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Read your way to Pennsylvania 2015

December 4, 2014 by Conference Office

by Phyllis Pellman Good, for Mennonite World Conference

Whether you’re planning to attend the next Mennonite World Conference assembly, or just want to learn more about Anabaptists around the world, Mennonite World Conference staff have book recommendations for you.

“We should be well-informed hosts,” says Richard Thomas, who chairs the advisory council for the assembly. “Most of us probably can’t become fluent in Indonesian or Amharic or French between now and next July. But we can certainly learn more about our sister churches around the world.”

Five-volume global history series available

Mennonite World Conference recently commissioned a five-volume global history series, with one volume for each continent where Anabaptists live. The books are written by people from those continents and reflect the perspectives and experiences of the local churches. The series includes:Testing Faith and Tradition (Europe volume), Mission and Migration (Latin America volume), Anabaptist Songs in African Hearts (Africa volume), Churches Engage Asian Traditions (Asia volume), and Seeking Places of Peace (North America volume).

“I’m reading these books as one way to get myself ready for Pennsylvania 2015. I want to have a deeper understanding of how my sisters and brothers have found and sustained their faith,” said Thomas. “Many of them have survived wars and hunger and immense political pressure. Many have Muslim neighbors. I have so much to learn from them–and the histories tell those stories.”

Book about shared convictions

Thomas said he is also reading What We Believe Together: Exploring the “Shared Convictions” of Anabaptist-Related Churches, by Alfred Neufeld. The book is based on the Mennonite World Conference statement “Shared Convictions of Global Anabaptists,” and includes stories from around the world and questions for discussion.

Book discussions planned

Books discussions are being held around Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that will run through June 2015.

Conference staff are encouraging those unable to attend a book discussion to organize their own gathering, and use the books as Sunday School resources.

The assembly will be held July 21-26, 2015 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Beyond our Christendom, signs of life

December 3, 2014 by Conference Office

by Steve Kriss, Director of Leadership Cultivation
Reposted by permission from Mennonite World Review

I remember wincing when British Anabaptist Stuart Murray Williams suggested wryly in one of his trips to southeastern Pennsylvania that we had managed to create our own Mennonite Christendom.

Murray Williams is likely the world’s pre-eminent scholar on post-Christendom. He’s been writing about it after an encounter with Anabaptism in the U.K., delving into the conversations while believing that an unaligned Anabaptism might provide a path forward in an increasingly secular time when the church moves from the center of culture to the margins.

Murray Williams has been an important guide for me as I live in between that Mennonite Christendom and the ways of being Anabaptist and Mennonite on the margins. In my work with congregations beyond Mennonite Christendom — whether that’s been in Georgia or Vermont or in the urban centers of Philly and Allentown — I’ve come back with a message that feels similar to the dove Noah sent out that returned with an olive branch. There’s life beyond our Christendom.

On my last trip to Georgia I worshiped with the largest Mennonite Church USA congregation there, just north of Atlanta. We celebrated a housewarming for Yunus Perkasa Tjeng and Hui-Lin Kwok. Yunus is the pastor of Georgia Praise Center. He and his wife, Hui-Lin, purchased a spacious house perched at the edge of a cul-de-sac in diverse Lawrenceville, just north of Atlanta.

It’s a community that was profiled recently in a New York Times article as representing “The New Georgia.” Their house was full of guests to honor the new space with gifts of prayers and presence. It was the biggest house party I’ve ever attended. Conversation flowed from English to Indonesian to Mandarin and Hokian.

Traveling with my colleague, Aldo Siahaan, we set off to make connections with a group of recent Burmese refugees seeking affiliation with MC USA through a network of relationships that spans the borders of the U.S. and Canada.

We went to visit this Atlanta group at the request of Virginia Mennonite Conference staffer Skip Tobin, who is relating to a sister congregation in Charlotte. This particular group of Burmese speak the Mara language, and many work in the poultry plants that ring Atlanta.

We walked into the leader’s sparse apartment, tucked into a large complex on Atlanta’s east side, close to Emory University but worlds apart from it. Entering this gated complex, we witnessed a concentrated diversity of people, many recent refugees from conflict zones.

We sat down for a conversation alongside Joseph Raltong, the key Mara Anabaptist leader on this continent. We spoke through translation between English and Mara. And then we stumbled into a conversation in Malay, which the leaders from Atlanta speak after years in refugee camps in Malaysia. Malay speakers can usually understand Indonesian. My colleague Aldo is Indonesian. The conversation moved forward from there easily, and we found our hearts strangely warmed.

After this fairly intense conversation, we met back up with Pastor Yunus for a quick snack at a Korean bakery in Atlanta’s Chinatown. We grabbed coffee and tasty snacks for the journey back to Pennsylvania.

These dispatches from beyond Mennonite Christendom give me life. While I work from within the institutions that make up this very thing, I’m aware our future is quite different. It requires a different fluidity and acumen.

Different leaders will help us to find life in this great beyond — leaders who understand Malay, who have the cultural gifts and skills that will help us navigate and grow. For many of us Euro-American leaders and institutional Mennonite scions, there will be a letting go of control — pleasantly or not. In that letting go is a space where God can work beyond our familiarities, the very place where I suspect we’ll find our hearts warmed by the Spirit who gives life.

Waiting for the pain to end

October 16, 2014 by Conference Office

by Michael A. Meneses, Wellspring Church of Skippack

It was a cold Sunday morning. It had snowed the day before, and though the church parking lot had been plowed, there were ice puddles everywhere. I was walking across the lot in a no-nonsense, got-business-to-take-care-of way when it happened: my right foot landed on a patch of ice. My foot twisted backward, facing the opposite direction as the rest of my body.

It was the most excruciating pain I’ve ever experienced. I laid there on the icy ground until someone found me and an ambulance took me away.

Yet that’s nothing compared to the pain I experienced when my brother died in January 1984. He would have turned 30 that March; I was nearly 28. How does one explain that kind of pain, the pain of a heart cut through by great loss?

Call it soul pain, a shattered heart: pitch-dark, deeply penetrating waves of grief that leave you raw and exposed. Your heart spasms and you can’t breathe. Dizzy with disbelief, you want to shout and cry out: “It can’t be! Can it? How could it? This is not real! Is it?” It’s as if your soul has swallowed some horrible, ugly truth that you want to vomit out, but you can’t.

There are other hurts: the pain of scorn or rejection. The hurt of ridicule and shame. And you, too, have been hurt in one way or another; all of us have. Indeed, many are hurting even now, as I write these words.

Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” I might have said, “I hurt, therefore I am.” For some, it hurts just to live. And without hope, a Comforter, something better to look forward to, how can anyone bear the pain of it all?

Yet, when it comes to suffering, the Apostle Paul, who was no stranger to the pangs of suffering, said that the sufferings of this present time are not even worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us in the end. Indeed, all of creation, which suffers along with us, eagerly awaits its freedom “from its bondage to decay” when we come into the fullness of our redemption (Romans 8:18-25).

The interesting thing about suffering, and perhaps most frustrating, is this: God does not promise to prevent pain and suffering in our lives. No matter how faithful we are, or how spiritually deep we become, God gives us no guarantee that he will relieve us from suffering in this life. In fact, the very opposite may be true: growing deeper and more faithful with God may actually result in more earthly suffering. Nevertheless, God does promise to be with us as we endure suffering.

Perhaps our hurts and our ever-present sufferings fall under the category of Christ’s command to pick up the cross and follow Him. Jesus Himself was no stranger to extreme pain and suffering, having endured the sufferings of the cross. Thus, Jesus is no alien to what we feel and experience in our own earthly sufferings (Hebrews 2:18; 1 Peter 3:18). Perhaps Jesus knows more about the depths of our sufferings than we do ourselves.

Therefore, we are not to live life avoiding suffering at all cost, running from suffering at every turn, or numbing ourselves from suffering by any means, such as the use of drugs and alcohol. In many ways, we are expected to readily face the painful experiences of our lives head-on, especially the inner, emotional pain of spirit and soul, heart and mind. And while we do, we are to allow the Lord to do his work within us, to change, renew, and transform us by its means.

And so, even as we hurt and carry what seems to be unbearable pain in our lives, we remain steadfast with great expectancy. We look forward to something better. Even as we deal with what may appear to be unendurable agony, our trust, our faith, our hope, and our promise is that it will end in due time. And it will have been worth it, once we find ourselves on the other side of it.

Like Paul, Peter also encourages us with the promise and eager anticipation of final relief in the face of suffering: “And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.” (2 Peter 5:10-11).

Our theme for this year’s joint Conference Assembly with Eastern District Conference is “Esperando: Waiting & Hoping.” Conference Assembly will be held November 14-15 at Penn View Christian School in Souderton, Pa.

Seeking peace in their cities, urban leaders gather in Philadelphia

October 15, 2014 by Conference Office

by Rachel Sommer for Mennonite Central Committee East Coast and Mennonite Church USA

urban ministry conference — Chantelle Todman Moore (Philadelphia program coordinator, MCC East Coast), Freeman Miller (retired bishop, Philadelphia District of the Lancaster Mennonite Conference of Mennonite Church USA) and Glen Alexander Guyton (chief operating officer, Mennonite Church USA) pray together for peace in their cities at the Urban Anabaptist Ministry Symposium co-sponsored by MCC East Coast and Mennonite Church USA. (MCC photo/Rachel Sommer)

In a letter to Jerusalem’s exiled leaders, the prophet Jeremiah called on them to work for the welfare of Babylon, the city to which they had been deported. “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city,” he wrote. “Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jer. 29:7).

From October 2-4, nearly 100 Anabaptist leaders gathered in Philadelphia to discuss what responding to Jeremiah’s charge looks like in the 21st century.

Participants came from cities including New York; Hampton, Virginia; Philadelphia; and Washington, D.C., to attend the Urban Anabaptist Ministry Symposium organized by Glen Alexander Guyton, chief operating officer for Mennonite Church USA, and Chantelle Todman Moore, Philadelphia program coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) East Coast.

The symposium invited urban leaders to discuss practical Anabaptist ministry in their cities. “Being a peace church isn’t just about not going to war – it’s about manifesting God’s kingdom in our own communities,” said speaker Addie Banks, executive director at The Groundswell Group in the Bronx, New York.

Banks said the symposium provided opportunities for her to learn from colleagues in new ways. “Each of us has a tool. We all need tools to do our work, and gathering here with one another is like assembling a toolkit.”

During plenary sessions, Banks along with Al Taylor, pastor of Infinity Mennonite Church (Harlem, NY), and Ertell Whigham, associate pastor of Nueva Vida Norristown New Life (Norristown, Pa.) and executive minister of Franconia Mennonite Conference, shared “best practices” from their ministries.

Whigham spoke about the need to develop personal connections in culturally diverse contexts. “To be intercultural in the church of God today means that I will recognize how God has blessed you in your life, and I will recognize the gift that you are to me,” he said. “I will allow the Jesus in you to be the Jesus in me.”

Workshop leaders drew from first-hand experience to facilitate sessions on youth and young adult ministry, education for urban leaders, immigration, developing community partnerships and dismantling oppression.

Additional event sponsors included the African American Mennonite Association, Cookman at Emerging Ministries Corporation, Franconia Mennonite Conference, Goshen (Indiana) College, Kingdom Builders Anabaptist Network of Greater Philadelphia, Mennonite Mission Network and Philadelphia FIGHT.

Symposium organizers hope that participants will continue to connect and collaborate with one another. “I’m excited about the relationships that were forged here,” said Guyton. “This gathering showed that we can all benefit from the expertise of Anabaptist leaders who are carrying out practical ministry in their own contexts.”

Ben Walter, one of the pastors at Ripple, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, said the conference was one of the best he’d ever attended. He appreciated that voices often on the margins were given ample space and emphasis, and found it “helpful and enlightening” to hear the diverse perspectives and experiences represented among attendees.

Todman Moore hopes that urban Anabaptist leaders will convene in other cities in coming years. “We’d love to hear from Anabaptist leaders in other urban areas who are interested in discussing practical ministry in their contexts,” she said. She invites leaders to contact her (215-535-3624, C hantelleTodmanMoore@mcc.org) or Guyton (574-524-5282, GlenG@MennoniteUSA.org) to discuss planning similar initiatives in other cities.

Waiting together in the cold

October 9, 2014 by Emily Ralph Servant

by John Stoltzfus, conference youth minister

Recently, I spent three days with a group of conference leaders who work in youth ministry. This is an annual gathering at a beach house that has no agenda other than to be with one another, share what is happening in our lives and ministries, and eat some good food. Let’s just say that youth workers know how to have a good time when we get together!

What dominated our conversation this time, however, was a lament of the current state of affairs in Mennonite Church USA: the dwindling numbers and interest in the events we plan for youth and youth workers; the fracturing of churches and conferences; the passive aggressive behavior which is so prevalent in conflicts; a lack of healthy leadership (including disappointment in ourselves); the church caving to cultural patterns of polarizing behavior; a lack of the empathy and forbearance in our church relationships that love requires; the list could go on. As we dug our toes into the sand, we waited with one another and sought to listen deeply in our grief and disappointment.

One of us commented that it feels like we are in a waiting period. We are waiting for what will be torn down and what will emerge. It didn’t help the mood that the weather was overcast and there was a chill to the wind coming off the ocean. Someone volunteered to go and collect coats and blankets so that we could stay warm.

Yet, as we huddled together, we also noticed signs of hope. We shared stories of emerging faith and maturity in our children. The more seasoned parents among us noted that this can take a long time. We noticed signs of new life and emerging ministries in our churches and conferences. We rejoiced in the collaborative spirit we often see among youth pastors and workers. We reflected on the increased interest in Anabaptist thought and practice from groups and churches outside the Mennonite Church. We chuckled with holy amazement as we swapped stories of “problem” youth in our youth groups who grow up to be effective and mature Christian leaders.

We need places in our faith community where we can grieve together and share our disappointments. We also need community to help us move beyond ourselves and notice where God is stirring on the edges. We can choose to focus on the fears and anxieties of what we perceive is being lost or we can lean into the assurance that what God is bringing about is good even if we have a hard time imagining what it might look like.

In this time of uncertainty, I long for a renewed sense of community to emerge that is willing to wait with one another until Christ returns. Each generation in the church has a new set of perplexing issues and challenges and we are fooling ourselves if we think we can ever come to a final resolution to settle our differences. Our youth need to see the church model a way to be authentic community together when so much in our world is fragmenting and tearing apart. I long for a church that has a vision of the community that will one day gather around God’s banquet table and then seeks to live into that community today.

I long for a community that is willing to simply be with one another even when the weather is overcast and cold.

Passing the keys

October 1, 2014 by Conference Office

by Ron Landes, Blooming Glen congregation

I knew that it was going to happen. I’ve seen it happen to others many times. I wasn’t really dreading it. But, even though they wouldn’t have to pry them from my “cold, dead hands,” I knew that the trustee set of building keys would have to pass from me to the next, newest member of the group. And so they did, with only the slightest bit of remorse, that of leaving something enjoyable and moving away from something that has been an important part of my life for the last 12 years.

I had grown quite used to having and using that motley collection of some six or seven door-lock openers. There were newer ones and older ones, usual and unusual ones. Differing shapes to fit the various locks found around our building. There was even one that no one was even sure of either use or origin; I carried it anyway. Somehow the keys came to me with a brass Goshen College tag attached to the key ring. I passed that on as well.

Even though these keys have an obvious physical function, that of accessing our church building, they took on a symbolic meaning for me. They represented my responsibility to our congregation in assisting in the task of maintaining our building as a place of comfort and security. I am humbled to see all those who work toward these goals that I believe enhance our worship together.

It has been both a privilege and a blessing to have served with all of the current and past trustees.

The set of keys and many new opportunities await Peter Giesbrecht as he joins the present group of trustees as the next, newest member. We ask God’s blessing on Peter, the ongoing work of caring for our meetinghouse, and on each member of our church family who passes through our unlocked doors each week.

Ron Landes is a member and former trustee of Blooming Glen Mennonite Church. He first shared this story in Glen News, the church’s newsletter. Reposted with permission.

New Anabaptist ministry starts at Penn State

September 18, 2014 by Conference Office

by Lora Steiner, managing editor

As college students head to campus this fall, one congregation, University Mennonite Church in State College, Pennsylvania, is beginning a new initiative: an Anabaptist campus pastor, called by the church to minister to students.

University Mennonite Church is located just a few miles from Penn State University. It began over 50 years ago, when faculty and staff of Penn State began gathering in a classroom on campus.

Until about four years ago, the congregation was involved in an ecumenical effort known as United Campus Ministries. But it dissolved, and the congregation began talking about the need for an Anabaptist presence on campus. For about three years, University Mennonite worked at how to make it happen, clarifying the vision for that ministry, figuring out how to fund it, and also determining how it connected larger denominational needs.

This year, they hired Ben Wideman as Anabaptist Campus Pastor, and helped to establish an officially-recognized Penn State club known as the 3^rd Way Collective.

The goals are varied: To connect with Mennonite students at Penn State who want to stay connected with their faith tradition; to connect with Christian students who may be frustrated and looking for an alternative like Anabaptism; and to connect with those who are interested in peace and justice but don’t necessarily know how faith connects to that.

“There are a lot of groups [at Penn State] talking about faith formation,” says Wideman, “and a number of groups talking about peace and justice issues. But there’s almost no one pulling these two groups together.”

Wideman hopes that the 3^rd Way Collective will be a bridge for such groups, and help make something new in the gap.

Wideman will have office space at the church, and is on a waiting list for an office at Penn State’s Pasquerilla Spiritual Center, which offers meeting space to some 65 multi-faith student organizations on campus.

He isn’t worried at this point about having an office to call home: he won’t need a desk to write sermons or respond to emails, and, as he notes with broadly accepted truth, “You can do a lot with coffee.”

He says that the position is so new, and so outside of the traditional box of pastoral ministry in the Mennonite church, that it still isn’t clear exactly what it will look like. One of the biggest challenges is building awareness: There are 46,000 students at Penn State, and no particular way of knowing who the Mennonite students are unless someone lets Wideman know, or shares about the 3^rd Way Collective.

Pastor Marv Friesen says that University Mennonite is committed to covering all expenses for the first three years, and is exploring ways to expand that support. They’re also talking about how the initiative might be expanded in the future: owning a community house, or creating a collaborative structure where Mennonite-related university communities could connect to each other.

Wideman is finishing his role as youth pastor at Salford Mennonite Church in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, and will start his new position in State College at the end of September. He says he’s excited to see what the transition brings.

“I’ve been thinking about [campus ministry] for a long time, but never expected it to look this way.”

Women and changing roles in the church

September 17, 2014 by Conference Office

by Helen Lapp, Plains

Change can take a lot of time. And it is very unsettling for many—no surprise there! This past summer Plains congregation (Hatfield, Pa.) decided to explore together, during the usual Sunday school hour, some changes the church has weathered in the past several decades. Several of these changes are:

Musical choices: They can bring us together in worship but also can divide.
War and peace: It has impacted many lives in our congregation; a number of young men chose not to participate in war, but some also shared stories of serving in the military.
Rural to suburban: The trend of moving off the farm brought profound changes to our church.
Becoming a diverse church: People from a variety of countries shared the challenges and blessings they experienced as they became an enriching part of our church community.
Divorce and remarriage: There was discussion of the sadness and pain of divorce, as well as stories of healing. Joyful remarriage meant more change for our caring community.
Gender: The changing roles of women in the church

For the session dealing with changing roles of women at Plains, I led a panel of six women of various ages in sharing of their own experiences at Plains. We reflected on how the Bible we valued was written chiefly by and for men, and also taught by men. Candid sharing about the impact wasn’t easy. And, our own personal journeys continue.

Lois Clemens — Lois Gunden Clemens was the first woman to teach Sunday School at Plains.

The women listed some of their role models and helpers along the way; One was Lois Gunden Clemens, who was the first woman to teach a Sunday school class at Plains—the “young adults,” that is. Lois later served as one of our first elders. She was the editor of “The Voice,” the first church periodical specifically published for women. In 1975 Lois also released her book, WOMAN LIBERATED, a gentle guide during the time the secular liberation movement was also finding its voice.

It was clear that most of the women who took part in our panel grew up as loved little girls and privileged women.

My own story was similar.

After I married my husband, Sam, but before coming to Plains Mennonite, I had attended a small country church where the women seemed to make the wheels go round, and I remember them with appreciation and affection. I did notice that only men stood behind the pulpit—several leaving an imprint on my heart with their sermons. But I did weary of a male-centered church, and hungered for more.

During my college years at Eastern Mennonite College, having several women professors brought a learning curve; teaching English for several years likely also pushed me.

And I have always been touched by Jesus’ open-hearted conversation with the Samaritan woman.

A turning point came for me when Sam and I lived for two years in mid-Kansas while he finished his undergraduate college work. While there I met wise Mennonite women, Elaine Sommers Rich and Katie Funk Wiebe, who became mentors and role models as they explored and wrote of God’s clear calls to women in today’s world.

On that Sunday morning panel, all six women shared stories. Generally, personal change happened with little fanfare. Several told of courageous personal choices.; most of these choices led to welcomed role changes. At times change was scary, and sometimes annoying. Was it easier, some wondered, when little was asked but the care of our children?

Panel members found that congregational life had been enriched by having women as pastors alongside Pastor Mike Derstine during the past 15 years.

We acknowledged on this August Sunday morning that both our sons and our daughters accept most of this role flexibility as the new normal. And with God’s help, we usually can also. Healthy change requires open hearts and minds and a commitment to live in love with our fellow life travelers.

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