Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Mennonite Historians of Eastern Pennsylvania

Anabaptism at 500: Remembering the Story, Renewing the Call

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by Noel Santiago

On Sunday afternoon, September 14, 2025, the sanctuary of Towamencin (PA) Mennonite filled with voices, stories, and song as we gathered to mark an extraordinary milestone: 500 years since the baptism that launched the Anabaptist movement. 

The service was simple yet rich, woven together with the themes of: Remember, Rejoice, Reckon/Reconcile, and Recommit. It was a journey that carried us across history, through joy and lament, and into fresh hope for the future. 

After a warm welcome from Charlie Ness, pastor of Towamencin Mennonite, and the first notes of congregational singing led by Michael Bishop, associate pastor of Blooming Glen Mennonite (PA), we began by looking back.  

Joel Horst Nofziger, Executive Director of Conference-Related Ministry Mennonite Historians of Eastern Pennsylvania (MHEP of Harleysville, PA) helped us remember the religious landscape of the early 1500s. He reviewed the heavy hand of church and empire, the stirrings of reform, and the courageous decision of a small band of believers on January 21, 1525, to be baptized upon confession of faith. Their act of trust and defiance set in motion a movement that would spread like wildfire, often at great cost. 

From there, Pastor Milson Ndlovu of Silverdale Brethren in Christ Church invited us to rejoice in what God has done through those seeds of faith. He spoke of how the Anabaptist vision of adult baptism and discipleship traveled across Europe and, in time, across continents, shaping communities of believers worldwide. Hearing the scope of that growth reminded us that the story of 1525 was not the end but only the beginning of God’s work through ordinary people who longed to follow Jesus. 

But we did not only celebrate. Together, we also reckoned with the shadows of our past. Ness named moments when our spiritual ancestors failed to embody the fullness of the gospel they proclaimed, times when brokenness, division, and violence contradicted the vision of peace. Yet even here, hope rose. We heard stories of recent acts of reconciliation, where Anabaptists, Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed Christians have sought healing and forgiveness. It was a tender reminder that God continues to make all things new. 

Photo provided by Noel Santiago.

Finally, I led us in a time to recommit. With prayers of surrender, we invited the Spirit to breathe afresh, asking for courage and renewal in our own day. Just as water was first poured out on those believers five centuries ago, so we too are invited to receive afresh God’s outpouring, to live as faithful witnesses of Jesus, here and now, with humility and boldness. 

Throughout the service, songs lifted our voices and hearts. They became more than music; they became prayers of remembrance, joy, confession, and hope. The afternoon concluded with Mennonite historian and pastor John Ruth (Salford [PA] Mennonite) offering a final word of remembrance, encouragement, and blessing, sending us out with gratitude, courage, and renewed vision. 

Though Towamencin left Mosaic Conference in 2023, they continue to partner with the MHEP. Where there is a shared mission and purpose, we are glad to collaborate and walk together in ministry.  

The gathering was more than a commemoration of history. It was a living testimony of God’s faithfulness across the centuries, and an invitation to continue walking the path of discipleship together. As we left Towamencin that day, many carried with them both a sense of awe at the story behind us and deep hope for the story still unfolding. 

Noel Santiago

Noel Santiago is the Leadership Minister for Missional Transformation for Mosaic Conference.

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To contact Noel Santiago, please email nsantiago@mosaicmennonites.org.

Anabaptism at 500: What Anabaptism Means to Me – March 2025

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As Mosaic Mennonite Conference commemorates the 500th Anniversary of Anabaptism in 2025, each month we will share a variety of Mosaic voices reflecting on the question, “What does Anabaptism mean to me?”  

Submission from

Joel Horst Nofziger, Methacton (PA) Mennonite and Executive Director of Conference-Related Ministry Mennonite Historians of Eastern PA 

There are many markers that people have used to describe and define Anabaptism. None of them is unique, but together they form a distinctive constellation of values, beliefs, and practices. Anabaptism describes an understanding of what it means to faithfully follow Jesus, individually and as a community of faith. It is the milieu in which I have lived, it is the tradition I study, and it is the order by which I live my life. Two intertwined ideals are central to this order, with the understanding that we cannot faithfully follow Christ alone.  

First, we are to live lives conformed to Christ. We are not bound to the patterns of the world but transformed by the Holy Spirit’s renewal of our minds so that our lives are pure and acceptable before God. If Christ cannot be seen visibly lived in our everyday life, then we are failing in our discipleship. 

Second is the understanding that all violence is outside of Christ’s perfection. The world in fear says that we need to protect ourselves, our property, our resources, our nation. Christ reminds us that death is not our end and that our call is radical hospitality, even unto those who would do us harm.  

Submission from

Carolyn Albright, Ripple Church (Allentown, PA) and Refuge 

My journey to embracing Anabaptism has been a circuitous one, and some of the most meaningful parts of my journey have been:  

  • Belonging, love, and acceptance 
  • Lived out faith with a Jesus lens 
  • Ministry 
  • Meals 
  • Music 

My first encounter with Anabaptists was during the year after I graduated from college. I was a member of the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, and our household hung out with the Mennonite Voluntary Service household in Washington, DC. Someone gifted me The More-with-Less cookbook, and I became endlessly curious about Mennonites.  

Later, Whitehall (PA) Mennonite congregation accepted and loved my family, modeled practical faith in Jesus, and taught us to view Scripture through the lens of Jesus. Urbane and Janet Byler were important mentors in our faith journey (I have wonderful memories of trips to Honduras and time helping on their farm) and they helped me discern my call to licensing and ordination.  

Leaving Whitehall to begin Ripple Church, moving to inner-city Allentown, starting the Conference-Related Ministry Ripple Community, Inc. were all infused with community discernment and dedicated ministry. 

While living in Allentown, monthly meals with our community there (Zume House, which included Rose Bender, Angela Moyer, and Ben Walter) were relaxed places where we could ponder and puzzle together, as we served Jesus.  

Music was always interwoven in our gatherings, and Mennonites singing in four-part a capella harmony helps me envision what heaven will be like! 

Submission from

Rev. Dr. Calenthia Dowdy, Ambler (PA)

Rev. Dr. Calenthia Dowdy, Ambler (PA) congregation shares her earliest encounters with Anabaptism and the Anabaptist values that draw her.

God Makes All Things New

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by Stephen Kriss, Executive Minister

Jesus is the center of our faith.  Community is the center of our life.  Reconciliation is the center of our work.—Palmer Becker from Anabaptist Essentials

 “Your people shall become my people.”—Ruth  1:15

Photo credit: MHEP

The Facebook post from retired Lancaster Conference Bishop Freeman Miller showed a photo of the former First Mennonite Church in Philadelphia with missing windows, a high wire fence and a notice of building violations and possible demolition.  While this building hasn’t been inhabited by the First Mennonite Church of Philadelphia for generations, I felt the pain of the possible loss.  This building had been the meetinghouse of what had been one of the largest Mennonite congregations on the East Coast, though they had relocated to the suburbs long ago.  It was the home church of Ann Allebach, the first Mennonite woman ordained for ministry in the country.  The Mennonite Historians of Eastern Pennsylvania worked to add the building to the city’s historic register.  For Eastern District, it represents a key historic spot and story.

When I came to Franconia Conference from the western half of the state over a decade ago, I learned quickly that to lead in our community meant learning our history.  I have also learned that it means learning to listen to those who are sometimes just outside of the narrative, as well as those whose stories we have not told.  For over 150 years, the stories of Franconia Conference and Eastern District Conference have been stories told in contrast:  General Conference/Mennonite Church (GC/MC) across the street, down the road, more worldly, more conservative.  The challenge for us in reconciliation will be to learn to tell our stories together in a fragmenting time.

As we move this fall toward the possibilities of reconciliation, I believe we are moving toward what is the essence of the Spirit’s work of healing and hope in our time.  The project of honestly assessing the wounds of the past and recognizing the possibilities that are unleashed through reconciliation and forgiveness gives us a strong posture for the future. 

How do we honor our experiences learned through our years alongside each other but apart?  How we do hear the stories told and untold?  How do we let our brokenness heal so that we are stronger and postured uniquely for the work and witness of God for our time?

For me, this means learning the stories of Eastern District Conference and honoring those places and spaces that are significant in their history, as well as the history of Franconia Conference.   It means emphasizing the role of God as is often de-emphasized in the story of the Prodigal Son, the one who welcomes home, who celebrates a return to family, who welcomes repentance and challenges arrogance even in faithfulness.  In the history of our story together as Conferences, at times we have both squandered our inheritance, distracted by the things of this world rather than the way of Christ’s peace.

I believe that reconciliation will make us stronger as a community.  Not because this bolsters numbers or helps with efficiencies, but because reconciliation further transforms us into the image of God revealed in Christ, who lays down privilege, who embraces incarnation, who recognizes the God who creates all things new — even 300-year-old communities of Mennonites separated for over a century.