theological differences,” Groff reflected on her tenure as a Board member. As the Conference becomes more diverse “in terms of culture, race, geographical area,” she notices that uniformity is waning, but hopes that “unity is growing.” 

For the time being, Groff is doing some interim pastoral care work. She plans to continue her studies with Shalem Institute, where she is taking courses in prayer and spiritual formation. She does not have immediate plans for what she would like to do next but recognizes that the way is sometimes made by walking, similar to the winding paths of a labyrinth. 

Eileen Kinch

Eileen Kinch is a writer and editor for the Mosaic communication team. She holds a Master of Divinity degree, with an emphasis in the Ministry of Writing, from Earlham School of Religion. She and her husband, Joel Nofziger, who serves as director of the Mennonite Heritage Center in Harleysville, live near Tylersport, PA. They attend Methacton Mennonite Church. Eileen is also a member of Keystone Fellowship Friends Meeting in Lancaster County.

Truth to Power

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Recently I participated in the Poor People’s Campaign Moral Poverty Action Congress, a three-day gathering of hundreds of poor and dispossessed organizers, advocates, and faith leaders from over 30 states. The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is a re-launch of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final campaign in 1968, tragically cut short by his assassination. He called for a “revolution of values” and was beginning to organize the poor across all lines of division: race, geography, gender, and ethnicity, into what he called a “Nonviolent Army of the Poor.”  

Over 50 years later, the crises of poverty that King identified are in nearly every way worse in our country. The present iteration of the campaign launched in 2018, with six weeks of nonviolent direct action at state capitols, calling for an end to systemic racism, poverty, militarism, ecological devastation, and the distorted moral narrative of Christian nationalism. We’ve continued organizing by identifying, developing, and uniting leaders of the poor, and slowly but steadily building a movement.  

This day of the gathering, we descended on Capitol Hill in DC and met with every legislator in our states to deliver our policy demands. As a tri-chair of the campaign in New York, I, along with my fellow tri-chairs, Jamel Coy Hudson and Kelly Smith, had the opportunity to meet with US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. We were joined by the National Poor People’s Campaign co-chairs, Rev. Dr. William Barber and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis.  

Rev. Joe Paparone (second from left), tri-chair of the New York State Poor People’s Campaign, and others recently met with US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (second from right) and US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (far right). Photo by Shailly Gupta Barnes.

As we prepared for the meeting, we had low expectations. We’ve been part of these kinds of visits before (though not with such prominent legislative leaders), and we suspected we would barely have a chance to speak and that the legislators would either be dismissive of us or defensive about their records. They might also fill the time with niceties and small talk.  

None of that happened. For nearly an hour, two of the most powerful leaders of the most powerful nation in the world listened to poor people.  

Jamel called on them to defend our democracy by protecting voting rights. I shared about members of my community who are essential workers and whose wages aren’t nearly enough to survive. Kelly put it best, saying, “We are not ashamed of being poor or afraid of being called poor. We know why we are poor–it’s not our fault. We are poor because of policy. We know deals are being made, and we are sick and tired of those deals being made on the backs of poor people.” 

We talked about how every day in that Capitol building, there are legislators putting forth policies designed to kill poor people, and we needed to hear, publicly from congressional leadership, what they were going to do about it.  

At the end of his life, Dr. King said, “If [poor people] can be helped to take action together, they will become a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life.” 

We are under no illusions about who these leaders are or what they might do. They were polite; they listened; they responded respectfully. We will meet with them again. We will continue organizing, developing, and uniting leaders from among the poor and dispossessed of society to build that new and unsettling force.  

One thing is certain, the most powerful people in the world will not be able to say they didn’t know we were coming.  

Congregational Profile: Bethany Mennonite Church

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by Brandon Bergey, Bethany Mennonite Church

Photo by Gwen Groff

Bethany Mennonite Church was planted in Bridgewater Corners, Vermont  in 1952 as an initiative by the Franconia Conference. Conference representatives wanted to find a secular location to plant a Mennonite church. Fast forward to 2019 when Vermont is the most secular state in the nation.

We recently finished a sermon series on Anabaptist history and theology. That kind of exploration is so useful in our congregation because we are made up of former Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Mennonites, and “Nones.” Some of us are strongly drawn to Eastern religions, including Christianity’s Eastern Orthodox stream. Having this sort of diversity among 50 or 60 people can be very interesting! It feels necessary to be inclusive. How else would we do ministry in a secular, post-Christian environment? In our adult Christian Education class, we are currently discussing Richard Rohr’s Universal Christ. Many of us are finding that Christ’s presence permeates the whole world.

Bethany members and friends help their neighbors by stacking wood. Photo by Tom Smith.

In our Membership Covenant, which we renew annually, we commit ourselves to welcoming “everyone, without exception.” We affirm that “we embrace our differences as well as our similarities, and we respect and learn from other faith traditions and values.” These commitments have become increasingly important for many of us. On the days I find myself in deep disagreement with a fellow member, I am invited to love my neighbor as myself. A diverse church is one of the hardest places to practice the love Jesus taught!

Bethany has a strong emphasis on lay leadership. We have only one paid staff position and have never had a full-time pastor. Congregants are deeply involved in planning and leading worship, doing pastoral care, working on committees, and connecting with the community.

At times, this was constrained by size and financial limitations, but at times when we could have afforded more professional staff time, we chose not to, in order to retain our lay-led culture and structure.

At the annual outdoor service, members walk the labyrinth together in silence. Photo by Tom Smith.

We have a fairly laid-back worship service. People wear flannel shirts and snow boots. A 2-year-old wanders among the pews, hoping for an unblocked route to the piano or a guitar. An infant quietly nurses. The congregation sings familiar and new songs. The relaxed attitude is especially obvious in the sharing time that follows the sermon. The person bringing the message is understood to be giving only the first half of the message. Our congregational response time is the second half. Our small size and commitment to vulnerability means we are able to weave a shared narrative. Each Sunday that sharing time elicits additional wisdom, truth, and insight that reflects our diverse community.

I am so thankful for that group who studied church planting in the middle of the last century. I am so thankful to be a part of this resulting diverse group, age 2 months to 85 years old. I am so thankful my young family is warmly welcomed in the worship service and Sunday School, even though we currently make the most noise.

Pray with me that we will see Jesus in our relationships, even when, especially when, our honesty about our differences causes tensions. Pray with me that we will embody God’s Spirit in a way that touches all of our neighbors. Pray with me for a family who attends church with us who are attempting a seemingly impossible project to which they feel called. Join me in giving thanks for our pastor who has been a deep source of wisdom for many of us and many beyond our walls in the community.

Life Together Gets More Interesting

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Since 2011, Franconia and Eastern District Conferences have come together for an annual fall Assembly holding separate business sessions, yet enjoying joint times of worship on Friday evening and Saturday morning, sharing in the recognition of newly credentialed leaders, and lunch. This year on November 3 and 4, 2017 they gathered at Dock Mennonite Academy in Souderton, Pennsylvania to do the same. However, new this year, a time of joint meeting was held on Saturday afternoon that focused on reviewing recommendations from the Exploring Reconciliation Reference Team that the two Conferences voted to commission at the 2016 Assembly.

The Assembly was centered on Psalm 133:1,3b, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.” The theme was Life Together, as the focus of the Assembly was that while these two conference may have split 170 years ago, they continue to do life together.  A large part of the Assembly business this year was to look at whether these conferences would take the next step in their relationship, to look even more intentionally at reconciliation and what it would look like if they were to merge into one conference.

The weekend began with Friday night worship led by Tami Good of Swamp Mennonite Church, which included a worship team of folks whose first languages were Indonesian, Spanish and English and who came from congregations in South Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Upper Bucks and Montgomery Counties. The opening prayer was given in Indonesian, Spanish, English and even Pennsylvania Dutch. Videos were shown that highlighted  Souderton Mennonite Church’s Vocation as Mission internship program, “for young adults actively pursuing God’s kingdom in local communities.” Highlighted were the fact that the interns come from congregations across both conferences — most not even realizing there were two conferences — and the relationships built between the interns through Bible study, leadership and social issues trainings, as they worked side by side with local non-profits, businesses and ministries. The other video shown was about the ministries of Deep Run East and Deep Run West — one Franconia Conference church and one Eastern District church that happen to be across the street from one another. Their pastors, Ken Burkholder of Deep Run East and Rodger Schmell of Deep Run West, shared about how their congregations do ministry in such close proximity and how their relationship has changed over the years since their initial split. The worship time was followed by the annual ice cream social provided by Longacres Dairy.

Saturday morning, delegates began their day in separate Eastern District and Franconia Conference business sessions. This was a historic day for Franconia Conference as they became bi-coastal and accepted four new congregations as members, one from Flushing, New York and three from the Los Angeles, California area. Bethany Elshaddai Creative Community in New York is pastored by Hendy Stevans and has been connecting with Franconia Conference for about two years. Hendy is currently a student at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, attending classes at the Lancaster, Pennsylvania campus. The congregations in the Los Angeles area consist of Jemaat Kristen Indonesia Anugerah (JKIA) pastored by Virgo Handoyo, Indonesian Community Christian Fellowship pastored by Makmur Halim, and International Worship Church pastored by Buddy Hannarto. All three have had relationships with Franconia Conference for over a decade. The four congregations’ members are largely from Indonesia and joined with Franconia Conference pastors Aldo Siahaan of Philadelphia Praise Center and Beny Krisbianto of Nations Worship Center to share in a song. To learn more about these congregations check out their congregational profiles here. Following the 98% vote of affirmation to welcome these congregations, the delegates joined in singing songs in both English and Indonesian as a welcome.

The joint Franconia and Eastern District Conference Saturday worship was a time of song, remembering those who have passed on in the last year, and anointing 15 newly credentialed leaders. Following the anointing of the newly credentialed leaders, the leaders were dispersed throughout the auditorium and those in attendance were invited to be prayed over by them. It was truly a time of commissioning and sending forth. There was also a time of recognition of the Centennial of Mennonite Women USA and a video celebrating Eastern District and Franconia Conference’s shared Sistering Committee, a local chapter of Mennonite Women USA.

Following lunch by Landis’ Market, the delegates from Eastern District and Franconia Conferences joined one another around tables to hear from the Exploring Reconciliation Reference Team. The team reviewed their report that had been previously sent to the delegates, which can be accessed here. They also highlighted their recommendations. At their tables, the delegates were then invited to discuss any affirmations, concerns or questions they had regarding the report or the recommendations put forth. These were recorded on sheets of paper and submitted to be compiled and shared with those tasked at carrying out the recommendations, should the delegates vote to move forward with them.

The core recommendation from the team is that Eastern District and Franconia Conference “enter a formal engagement process for the purposes of healing and reconciliation and with the intention of becoming a single, unified conference by November 2019.” In order to do this, the team recommended the forming of two teams: one to work intentionally at addressing the “spiritual and emotional components of reconciliation,” known as the “Healing and Reconciliation Team”, and the other being the “Identity Development and Structural Implementation Team,” tasked with managing “the process of forming a single unified conference, with particular attention to the structure, staffing, financial, and cultural realities of creating a single conference from the two existing conferences.”

Nancy Kauffman, Mennonite Church USA Denominational Minister for the two Conferences, closed the joint time in prayer.

After a short break, the conferences gathered in separate rooms where their delegates recorded on flip chart paper their largest affirmations and concerns regarding moving forward with the recommendations. Present were David Brubaker and Roxy Allen Kioko, consultants from Eastern Mennonite University who had been hired in 2016 and were working with the Exploring Reconciliation Reference Team. Following this and some open microphone time for questions and answers, the delegates voted. With a 90% affirmation from Franconia Conference and a 99% affirmation from Eastern District Conference, both agreed to move forward with working at reconciliation and exploring more formally what a merged conference will look like.

This means that over the next few weeks, both Conference Boards will be looking for nominations for the two teams presented in the recommendations. The goal will be to have these teams appointed no later than the end of the calendar year. According to the recommendations, there is a goal for the Healing and Reconciliation Team to hold a Reconciliation service at a Spring 2018 Assembly, and planning will therefore need to begin quickly. The Identity and Structural Development Team will, over the next two years, work to develop a shared mission and vision, a new organization chart and budget to be presented to the delegates in 2019. Therefore, a decision on whether or not these two conferences will merge will not come until 2019. Over the next few weeks, leaders of both conferences will work to address questions raised about the process. Keep your eye out for more information on that.  Nominations are due by Friday, December 1 at midnight.

To close this historic day, the two conferences joined together in song as they continue to look forward to Life Together.

 

 

 

Conference Welcomes Gwen Groff to the Board

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by Barbie Fischer, communication manager and administration coordinator

Gwen Groff
Gwen Groff

The Franconia Conference board welcomed Gwen Groff as a new board member at their May 11 meeting. Gwen has served as pastor of Bethany Mennonite Church in Bridgewater Corners, Vermont since 1999.

During that time, she has been very active in the conference, in spite of the distance. She has served as a Franconia Conference delegate or congregational delegate at Mennonite Church USA (MCUSA) conventions and has attended most Franconia Conference assemblies. Gwen’s encouragement also prompted Franconia Conference to start recording pastors and leaders events, so that those who could not attend would still be able to access that resource.

Gwen grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and completed her undergraduate work at Eastern Mennonite College and Franklin & Marshall College. She later received a master’s degree in Theology and Pastoral Counseling from Lancaster Theological Seminary. While in seminary, Gwen interned with and then served part-time at Community Mennonite Church in Lancaster.

Prior to pastoral ministry, Gwen held several roles with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), including working in peace education in the Akron, Pennsylvania office, and at the London Mennonite Center in the United Kingdom. She also served as MCC’s director of women’s concerns.

While in London, Gwen met her husband, Robert Buchan. They have two children, Lilly, 18, and Andrew, 16.

Gwen said what she loves about Vermont is the landscape “summers, springs, and falls, in that order.”

She also loves the people in her congregation, and how they do things with integrity and a lot of intention. Says Gwen, “You don’t accidentally wind up in a Mennonite Church in Vermont. The church had to planted.” (Bethany is one of only two MCUSA churches in Vermont.) What seems to draw Vermonters to Bethany and the Mennonite tradition is the peace witness, the opportunity to sing together, and the community, as the congregation is active in one another’s lives throughout the week.

Gwen brings many strengths to her role as a board member with Franconia Conference: a willingness to listen, to learn from others, and an enthusiasm for the work of the conference. She is most excited about the mission, “Equipping leaders to empower others to embrace God’s mission.”

Stephen Kriss, LEADership minister for Bethany, says, “Gwen is an experienced pastor and trusted leader.  She’ll bring deep wisdom and love for the church with a Vermonter perspective yet as someone who has grown up in Pennsylvania Mennonite contexts and with a connection with Anabaptism in the UK.  Her insights, questions along with her poetic and prophetic voice will help us to keep navigating while listening for God’s in-breaking.”

In her spare time Gwen enjoys walking in the woods, singing in various acapella groups, playing piano, patch work quilting, and “the fascinating role of parenting teenagers.” What energizes her is making connections, storytelling and seeing how pieces connect “to my story and to God’s story.”

 

Holding joy and sadness in tension: The Lord's Supper

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by Gwen Groff, Bethany

Gwen GroffAt Bethany we share communion at least three times each year. Our first communion service is in January when we renew our annual membership covenant with each other. Our system of membership at Bethany is an odd hybrid. We can become members by taking a membership class and being baptized or by transferring a letter of membership from another congregation, and we can become members by annually affirming our covenant with this congregation. When we renew our membership covenant each January, affirming that we intend to walk with this particular group of people and uphold our commitments to what we state in our covenant, we mark this by celebrating communion together.

This is one of the times that I most feel the difference between the Mennonite congregation in which I grew up and the Mennonite congregation of which I am now a part. I grew up seeing communion as a very somber service in which people wore dark clothes and often wept. I recall preparatory services the week before the communion services in which members filed into a small anteroom and shook hands with the bishop and declared that we were “at peace with God and our fellow men.” Members were warned not to eat and drink “unworthily,” thereby eating and drinking “damnation unto himself.”

By comparison, our communion services at Bethany feel very open, perhaps even lax. I invite people to come forward to receive the bread and cup with the words, “This is the Lord’s table and all are welcome.” I do not ask if someone has been baptized or is a church member. This seems not very Anabaptist. It does however seem to be in keeping with what Jesus did in sharing the table with anyone who wanted to eat with him.

The Bethany communion service that I most enjoy is part of our annual outdoor service. Each summer I mow a labyrinth into the grass in the back lawn and at our outdoor service we take the bread and cup just before we begin walking the the labyrinth together. We walk into the middle of the labyrinth in silence, pause in the center circle, and come back out again. Some people look into the faces of others they pass going the opposite direction, some look down, some are chewing the bread, many are barefoot. Some children are held in their parents’ arms. Most of the children enter the labyrinth at the front of the line and run to the center ahead of the adults. There they receive a spoken blessing from one of the servers, “You are known and loved by God,” and are given grapes and crackers. They run or walk back out, passing the adults who are still on their way in. The adults walk more slowly and contemplatively.

I usually take the bread and cup to the older people who are unable to walk the labyrinth and are seated on the grass that is slightly higher than the labyrinth. I love to look out across the people walking and see our congregation moving as one, like a giant organism on the grass. Sometimes we are a little crowded as we walk but we have not outgrown the practical limits of this ritual. The service is full of laughter and reflection, movement and epiphanies. If the labyrinth symbolizes our spiritual path, the bread and cup represent nourishment for the journey.

Our other communion celebration is part of our Good Friday service. This communion meal seems to be most in the spirit of the first Last Supper. It holds together the joy of the Passover celebration, remembering liberation from slavery, with the grief of the looming death of Jesus.  It focuses on the stated purpose of communion — doing this in remembrance of Jesus — reminding us of his life, death and resurrection. The service is virtually the same every year. We eat a simple meal together in the church basement on Good Friday evening. We read aloud the Passion account from one of the gospels, we sing, we serve one another the bread and cup, and we leave in silence.

I value something about each of these three services. In the January communion service, I appreciate the emphasis on our covenanted commitment to God and one another. I appreciate the symbolism of nourishment for our faith journeys that is part of the summer communion service. And I appreciate the remembrance of the first Lord’s supper that is part of our Good Friday service. What I love about all of them is the way the communion ritual holds in tension joy and sadness. Words can’t make sense of that paradox, “proclaiming the Lord’s death.” But ritual does.

Introducing Bethany Mennonite Church

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This mosaic hangs at the front of Bethany’s auditorium and is made from slips of paper that members wrote on as part of one Sunday’s sermon.

Bethany is an intimate ecumenical gathering in Bridgewater Corners, Vermont. We began as a small group of five families who followed a call to move here from PA in the early 1950’s. We are currently led by Gwen Groff.

We foster a healthy awareness of the broader Christian faith as it relates to our global community. We are excited about Jesus Christ. We celebrate the transcendence of his birth. We marvel at the complex grace of his time on Earth. We rejoice in the solemn beauty of his death and resurrection. We are excited about continuing His story of a deep love for the women and men around him, as we live and work here in a quiet corner of the world being the hands, feet, body and blood of the Word-made-Flesh.

We come from all walks of life. We come from all political persuasions. We come from all economic backgrounds. Our common theme is our deep love of the way of Jesus. We love to sing together. We love to eat together. We love to camp together. Our children are important to us. That they have a safe place to seek out their Creator is tantamount to our existence as a body of faith.

In light of all of this, we see ourselves as good soil- no more and no less. Good things grow here.

A Franconia Conference Summer

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We asked for stories from summer activities from around the Conference and got this jewel from Kim Moyer, Blooming Glen congregation:

The theme for our Summer Bible School was “Be Bold! God is with You!” The children learned through songs, dramas, stories, crafts, and games, that God is with them, even when they are scared. 

One mother told me a story about her 5 year old son who has always been afraid to go into the basement of their home by himself.  The week after SBS, he asked his mom to go with him to the basement so that he could get his blanket.  His mom couldn’t go with him at the moment, so he decided he would try to go by himself.  When he returned to his mom with his blanket, he told her, “I was able to go down in the basement because I kept telling myself, God is always with us, God is always with us.”

A piece of SBS that caused a lot of excitement among the children was an offering project competition between the girls and the boys.  The children were raising money for a Mennonite Mission Network project, which sends children in South Africa to Bethany Bible School, a camp that teaches the children about Jesus.  It costs $20 to send one child to the camp, and the boys and girls at SBS were competing against each other to send the most children to camp.  If the boys won, then the Children’s Ministry Director (me) would get a pie in her face, and if the girl’s won, then the Lead Pastor would get the pie in his face. 

The children took this competition seriously and were bringing in their piggy banks, doing extra chores to raise money, and asking grandparents to write out checks.  By the end of the week, the 70 children at SBS collectively raised $1,162.53, sending 58 children to Bethany Bible School!  Although the boys won, and I got a pie in the face, it was decided that the real winners were the 58 children that would now be able to attend the Bible Camp.

Thanks, Kim, and everyone else who shared their photos and stories this summer!  And if you haven’t already read them, check out these stories about Peace Camps, Bethany’s anniversary celebration, a special service at Plains, Salford’s listening project, Kingdom Builders construction in Philly, Germantown Historic Trust’s painting project … and this is just some of what has been happening in our Conference this summer.

Enjoy these fun photos that were taken at camps, picnics, outdoor services, Bible Schools, and more.  If you’d like to add photos from your congregation’s summer to this gallery, send them to Emily with captions and photo credits.

View the photo album