Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Ertell Whigham

A Love Letter for 50 Years 

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by Sharon Williams

Nueva Vida Norristown (PA) New Life (NVNNL) recently celebrated Pastor Ertell Whigham for his 50 years of ministry with a gala and dinner. Friends, family, and ministry associates from the Norristown community, Mosaic Conference, and beyond joined the congregation with tributes and stories to share. A highlight of the evening was a jazz concert led by Pastor Ertell, given as a “musical love letter” for all of us. The offering was designated by Pastor Ertell for the congregation’s capital campaign, Enlarging Our Place in God’s World. 

(L-R) Pastor Ertell Whigham & Leadership Minister Noel Santiago  Photo credit: Jeff Harvey.

In December, Pastor Ertell completed 33 years of ministry as one of the three founding Associate Pastors at NVNNL.  

After coming to faith in Jesus Christ in 1970, Ertell began ministering as a lay leader in visitation and youth outreach. When he and his family moved to Reading, PA, a neighbor introduced them to Buttonwood Mennonite Church and Lancaster Mennonite Conference. The congregation called him into ministry by lot and credentialed him as a bi-vocational pastor.  

A job transfer relocated the Whigham family to Pastor Ertell’s home neighborhood in North Philadelphia in 1980, where he was called to join the ministry team at Diamond Street Mennonite Church.  

One Sunday in 1985, Pastor Ertell was invited to preach at Bethel Mennonite Church in Norristown, PA. After the service, the Church Council Chair handed him a key to the front door of the church and urged him to become Bethel’s pastor. He accepted the call, and his wife Pat developed the children’s ministry. By God’s grace, they were able to provide stability and vision for the congregation. 

In 1988, God was raising a vision for a different kind of Anabaptist witness in Norristown. Pastor Ertell was instrumental in discerning and leading the vision with Pastor Paul Leichty (First Mennonite) and Pastor Henry Ortiz (Fuente de Salvación). The three Mennonite congregations came together to form Nueva Vida Norristown New Life (NVNNL) Mennonite Church in 1990.  

NVNNL elders Adamino Ortiz, Marta Castillo, and Emmanuel Mwaipopo present gifts to Pastor Ertell and Sister Pat Whigham. Photo credit: Jeff Harvey.

NVNNL became one of the nation’s first intercultural, bilingual Anabaptist congregations. The three ministers formed an intercultural pastoral team and became Associate Pastors—a model that NVNNL continues to embrace. Sister Pat Whigham’s emphasis on children grew into Precious Life Ministries, a Christian childcare center based in the NVNNL meetinghouse.  

Whigham served as a Conference Minister and Executive Minister/CEO of Franconia Mennonite Conference from 2000–2016. He also served as the Board Director of Mennonite Health Services from 2012–2016. In 2007, Pastor Ertell received Mennonite Mission Network’s Urban Leader Award. 

Currently, Whigham is an interim Leadership Minister with Mosaic Conference, a senior consultant with Manna Visions LLC, and a post leader/peace advocate with Pointman International Ministries, a healing ministry for military veterans. 

Pastor Ertell and Sister Pat are blessed to have three adult children, six grandchildren, and Ertell’s energetic, independent, 102-year-old mother, who lives nearby. They also provide a “forever home” for rescued Rottweilers. Whigham spends his leisure time leading a gospel jazz band in which he plays alto saxophone.  

Sharon Williams

Sharon K. Williams is the Minister of Worship at Nueva Vida Norristown New Life in Norristown, PA.

Work and Hope in Florida/ Trabajo y Esperanza en Florida

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by Steve Kriss, Executive Minister

Tomorrow I’m leaving for a meeting with Mennonites in Fort Myers, Florida.  Noel Santiago and I will represent our conference in a conversation with congregations who are interested in remaining in relationship with Mennonite Church USA after the withdrawal of their conference.  They are discerning their future together as a community.  

Last month, Southeast Mennonite Conference removed itself from our national body.   In recent years, we have had growing ties to some of these communities in Miami, Tampa, and Sarasota.  Some of us spend part of our winter in Florida; some of us have pastored there; some of us have relatives in these communities.  Florida is an easy flight away from the part of our conference that is rooted in the Northeast corridor.

Several years ago, Angela Moyer (our current conference assistant moderator), Ertell Whigham (then executive minister), and I helped to lead an equipping event with Southeast Conference leaders in Sarasota.  We recognized a resonance between our conferences. There’s been a warmth between some of our conference leaders and these Floridian communities since then.  In the last weeks, we received a request to come alongside a part of what had been Southeast Conference to provide additional leadership resources and accompaniment.

Sandra and Marco Guete worship during a Southeast Mennonite Conference annual assembly. Photo by Andrew Bodden.

Last month, we invited Marco Guete to begin serving as a stipended leadership minister to work alongside the communities in Florida for six months.  Marco joined our conference staff retreat at Spruce Lake last week.  His wisdom, insights, experience, and salsa lessons were a welcome gift to our team while we were together.  I expect these deep, lively, and wise contributions to continue in the months ahead.

Where is this going?  We don’t know.  We anticipate meeting with leaders from about ten congregations in Florida this weekend; these leaders may either decide to form their own group in Florida in order to remain a part of Mennonite Church USA or express a desire to join our conference.  It’s a time of fluidity and change in church structures, with the previously unimagined becoming the new normal.

We want to be open-handed in relating to the communities in Florida.   I believe strongly that “to those whom much is given, much is required.”  We had available financial resources to offer assistance to our sibling communities in Florida from within our budget this year due to unfilled staff roles.  When the need in Florida became clear through a phone call with former MCUSA moderator Roy Williams from Tampa, we responded.  Our multilingual conference staff will continue to work to accompany the Florida communities as they discern their future.  Marco will work in this role for six months.  We are in conversation with Mennonite Church USA leadership about how this may evolve.

The Spirit continues to shake up the structures of the church.  Meanwhile, we are still willing to bear witness to the way of Christ’s peace.  And God continues to bring new possibilities for relationships and renewal that might extend right fellowship to people both near and far.   We will continue to work and hope.  Seguiremos trabajando y esperando.

Norristown Congregation to Receive Sacred Places Grant

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by Sharon Williams, Nueva Vida Norristown New Life, with Carrie Hagen

One hundred years ago, the Franconia Mennonite Conference planted its first mission in Norristown, Pennsylvania. The Norristown Mission began with an awareness that the gospel of Jesus Christ is for all people. Today, Nueva Vida Norristown New Life Mennonite Church draws from twelve different countries. Earlier this fall, Norristown New Life was honored as the first Mennonite congregation accepted into The National Fund for Sacred Places, a national historic preservation grant-making program launched by the Lilly Endowment.  Norristown New Life was one of 13 congregations selected from a field of 178 for the 2018–19 cohort.

Norristown New Life’s capital campaign, “Enlarging Our Place in God’s World,” includes the restoration of its 1907 Gothic Revival building, located in Norristown’s historic district, one block from the county courthouse. Built from Valley Forge marble, the sanctuary features two large stained glass windows and seventeen smaller ones. In addition to restoring the windows, the building needs stone pointing, new flooring, a new roof, interior and exterior painting, and HVAC work. Norristown New Life also seeks to make the meetinghouse more accessible to those with physical disabilities by installing new restrooms and an elevator.

The congregation purchased the historic Bethany United Methodist Church building for its meetinghouse in 1990, when three independent Mennonite congregations—First Mennonite, Bethel Mennonite, and Fuente de Salvación—came together to form Nueva Vida Norristown New Life Mennonite Church.

Since 1990, three associate pastors representing the three major ethnic groups represented in the church body—Hispanic, African American, and Caucasian— share all pastoral duties.  This leadership system of power-sharing is Anabaptist, a key commitment for the congregation’s leadership model. Bilingual worship services are shared in English and in Spanish.

The National Fund for Sacred Places team, says Director Chad Martin, was struck not only by the congregation’s history of interracial and intercultural membership and leadership but also by its community ministries.

Norristown New Life has developed partnerships with Precious Life Childcare Center, the Montgomery County Association for the Blind, Narcotics Anonymous, and the county’s addiction counseling services. It operates a discipleship housing ministry for single women and trains adults and youth in restorative justice practices utilized by the school district.  At the photo ID clinic held in the congregation’s youth center, trained volunteers assist people with the paperwork and money orders they need to acquire state-issued IDs, birth certificates, and Social Security cards in order to obtain jobs, medical services, bank accounts, and apartment rentals.

Prior to its admittance into the National Fund, the congregation had raised over $500,000 of their capital campaign’s $2 million target. Its goal now is to leverage the highest matching grant offered by The National Fund—$250,000—as part of the effort to raise the remaining $1.5 million. The grant requires 2:1 matching funds of $500,000.

Acceptance in the National Fund program, says Pastor Ertell Whigham, is a gift for Norristown New Life’s mission to serve its community.

“As ambassadors of reconciliation, the gift of this grant enables our congregation to offer our place of worship as a continued presence for community partnerships, service, commitment, and hope.”

Why I Said Yes …

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 . . . to ongoing work and hope

by Stephen Kriss

Mother Theresa called it a “call within the call.”  That’s the best language I’ve found to describe why I’ve said yes to the invitation to the role of Executive Minister with Franconia Conference.   These weeks since the announcement went public I’ve felt surrounded by congratulatory support as well as honest condolences.   The congratulations recognize the largeness of the role and the condolences honor the difficulty of church leadership in this time and space.  I’ve received them both openly and humbly feeling strongly the sense of call between God, the world, our community and me for “such a time as this.”

While I’ve worked now over a decade with Franconia Conference, this appointment still feels like a surprise.  I’d have never guessed moving to Philadelphia after grad school would mean staying this long and finding my heart drawn to the community that we are, that we have been and that we are becoming.   I’ve come to love us from our immigrant congregations in South Philadelphia, to our historic congregations in Bucks and Montgomery County, to our experiments in church life in the Lehigh Valley and our unique blend of Vermonter Anabaptism.   There’s no where like us.   We are poised with interesting and sometimes complicated possibilities.

I’m grateful for the thorough work of the search committee and for the discerning work of the board.   Ertell Whigham, who has served as our executive minister, hands off a stable and financially sound organization.   He is leaving the role after being the first African American to lead a Conference in our national body.  Ertell’s commitment to our ongoing transformation as missional and intercultural people is one that I intend to carry forward.

In my interview with the Conference Board, I said that a marker of success for me will be collaboration.  I’m not exactly sure how we’ll mark or measure this yet, but I’ve seen glimpses of it in our work together in mutuality and sharing resources that give me some clues.   We have a long story together and I’m convinced that our future could be bright.   We’ll need to keep learning (to keep on being disciples) and to invest carefully so that our gift of faith might not simply be safely preserved but multiplied like the resources entrusted to the servants in Jesus’ parable from the Gospel of Matthew.

In this journey, the text “to whom much is given, much is required” has lingered in my head.   I hear it both for me and for all of us.   I receive this work as a gift.   I acknowledge the privileges that are mine and are ours.  These are not simply political, economic or racial/class privileges (though there are those), but privileges of grace, hope, and love.    It is because of these eternal things that last that I have said yes, again this time to the invitation of the Spirit among us.  I look forward to living into this “call within a call” together.  And trust that we’ll continue our faithful legacy of work and hope.

Worthy of our Calling to Extend Christ’s Peace

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by Stephen Kriss

During the last staff meeting in this space in between, I invited my colleagues to share their celebrations and questions for the last month.   Without exception, the celebrations and questions had to do with pastors.   We celebrate the completion of pastoral search processes, with the beginning of Mike Spinelli’s leadership at Perkiomenville; the call of Maria Hosler Byler to an associate pastor role at Salford; Josh Jefferson’s installation and licensing last Sunday at Souderton as a youth pastor; and Sandy Drescher-Lehman’s beginning as pastor at Methacton. Many of these processes were lengthy discernments.   We celebrate the new beginnings and new possibilities that leadership can bring in the life of our communities.

Conference staff took a road trip with Pastor Bruce Eglinton-Woods (Salem), to explore the community where the congregation is ministering.

Our questions had to do with how we walk with pastors and congregations through difficult times.  We wonder how God will provide with prolonged pastoral search processes at Franconia and Taftsville.  We prayed as John Bender from Allentown who was in the hospital making difficult decisions between life and death, as he was readmitted to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia (he made the decision by the time our meeting had ended).  We prayed for an upcoming surgery that Charlie Ness from Perkiomenville will be undergoing.   These are all things we attend to as staff beyond our meeting time and carry in our hearts and heads.

The last month has meant focused attention on planning for Conference Assembly — a great time to celebrate the work God is doing in our midst, and spend time discerning and equipping ourselves for the future.  Registration and the docket are available at http://edc-fmc.org/assembly/  to help us, as a conference, prepare for assembly at Penn View Christian School.  Postcard invitations and posters will be coming to your congregations in the next two weeks. We’ve hosted and gotten some feedback from our time with David Boshart (moderator-elect) from Mennonite Church USA.  We’re prepping for his return at assembly to discuss more specific issues around human sexuality that continue to challenge our capacity to be church together, while going to the margins to be and proclaim the Good News.

Our conference executive minister Ertell M. Whigham comes back on the job on Saturday, October 1.  My season of this stretch of the race as acting executive minister has passed.  I’m ready to return the baton and responsibilities back to Ertell as he navigates the next few months.  I’ve learned a lot in these months.  I’ve been busier than usual with meetings, emails, texts and phone calls.  I have lots of hope for us as a community, but recognize our fragility at the same time.  God continues to bless us with flourishing, and challenges enough to test and grow our hearts, minds, and souls.

At the beginning of these three months, I felt drawn to the text to “live a life worthy of my calling.”  This time, ending this stretch, I want to turn that text back over to us as individuals and a community, to stay focused on the things we’ve discerned together, and to live, work and minister together in such a way that honors the sense of call that exemplifies what God has invited us toward in extending the peace of Christ to each other and to neighbors nearby and faraway.

Staff Update: The Space In Between

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by Stephen Kriss

We are three weeks into Executive Minister Ertell Whigham’s three month sabbatical.   In the meantime, I’m serving as acting executive minister, which so far has meant attending to both more details and broader issues and possibilities for our community of faith together.   These months will continue to provide opportunities for staff growth and engagement in new ways.   Our conference youth minister, John Stoltzfus, is also on sabbatical, which makes the staff lean and busy for the summer.

In Mennonite Church USA, our conference currently has the most advertised pastoral openings.  We are searching for diverse leaders from Taftsville in Vermont to South Philly to serve among our congregations.   With about a dozen pastoral openings across our Conference, this is a significant time of transition and focused work.  Pastoral transitions are high priorities for LEADership Minister engagement to help keep our congregations healthy and growing.

conference assembly 2015 175This summer we, the staff, begin “Going to the Margins” staff meetings which will mean the Conference office will be closed the last Wednesday of July, August, and September in the afternoons as staff engage with our congregational communities.  Our first “Going to the Margins” staff meeting will be with Doylestown Mennonite next week where we’ll engage with pastors and spend time learning there.  I look forward to each of these three afternoon times out together.

Franconia Conference is about conferring.  There are frequent meetings and there is much planning happening for meetings coming up this fall.  Office staff work hard to ensure that we are ready to gather together in ways that are meaningful and that information flows in a timely and efficient way.  We’re in process of planning for our annual assembly and continue to work to update our pastoral credentialing records.

There is much to do.  We have many good stories to tell.   We continue to work and to hope.  I invite you to join together in prayer for the conference, staff, board and everyone across our almost 7000 people conference community as together we strive to “live a life worthy of our calling.”

Executive Search Update

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Franconia Conference logoOn May 19, Franconia Mennonite Conference (FMC) Moderator, John Goshow, announced to the conference delegates and conference related ministry (CRM) leaders that the board had accepted the resignation of Executive Minister, Ertell Whigham, to be effective January 31, 2017. Ertell states in his resignation letter, “it continues to be a blessing and honor to serve as the Executive Minister and CEO of FMC. On behalf of the conference, I have enjoyed the opportunities and collaborative relationships that have developed and been strengthened among our constituency and MCUSA affiliates. However, as I sense time for a change in responsibility and ministry focus, I believe that the season approaches for me to step out of my current conference role as Executive Minister and CEO of FMC.”

With that the Conference Board Executive Committee began engaging Franconia Conference pastors, CRM leaders, board and staff for their input on what they desire from the next Executive Minister.  A survey was sent out to these constituency groups and resulted in 22 pages of feedback. Three meetings were then held where pastors, CRM leaders, board and staff were invited to dialogue with the Executive Committee about their hopes and expectations of the next Executive Minister. The survey results and notes from these meetings have been shared with the search committee.

As communicated in a letter from the conference moderator on July 1, Joy Sutter of Salford Mennonite Church, has agreed to chair the search committee. Joy is also a member of the MCUSA board, and the Associate Administrator for the Cancer Service Line at University of Pennsylvania Health System. She brings extensive administrative and executive experience to this process. Five additional people have also been named to the search committee in the last few weeks. These individuals have been appointed by the board with input from some conference pastors. The other members include Angela Moyer (Ripple) who will serve as the board representative on the committee, Henry Longacre (Swamp), Glen Nemath (Blooming Glen), Doris Diener (Franconia Mennonite Church), and Michael Meneses (Wellspring Church of Skippack). The search committee is scheduled to have their first meeting on July 21.

The conference board desires not to rush this process and wants to ensure that the search committee has all the time they need to discern the person God has for this role. At the same time, it is hoped that the next Executive Minister would be named by December 31. Further communication regarding the process will be released as it is available via Intersectings and possible letters from the Moderator. Questions regarding the process can be directed to the Conference Moderator.

Blessing and Appreciation

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IMG_6026On Wednesday, March 23rd, Franconia Conference hosted an appreciation luncheon for the Conference’s 19 Conference Related Ministries (CRMs). Representatives from the organizations enjoyed lunch in the Fisher Auditorium at Dock Woods, part of Living Branches. Welcome remarks were given by Ertell Whigham, conference executive minister. John Goshow, conference moderator, reflected on his time as a leader at Penn Foundation, a CRM, and offered his perspective now from a conference stand point, highlighting all the CRMs offer to the conference and conference congregations. It was noted that through the CRMs, well over 50,000 people are reached annually.

IMG_6030As a token of appreciation, each CRM was gifted by the conference a Pennsylvania Redware plate handcrafted by Denise Wilz and customized with the CRM’s name. In addition, Mim Book and Jim Lapp, credentialed leaders within Franconia Conference offered a blessing over the CRMs.

CRM Lunch - photo 1
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To learn more about who the Conference Related Ministries and how you and your congregation can get involved with them, visit http://mosaicmennonites.org/directory/conference-related-ministries/.

 

Prayer of Blessing
Conference Related Ministries Appreciation Luncheon
March 23, 2016

Offered by Mim Book and Jim Lapp, credentialed leaders with Franconia Conference

IMG_6033It is an honor to be with you today and to offer a blessing for you in your varied ministries in behalf of our conference and congregations.

Thank you for the important service you each provide that enriches the body of Christ in such diverse ways. Please pray with us. 

Gracious God, you have blessed your church with a rich abundance of gifts for service through these sisters and brothers, and the boards, leaders and staff in each of these ministries.

We praise you for the women and men with vision who gave pioneering leadership these past 100 years to bring into existence these many forms of service that extend the mission of our congregations. 

We give thanks for those who contributed their finances and time, often sacrificially, for the good of children, youth, older people, those with disabilities,  those well and not well, the newly born and those dying, the incarcerated, and those with physical and mental illnesses.

We are grateful for those who brought business experience and wisdom to their leadership as they invested their gifts and resources in these creative ways.  We thank you for pastors and church leaders who offered spiritual insight and wisdom to help make these ministries flourish.

We now pray your blessing upon those who give leadership to our camps and retreat centers – Bethany Birches in Vermont, Camp Men-O-Lan, and Spruce Lake.   We pray that in each setting the spirit of Christ would infuse those who serve with love, and transform all the participants in these ministries.

We pray your power and blessing on our schools – The City School, Quakertown Christian, Penn View and Christopher Dock high school.  May the administration, faculty and boards of directors serve with clarity of purpose and conviction in the nurture and formation of our children and youth.

We pray grace upon all who serve with the Indian Creek Foundation and Peaceful Living who provide opportunities and care for those with special challenges in life.  May each one be treated with dignity, compassion and love. 

We pray your gracious presence upon all who serve with the Penn Foundation and Liberty Ministries.  Let your healing mercy and love shine through the staff and contribute growth and stability to those who too often are stigmatized in our society.

We pray for those who lead us in gathering and managing historical resources through the Germantown Historic Trust and the Mennonite Historians of Eastern Pennsylvania.  Through these ministries may the faith of our ancestors continue to enrich and guide our churches in the 21st century.

We pray your continued strength on the ministries of the Care and Share Shoppes and the MCC Material Resource Center and all who lead and volunteer in these ministries.  Bless these labors of love and sharing as a means of ministering in the name of Christ to those local and global who experience special needs.

We pray the Delaware Valley MEDA, the Eastern PA Mennonite Disaster Service, and Life with God program will continue to offer resources that touch the spiritual and physical needs of people with the hope and peace of Christ. 

We pray for all our ministries that serve the aging – Living Branches on its various campuses, and the Community at Rockhill.  We pray the staff, administrators, chaplains, and boards of directors will have wisdom to foster communities of healing and peace, with respect for the spirituals sages who reside there, and for those with limited family and other resources. 

Our God, we also ask your Divine blessing on our conference leaders who seek to show support and encouragement to those in these ministries.

With the apostle Paul we exclaim, “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!”

With the saints of all ages we pray, “Now to God who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly in these ministries, far more than we can ask or imagine, to this God be glory in the church, in all our church related ministries, and in Christ Jesus, to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”