Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Conference News

Groff contributes to MPN's Adult Bible Study Online

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Gwen M Groff, pastor of Bethany Mennonite Church; Bridgewater Corners, Vt.; is the current writer for the March – May 2009 quarter of Mennonite Publishing Network (MPN)’s Adult Bible Study Online feature. This quarter’s series is entitled “New Creation in Christ”.

MPN’s Adult Bible Study provides a quarterly study of the Bible from an Anabaptist perspective. Lessons are based on the Uniform Series: International Bible Lessons for Christian Teaching created by The National Council of Churches. In addition to weekly lessons, Adult Bible Study offers daily Bible readings and suggested resources for additional study. Due to production and writing schedules, the teaching materials found in Adult Bible Study are prepared many months in advance therefore, MPN also provides the Adult Bible Study Online feature as a free resource providing an update to the printed materials, prepared and posted just prior to the date of the lesson. These columns are designed to help bring current events and Bible study together.

“This assignment from MPN to write a weekly essay connecting the week’s text to current events disciplines me to reflect more broadly on scripture,” writes Groff. “The writers for this quarter’s Adult Bible Study (Leonard Beechy) and its teachers’ guide (Sharon Kraybill) are both insightful interpreters of Scripture, and I enjoy reading each of their perspectives on the week’s text. After reading them I spend time with various news web sites; the New York Times, the BBC, CBC, etc.; looking for stories that might connect with the Scripture lesson. Karl Barth said, ‘We must hold the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.’ I always think that’s a good idea but this assignment requires me to actually do it.”

Teachers and students are encouraged to visit the Mennonite Publishing Network website and benefit from her insights and observations. This service is provided by Mennonite Publishing Network to encourage the study and application of the Scriptures to life today.

Elizabethtown College hosts workshop on Anabaptist racial diversity

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Elizabethtown College is presenting a workshop, “Divided by Faith: Racial Diversity and Anabaptists Today,” on Thursday, April 16, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., in the Young Center’s Bucher Meetinghouse. Sponsored by the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies and the Sociology and Anthropology Department of the college, the workshop features Michael O. Emerson, Ph.D. Emerson is the Allyn and Gladys Cline Professor of Sociology and founding director of the Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life at Rice University. The workshop is open to the public free of charge.

Emerson will discuss his research on racism among American evangelicals and share his stories and findings from multi-ethnic congregations in the U.S. Also included will be an overview of findings about race and racism from Church Member Profile 2006 (a study of Anabaptists in the U.S.) by Elizabethtown College professors Conrad Kanagy and Jeff Bach, and responses by several Mennonite and Church of the Brethren pastors including Leonard Dow, pastor of Oxford Circle Mennonite Church a Franconia Conference Partner in Mission.

At 7:00 p.m., students in Kanagy’s Sociological Theory course will host an “Author Meets Critics” discussion with Emerson, where they will critique his work and pose questions. This event will also be held in the Bucher Meetinghouse and is open to the public free of charge.

Emerson is the co-author of several books, including the award-winning “Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America” and “People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States.” The latter book won the 2007 Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for making the most significant contribution to overcoming racism, awarded by the Racial and Ethnic Minorities section of the American Sociological Association. His most recent books are “Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More Money” and the forthcoming “Religion Implicated: What Sociology Teaches Us about Religion in Our World.”

Dock Woods Community hosts pastoral care seminar

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Chaplains, pastors, counselors and lay ministers are invited to Aging Well: Recognizing Losses and Opportunities On the Last Stage of Life’s Journey at Dock Woods Community on Wednesday, April 22, 2009 from 8:00am – 11:45am in the Fisher Auditorium on Dock Drive, Lansdale, PA. The seminar qualifies for 2.5 APC Continuing Education hours.

Doctors Carol and G. Peter Schreck will lead this seminar which is part of Dock Woods Community’s Annual Pastoral Care to Seniors seminar series. The Schreck’s are both practicing therapists and teach at Palmer Theological Seminary. They bring a family systems perspective to the topic of senior ministry.

The seminar is FREE to those who pre-register by April 17. A continental breakfast will be provided. For more information on this event click here or contact Chaplain Merlin Hedrick at mhedrick@dockwoods.com or 215.368.4438.

Perkasie Patchwork features Ken Kolodner and The Boys of County Bucks

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On April 18, Ken Kolodner, a fiddle and hammered dulcimer virtuoso, and opening act The Boys of County Bucks, playing traditional Celtic music, will perform at the Perkasie Patchwork Coffeehouse in the Perkasie Mennonite Church hall at 4th & Chestnut Streets in Perkasie, PA. Doors open at 7 pm with performances at 7:30. Adults $9, Adults over 65 $7, Students 13 and up $4, 12 & under free. Tasty refreshments for sale. Check out our website www.perkmenno.org for directions or more information, or call 215-723-2010.

Without any formal music background, Ken Kolonder began learning to play the fiddle at age 23 by listening to recordings of bluegrass and American Old-time or Appalachian music. A few years after picking up the fiddle, Ken discovered the hammered dulcimer while in graduate school. Ken’s interest in the two instruments developed into an ever-expanding musical appetite beginning with Celtic music and eventually into music spanning many cultures ranging from South American music to Chinese music.

As a member of the trio Helicon (with Chris Norman and Robin Bullock) and Greenfire (with fiddler Laura Risk) and in solo appearances, Ken has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe and has been featured in nationally broadcast concerts on NPR, German National Radio, The Thistle and Shamrock, the CBC, Performance Today, All Things Considered, and on the Voice of America, as well as countless television and radio broadcasts around the U.S. Ken has been featured at numerous major festivals and performing arts centers in the U.S., was the first American to be featured at the International Hackbrett Festival in Germany and has performed with major symphony orchestras. His appearance as the featured soloist with a combined chorus (The Baltimore Choral Arts) and a chamber orchestra of members of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was broadcast in an Emmy-nominated CBS-TV Christmas special.

Opening for Ken will be The Boys of County Bucks. They play traditional Celtic music — from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Canada and the US — on fiddle, guitar, banjo, whistles, bodhrán, as well as songs of the auld sod in tight vocal harmonies.

A portion of the proceeds from this concert will go to Pennridge FISH (Fellowship in Serving Humanity), a local a non-profit food pantry created to serve the needs of the low income families in the Pennridge School District. Patchwork Coffeehouse is a collection point for FISH, at any concert you can drop off non-perishable foods for the food pantry.

Upcoming Perkasie Patchwork Coffeehouse shows:

May 16 – Kim & Reggie Harris + Chip Mergott & Annie Bauerlein,

October 17 – Gordon Bok,

November 21 – Charlie Zahm & Tad Marks + Unsafe At Any Speed

Dock High School names new principal

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The Board of Trustees of Christopher Dock Mennonite High School announced that Dr. Conrad Swartzentruber has been named the school’s next Principal. Swartzentruber will succeed Principal Elaine A. Moyer, who will join the Mennonite Education Agency as Associate Director at the end of the 2009 school year.

For the past 12 years, Swartzentruber has served as Administrator of Shalom Christian Academy, an Anabaptist pre-K through 12 school serving 540 students in Chambersburg, Pa. Previously, he also taught middle school and served with Mennonite Central Committee for several years in Indonesia and Bangladesh.

“Under the care of Elaine and her team, Dock’s mission, programs and learning centers have grown exponentially over the past years,” said J. Philip Bergstresser, Chairperson of the Dock Board of Trustees. “In Conrad, I am confident that we have found a leader who will work with the Dock team to build on this great tradition of developing the programs and infrastructure needed to cultivate ‘the God-given abilities of our students, in preparation for responsible stewardship of life as members of God’s people in a global society,’ as our mission states.”

Swartzentruber earned a Doctor of Education degree from Duquesne University, and also holds a Master of Science degree from Virginia Tech and a Bachelor of Science degree from Morehead State University. He is an active member of Marion Mennonite Church in Chambersburg, where he recently served as elder chair. Swartzentruber holds a Superintendent Certificate through the Association of Christian Schools International, and was the recipient of the 2007 Henderson Prize for Educational Leaders from Duquesne University.

“I recently had the opportunity to see the mission of Dock in action as part of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation team,” said Swartzentruber. “Anabaptist values define my worldview, and that’s exactly what I saw at Dock. Students, faculty, staff, and administration were truly living out the mission of the school. When I learned of Elaine’s plans to serve the wider church through Mennonite Education Agency, I was excited to inquire about the opportunity to continue the excellent work she and her team have been doing at Dock.”

For more information click here to read a letter from Christopher Dock Mennonite High School Board Chair J. Phillip Bergstresser.