Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Mennonite Church USA

MC USA Executive Board releases statement, approves resolution

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MC USA EB Feb 2014
Members of the Mennonite Church USA Executive Board pray with MennoMedia staff. Photo by Hannah Heinzekehr.

HARRISONBURG, Va. (Mennonite Church USA)—In the midst of a winter storm, members of the Executive Board (EB) of Mennonite Church USA met Feb. 13–15 to prayerfully discern a way forward on a number of issues facing the broader church.

Together they affirmed the passage of a revised churchwide statement on immigration justice and a resolution that puts in place a task force to review the decision of Mountain States Mennonite Conference to license a pastor in a committed same-sex relationship. They also met with staff from MennoMedia to affirm a new strategic direction for the agency.

Thirteen members of the EB met with Ervin Stutzman, executive director of Mennonite Church USA, and other EB staff members at Park View Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va. Weather prevented five board members from coming to the meetings in Harrisonburg, but they joined the board’s executive sessions via conference call.

The majority of the board’s time together was spent discerning a response to calls from across the church to respond to conversations around inclusion of LGBTQ members of Mennonite Church USA in leadership roles across the church. The board’s conversation focused primarily on two recent events: the decision by Mountain States Mennonite Conference to license Theda Good, a pastor who is in a committed same-sex relationship, for ministry at First Mennonite Church in Denver; and the announcement of Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Harrisonburg to begin a listening process to review its policy of hiring faculty and staff in committed same-sex relationships.

Moderator Elizabeth Soto Albrecht of Lancaster, Pa., opened the meeting by exhorting the Executive Board to be communities of grace to one another.

“Mennonite Church USA is not a perfect church; it is a messy church,” she said. “We are a bunch of people trying to make sense of God’s grace. This weekend we must listen, listen and listen to one another and to members across Mennonite Church USA.”

EB members modeled their work together on principles of discernment suggested by Ruth Haley Barton: preparing and gathering information; putting themselves in a position to listen for God’s guidance; and discerning God’s will together. They were also joined by a facilitator, David Brubaker from EMU, who helped guide the conversations.

The board began by sharing their personal perspectives on the actions taken by Mountain States Mennonite Conference and EMU. The opinions stated spanned a broad spectrum. Some board members expressed disappointment that the board and staff did not process these decisions with the area conference and university before they were announced. The EB also read and listened to the words of individuals across the church who sent letters and e-mails urging the board to take action in response to the recent decisions by Mountain States Mennonite Conference and EMU. The letters also represented a wide range of opinions on the issue.

“What does it mean to come as a board member representing the whole—a whole that includes a broad diversity of opinions?” said Dick Thomas, past moderator and current board member from Lancaster, Pa. “We need to trust the Lord to help us make changes we need to make in time to be relevant and in a way that allows us to get there together.”

The Executive Committee of the board then presented a proposed statement for the board members to consider, encouraging them to take the statement with them overnight and to spend time in prayer discerning God’s leading. Over the course of the next two days, board members offered feedback and counsel to the Executive Committee. The statement underwent three revisions before the board approved a final version. While the statement had broad support across the EB, it did not pass unanimously.

As a whole, the board wrestled with the difficult task of responding to concerns expressed by LGBTQ brothers and sisters, while also tending to relationships with all parts of the church as expressed in written covenants of mutual accountability.

“We need to own all the tears and the anger that have gone into these conversations and honor them,” said Soto Albrecht. “We are called to represent the whole of Mennonite Church USA, and that’s not easy.”

The final statement calls for the creation of a listening task force to review the process by which Mountain States Mennonite Conference decided to license Theda Good, and to examine the ways these actions interface with the existing membership guidelines and polity documents of Mennonite Church USA. The task force will consist of Moderator-elect Patricia Shelly of Newton, Kan. (chair); David Boshart, Executive Committee member; and two to three members of the Constituency Leaders Council (CLC) (to be named). After receiving counsel from the CLC at its next meeting in March 2014, the task force will conduct a review and bring a recommendation for next steps to the EB at its June 2014 meeting. The full text of the statement, which includes instructions for contacting the task force, is available online.

The board also met with Loren Swartzendruber, president of EMU, and Carlos Romero, executive director of Mennonite Education Agency (MEA), to learn more about EMU’s listening process regarding the hiring of faculty and staff members who are in committed same-sex relationships. Swartzendruber said that after listening to voices from across the church, he and the EMU cabinet will bring a recommendation to EMU’s board. The EB urged Swartzendruber to stay in close consultation with Romero and MEA as the process moves forward.

During the meeting, the board also affirmed the release of a revised statement on immigration justice, which delegates called for at the Phoenix convention in July 2013. The statement reads in part, “We renounce the indifference to and mistreatment of undocumented and documented immigrants that has occurred and continues to occur in our congregations, our communities and this country. We are committed to joining God’s reconciling mission and to live and act as sisters and brothers in Christ regardless of our legal status.”

The statement also includes a list of resources for congregations and individuals to use in learning more about and engaging immigration issues. Iris de León-Hartshorn, director of transformative peacemaking for Mennonite Church USA, is also working on the development of a six-week curriculum, Radical Hospitality: Responding to Issues of Immigration, for use in Sunday school and small group settings.

The EB met with MennoMedia staff members to learn about their strategic planning process for the next five years. They plan to explore new print-on-demand technologies; to continue expanding the marketing and availability of Herald Press books; and to gear up for the launch of a new Sunday school curriculum, Shine, in the summer of 2014. Together the board prayed for Menno Media’s staff and board, and blessed their work.

The EB also said farewell to and blessed Marty Lehman, associate executive director for churchwide operations for Mennonite Church USA, who will be leaving her position in April 2014; and Nancy Heisey, who resigned her EB term early..

The CLC will meet March 20–22 in Newton, Kan. The EB’s next meeting will be June 26–28 in Chicago.

See also:

Together we are doing God’s work: Conference Assembly 2013

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John Goshow
Moderator John Goshow welcomes delegates at the 2011 Conference Assembly. Photo by Emily Ralph.

by John Goshow, Moderator, Blooming Glen congregation

The Constituency Leadership Council (CLC) of Mennonite Church USA met in Michigan this week.  The CLC, which includes all 21 conferences of Mennonite Church USA, serves as a group of elders for the denomination.  In my capacity as moderator of Franconia Conference I joined this meeting, along with Ertell Whigham, Executive Minister, and Jenifer Eriksen Morales, LEADership Minister.

Our conference report to the CLC says, “Franconia Mennonite Conference is a network of 42 congregations, 20 Conference Related Ministries (e.g. schools, retirement facilities, historical organizations, camps, prison ministry, thrift stores, etc.), partnerships, and initiatives continuing to emerge out of the 300+ years of Anabaptist witness and faith in the Western Hemisphere … with its beginning in Philadelphia. Franconia Conference’s mission is to ‘equip leaders to empower others to embrace God’s mission.’ With congregations and initiatives that span the East Coast of the US (Vermont to Georgia, north to south, and Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, east to west), our geographic center is in southeastern Pennsylvania. We work together in cultivating and developing leaders, in engaging the world through witness and relationships, and in our commitment to Christ as the center of our shared and individual vision.”

As moderator of Franconia Mennonite Conference, I have wondered what it means for us to be together now and how leadership roles have changed in the last 300+ years. The dictionary definition of moderator helps: “1) one who arbitrates; 2) one who presides over an assembly, meeting or discussion.”   I have learned to appreciate the role of moderator in that it provides the opportunity to connect with and listen to the many persons in our conference who care deeply about God’s work in our congregations and Conference Related Ministries.

In a  recent conversation with a friend we agreed that Franconia Conference is not the board or the staff. Rather, it is the 42 congregations of Franconia Conference and their members, and the Conference Related Ministries that provide important services to the people of their communities. These services—education, elder care, prison ministry, camping, mental health, housing, thrift stores, development disability, and others—serve a huge number of people and represent a wonderful example of how God is at work in our communities.

On November 2 at Penn View Christian School, Franconia Conference will gather for Assembly 2013. This year’s Assembly will be held jointly with Eastern District Conference and will provide the opportunity to worship together and to celebrate the many ways our two conferences are working together to advance God’s Kingdom.  During the business sessions the two conferences will meet separately to do work specific to each conference.  I am looking forward to our time of conferring and discerning God’s will together.

This year the delegates of Franconia Conference will spend significant time conferring about a statement that has been developed by the conference board. The statement acknowledges the cultural shifts impacting the practices and beliefs among Franconia Conference congregations. How can we continue to work together out of our commonality rather than our differences? How can we be accountable to one another as we, together, shape the future of our conference? Many conferences in Mennonite Church USA are having similar kinds of discussions. My hope and prayer is that the conferring and discernment at our assembly and the discussions across the Mennonite Church USA will lead to greater understanding of how together we are doing God’s work.

Gathering with Elizabeth Soto Albrecht

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Elizabeth Soto AlbrechtElizabeth Soto Albrecht, the new moderator of Mennonite Church USA, recently completed a 3-week journey around the United States visiting Mennonite Church USA congregations.  Elizabeth joined pastors and Conference Related Ministry leaders on August 23 to share her learnings and challenges from that journey and hopes for the future of the church and to listen to stories and answer questions from Franconia and Eastern District leaders.

[podcast]http://www.mosaicmennonites.org/media-uploads/mp3/Elizabeth Soto Albrecht.mp3[/podcast]

We’re fit, prayerful, and we stick together

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Phoenix prayer walkby Emily Ralph, eralphservant@mosaicmennonites.org

As we neared the park, the police officer guiding our prayer walk through the streets of Phoenix thanked Mennonite Church USA’s leaders for allowing her to participate in the event.  “Many groups string out and lag behind,” she said, “But you guys stick together, you’re fit, and you’re prayerful.  You’ve made my day.”

Her words produced a chuckle that toasty summer evening, but I’ve continued to chew on them as I’ve accompanied Elizabeth Soto Albrecht on the last two weeks of her cross-country journey to visit Mennonite Church USA congregations.

We have visited congregations who gather three or four times a week for prayer meetings, congregations who participate in acts of civil disobedience, congregations who march in parades, who hold community fairs and weekly laundry outreaches, who open their facilities to the homeless, who wrestle with Scripture and sometimes one another.

We met leaders who speak Spanish, English, Indonesian, French, Vietnamese, German, Creole, and Garifuna.  We worshiped with congregations who sang out of hymnbooks, who sang off the wall, who sang from memory.  We prayed with our hands lifted in the air, in silent moments of meditation, and on awkward but delightful walks through city streets.  We had conversations with people who are concerned about the future of Mennonite Church USA, with people who are excited about it, and with people who didn’t even know they belonged to Mennonite Church USA.

In some ways, the police officer’s observations are a reflection of who we want to be, who we are on our best day.  We’re fit, active, working to bring about God’s reign on earth.  We’re prayerful, throwing ourselves and our hopes and dreams on the mercy of a faithful, just, and loving God.  We stick together, knowing that faith must happen in community, even when members of that community don’t agree with or even like one another.

On our journey, Elizabeth has often reminded congregations that our denomination is only 12 years old.  Like most preteens, we’re still trying to figure out who we are, how we should behave.  The next few years, our teen years, will show us what we’re made of as we face increasingly difficult and potentially divisive issues.  Will we stay fit and prayerful?  Will we stick together?  Will our neighbors, like the police officer, want to participate in what God is doing in our midst?

Maybe her words were less an observation and more a prophetic word on that final evening of Convention.  Maybe our prayer walk was less for the people of Phoenix and more for ourselves, a symbolic act that marked the transition between what has been and what could be.  Maybe it was an act of hope, of promise, a way of assuring ourselves, even as we worry and doubt, that with some cold water, exercise, and plenty of prayer, we can stick together.  Even in the Arizona heat.

We see ourselves

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Gutsy women
Elizabeth Soto Albrecht and Patty Shelly ask Phoenix delegates if they are ready for two women to lead Mennonite Church USA. Photo by Emily Ralph.

I would have told you that I didn’t need a woman leading our denomination.

I would have been wrong.

When Elizabeth Soto Albrecht was given her charge as moderator of Mennonite Church USA on July 5, I felt a thrill run through me.  We had been on the road for a week at that point and I wondered, “Is this what a campaign worker feels like when she sees her candidate take the oath of office?”

A few moments later, Elizabeth and Patty Shelly, the moderator-elect, stood before the delegate body and asked, “Are you ready for two women to lead Mennonite Church USA?”  The crowd applauded and I almost bounced up and down with excitement.

Where was this coming from?  There have been other women who have served as moderator, although most of them were before I was involved enough to be aware.  Why was Elizabeth’s appointment so special for me?

In our first trip together, Elizabeth and I traveled to New York City.  As we ate dinner with a Mennonite pastor in Brooklyn, his face lit up.  “This is an important day,” he said.  “For years, we urban Mennonites have been looking at our leadership, looking for a face we recognize.”  And now, with Elizabeth as the first Latina moderator of Mennonite Church USA, they finally looked to their leadership and saw themselves.

Everywhere we have traveled so far, Elizabeth has been greeted with enthusiasm and warmth.  But when we visit Hispanic congregations, something is different; the energy in the air is palpable, the prayer is fervent.  These congregations sent her to Phoenix in the same way that God sent prophets to Israel: as one individual representing something greater than herself.

I knew this was the case; I have even explained to others on a number of occasions how important Elizabeth’s appointment is to the Hispanic community.  Until the moment when she received her charge, however, it was just knowledge.  In that moment, I felt a dawning awareness of how personal that identification could be: This is what it feels like to look at the moderator and see myself.

When I told my spiritual director that I was going to be traveling with Elizabeth this summer, she laughed.  “That’s one gutsy woman,” she said.  Then she stopped and looked at me.  “But you like gutsy women.”

It’s true.  I do like gutsy women.  And my heart’s desire is that I will be one.

To all the gutsy women who have challenged the status quo, battled through sexism, engaged the hard questions, bridged cultures and theologies and relationships, and sacrificed for the good of the wider church, thank you.  May you more and more often look to our leadership and see a reflection of yourselves.  And may our children and grandchildren look to our leadership and see you.

Incoming moderator launches nationwide tour

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Pastor Byron Pellecer, conference minister Owen Burkholder, Soto Albrecht, and executive director of MC USA Ervin Stutzman answer questions at Iglesia Discipular Anabaptista. Photo by Emily Ralph.

by Emily Ralph

Mennonite Church USA’s incoming moderator Elizabeth Soto Albrecht has begun her journey around the United States to visit MC USA congregations. Soto Albrecht will receive her charge as moderator this Friday, the final day of MC USA’s Phoenix convention.

A native of Puerto Rico, Soto Albrecht is visiting some of the congregations that are not attending MC USA’s convention in Phoenix because of Arizona’s rigorous anti-illegal immigration legislation; she will also drop in at pastors’ breakfasts, home communities, and regional gatherings to listen to the concerns and hopes of the diverse people who make up Mennonite Church USA. Many of these events in the coming week will be streamed live on her website.

After several short trips in May and June to Norristown (Pa.), New York, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C., Soto Albrecht, along with a three-person support team, began the three-week circuit on June 28 with a service of blessing and sending at James Street Mennonite Church in Lancaster (Pa).

During the service, Janet Breneman, Soto Albrecht’s pastor, presented the moderator elect with a photograph of the members of her home congregation, Laurel Street Mennonite Church, as a symbol of their presence with her, sending her and praying for her. Two days later, Soto Albrecht showed that photo to Lindale Mennonite Church (Harrisonburg, Va.) before she preached, saying, “I could not have taken this journey without my home congregation—they have made it possible.”

The sending service concluded with a prayer walk in the west side of Lancaster city. This was the second of what Soto Albrecht hopes to be many prayer walks on her journey; the first was with Philadelphia Praise Center in South Philadelphia. “It is so meaningful when those gathered in the church facility leave the comfort of those four walls and people witness our presence in the neighborhood,” Soto Albrecht observes. “We prayed for the peace of the city and people are more than willing to do that as part of their worship.”

In addition to preaching at Lindale, Soto Albrecht visited Iglesia Discipular Anabaptista (IDA) in Harrisonburg, where she spoke on discipleship and joined Ervin Stutzman, MC USA’s executive director, in a time of Q&A with the congregation.

During that exchange, one member of IDA asked how those who remain behind will be remembered in Phoenix. “On the last night, we’re going on a prayer walk,” Soto Albrecht told him. Thousands of Mennonites will walk the streets, stopping to pray outside the detention center, and finally converge in a park to pray and sing together. “The prayer walk is the peace church making itself visible,” she said.

Both the prayer walk and Soto Albrecht’s keynote address Friday evening will be streamed live on her website.

After their Saturday and Sunday morning visits in Harrisonburg, Soto Albrecht’s team continued on to Chapel Hill, N.C., where members of Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship, pastored by Isaac Villegas, made their way through five inches of rain and flooded roads to worship together.

“The ongoing message that I’ve been receiving is people affirming my decision to have this journey, saying, ‘We’re with you. We understand why you decided not to attend Phoenix and to instead have this long journey before arriving at the delegate session on Friday,’” reflects Soto Albrecht. “Those comments affirmed over and over again that this journey is part of God’s plan for us and how important it is that we connect with one another.”

At the same time, however, her thoughts and prayers are also with the delegates gathering in Phoenix and she looks forward to joining them on Friday for the final delegate session and evening worship.

Although only a few days into the journey, Soto Albrecht has already reconnected with many old friends and become acquainted with many new ones. “I’ve found that people are pleasantly surprised that I’m taking time to stop and join smaller churches or larger churches, to listen to them,” she says. “It is especially important to connect with Spanish-speaking congregations, to let them know that I know their struggles and that we are committed as a church to seek justice on their behalf. I’m looking forward to journeying with them in their struggle and to continue to be sent for and by them to Phoenix.”

The vision sounds different

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by Emily Ralph, associate director of communication

Primera Iglesia Menonita de Brooklyn
Elizabeth Soto Albrecht prays with two pastors who are struggling through immigration issues. Photo by Emily Ralph

Admittedly, I’ve not been a huge fan of Mennonite Church USA’s vision statement.  It’s felt cliché as we’ve reiterated a utopic collection of Anglo American Mennonites’ favorite words strung into a sequence.

This past weekend, as I accompanied Elizabeth Soto Albrecht, Mennonite Church USA moderator-elect, to worship with Mennonite congregations in New York City, I realized something.

Our vision sounds different in Spanish.

It’s not just that the words sound different, although they do.  The meaning of the words takes on new depth when it’s being said by men and women who are faced with oppression, racism, anger, and uncertainty; nice words become a challenge to live like Jesus in the midst of struggle.

At Primera Iglesia Menonita in Brooklyn, immigration advocates gathered downstairs to connect immigrants with resources and an immigration lawyer guided them through the massive paperwork maze needed to achieve adequate documentation.  Upstairs, the congregation worshiped a faithful God who cares for widows, orphans, and “aliens” and shared their own stories of fleeing persecution, enduring economic oppression, and struggling to keep their families together.

How do we let la esperanza de Dios fluyan a través when we are paid less than minimum wage and when we watch helplessly as our families are needlessly deported?

At Garifuna Iglesia Menonita in Harlem, members of the American Garifuna community (people from Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua, and Guatemala of African descent) worshiped enthusiastically in Spanish and Garifuna accompanied by four sets of drums, flowing back and forth between languages as fluidly as the call and response of their leaders and congregation.

How do we grow as comunidades de gracia, gozo y paz when people tell us to “go back where we came from” or when simply walking the streets might lead to a stop and frisk from the New York Police?

At Iglesia Menonita Unida de Avivamiento in Brooklyn, where we said the vision together in Spanish, one of the congregation’s pastors sat across from Elizabeth over dinner and said, “Those of us in urban churches have been looking at our denomination’s leadership for a long time, waiting for someone we recognize.  This is a historic moment.”  It is a moment that could lead to la sanidad de Dios.

I’m beginning to realize that healing sounds different in Spanish.  And that true healing and hope also move us toward a new understanding of God’s justice, “that flows like a mighty stream.”

“God calls us to be followers of Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit,
to grow as communities of grace, joy and peace,
so that God’s healing and hope flow through us to the world.”

“Dios nos llama a ser seguidores de Jesucristo, y por el poder del Espíritu Santo,
a crecer como comunidades de gracia, gozo y paz,
para que la sanidad y la esperanza de Dios fluyan a través de nosotros al mundo.”

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Emily is accompanying Elizabeth Soto Albrecht on her Journey to Phoenix this summer. 

God knows why we won’t go to Phoenix

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Steve Krissby Steve Kriss, Philadelphia Praise Center (reposted from Mennonite World Review, by permission)

My church is made up of immigrants and migrants. We are political refugees. We have arrived here because of economic realities. We’ve been granted religious asylum. We’ve come to Philadelphia to find ourselves, to find flourishing space. We all landed in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Compassion for different reasons, and we’ve become the largest Mennonite Church USA congregation in the city.

This summer, though, we won’t be going to Phoenix to join with other Mennonites to discern and fellowship. We’re staying home from the MC USA convention because we’re honoring those among us who are undocumented and would risk too much in making the trip to Arizona. We know that bearing witness this summer is important, but we won’t put our most vulnerable members at risk by traveling there.

While other churches in our denomination wonder what it might be like to break the law to assist the undocumented, we have no question about our call to ministry. We know that Jesus ministered to those who were on the outside. We know that in taking that call seriously we must live in grace and recognize that our community of Mennonites includes both the legally documented and those who are underdocumented in the eyes of the law. We know that God knows our statuses and names, can count the hairs on our head and extends to us all the grace of daily bread.

Over much of our congregation’s history, placards up front in our worship space have called for immigration reform. They are underneath our cross, behind our pulpit and next to our drums. This call for justice is interwoven into the life of our congregation and our existence as a community. We are not insiders or outsiders based on our citizenship. We are a community of people who have decided to journey together as Mennonites in the very locale where the Mennonite seed took root in this hemisphere.

We applaud and seek to support the efforts of churches that take the issues of immigration seriously. Immigration reform will happen when the hearts of citizens change. We celebrate all that will be learned at Phoenix for those who attend. We hope the hearts of all in our churches will continue to be touched by the complexity of the situation and the simplicity of grace. I hope that somehow in this journey to Phoenix we’ll realize that immigrants — documented or undocumented — aren’t outsiders in our Anabaptist/Mennonite communities.

The journey to Arizona invites all of us to reflect on our own stories of migration. For many of us, a journey’s purity is polished in the retelling. We have not all landed on these shores willingly, legally or peaceably. The reasons for migration and the outgrowth of those realities are just as complicated now as when the streams of Swiss/ German/Dutch Mennonites made their way into colonial Pennsylvania — where Africans were being sold on auction blocks along the shore, ripped and trafficked from their homes across the Atlantic.

Early Anabaptists followed the invitation of the Spirit toward witness — knowing that at times it required actions that were contrary to the law and that risked relational harmony. This summer at Philly Praise and in other MC USA congregations across the country, our absence at Phoenix will be a witness to our denomination.

As we journey and seek first God’s sovereignty, may we also discover the breadth of God’s love and re-encounter the Spirit that binds us together across language, ethnicity, culture and status, inviting us all to be redefined under Christ.