by Emily Ralph, eralphservant@mosaicmennonites.org
Blooming Glen, Pa—Franconia Mennonite Conference board and staff gathered at Blooming Glen Mennonite’s pavilion on August 22 for a time of healng prayer, sharing and dreaming for the future.
According to Conference Executive Minister, Ertell Whigham, the retreat was designed to develop a common sense of ownership and understanding of the conference’s purpose. “Strategy without passion or commitment doesn’t get an organization anywhere,” he told the group, inviting them to share experiences that have excited them about Conference life and direction.
“Part of my deep passion is seeing young leaders develop and do all that God has created them to do,” said Noah Kolb, pastor of ministerial leadership. He smiled across the room at Joe Hackman of Harleysville, Pa, board member-at-large. “I look across here and see Joe, who I blessed as a baby—I followed his fascinating growth in leadership. It’s that kind of thing that just really excites me.”
Finance Committee chair, Randy Nyce of Hatfield, Pa, sees that kind of formation as central to the church’s purpose. “The core problem in society is our separation from God,” he said. The role of the church is to “help people to build healthy relationships, both with each other and with God.”
Noel Santiago, LEADership Minister for spiritual transformation, asked each person to imagine that they were walking their dogs and heard someone in the park sharing a testimony of Christ’s transformation in his life. “That’s John’s story,” he said, smiling broadly. Just two days before, John and seven others had decided to follow Jesus after hearing the Good News at GodQuest’s Souderton (Pa) Worship in the Park (photo gallery).
And these are only some of the lives that have been touched as Franconia Conference congregations have stepped beyond their walls and entered their communities.
For Philadelphia Praise Center, said Steve Kriss, director of leadership cultivation, being missional means that, “at their block party [last week], vegans were flipping burgers for their neighbors.”
Many of these kinds of events are made possible through conference missional grants. Conrad Martin, director of finance, oversees the grant process. Each grant application includes the congregation’s desired outcomes, he told the group. “This little grant that we’re giving them,” he said excitedly, “if it’ll end in their ‘expected results,’ was well worth it!”
Rina Rampogu, board member-at-large from Quakertown, Pa, reflected on how apathetic she was to the conference’s work when she was a lay leader. All that changed when she was nominated to her current position, she said. “When I became a board member, it became vibrant for me. . . . God has brought us together to see what congregations are doing.”
The board members have been introduced to congregational activities through individual gatherings with church leadership teams. “Congregational visits are huge,” agreed Nelson Shenk of Bally, Pa, Ministerial Committee chair. “Those visits have made us a better board,” added Jim Longacre of Barto, Pa, board member-at-large.
The conference board and staff were particularly struck by the width of cultural differences within the conference, beyond those of ethnicity: cultures of wealth, technology, generation, or theology. “We have many different paradigms for how we understand God’s work in the world,” said Joe Hackman, “yet we can still partner together.”
“We don’t need to think alike,” pointed out LEADership Minister, Ray Yoder, “but we do need to think together.” This means open, candid, and often difficult conversations, he added.
The foundation of these conversations is developing a culture of prayer—which could be an intercultural experience in itself, suggested Marta Beidler Castillo of Norristown, Pa, board member-at-large. “This is a growing cultural edge for us,” she said.
Conference board and staff gathered for a prayer of healing and commissioning together as a step toward a hopeful future, recognizing the last months of conflict, struggle and leadership transitions. As the sun set quietly over Bucks County fields, board member Beny Krisbianto of Philadelphia prayed that the Conference would recognize together that a new day was beginning. A final blessing included Ertell Whigham’s prayer, which was based in Philippians 1: 9-11: that love would overflow and that knowledge and understanding would increase toward continued fruitfulness in a way that brings glory to God.