National News

by Laurie Oswald Robinson

Glen Guyton, the new denominational minister for Intercultural Relations for Mennonite Church USA Executive Leadership, is not afraid of the challenges waiting for him in a church that’s undergoing change in its leadership.

Grappling with change is second nature to Guyton, who for the past 11 years has served as director of student ministries for the 1000-member Calvary Community Church, a largely African-American congregation in Hampton, Va.

Born after the baby boomers, he and other Generation X children witnessed the boom of home computers, videogames and the Internet. Dot-com, the birth of MTV, Desert Storm and Hip Hop were their language. As they grew up, the world shifted from a modern to post-modern mindset—the world no longer seen as fixed, but fluid.

“I’m a Gen X baby, so I’ve always lived with flux, change, innovation and having to find new ways of doing things,” said Guyton, a former member of Mennonite Church USA’s Executive Board and its antiracism team. “So I’m really excited to be part of shaping how the denomination’s life will evolve.

“Anytime there are significant changes in executive leadership, it can be a challenging time. It is also a time to look at the church with fresh eyes and vision while holding fast to what has always remained the same—our commitment to following Christ and his ways.”

Guyton’s role as a Christ-follower within the Intercultural Relations ministry is to help the denomination to be a more antiracist church. He will strive to help growing numbers of racial-ethnic congregations and individuals to more freely offer their gifts to the wider church—and for the wider church to embrace more mutual exchange.

“Conrad Kanagy’s study tells us a growing edge of our church is the emerging racial ethnic groups,” Guyton says, referring to Kanagy’s “Road Signs for the Journey: A Profile of Mennonite Church USA.” “I look forward to helping those groups work together and having all parts of the church working in unison to strengthen one another.”

Guyton’s first steps toward that goal are planning for the next churchwide gathering of racial-ethnic people in August 2010 in Phoenix. At the gathering, people of color will explore topics focusing on their challenges and conduct business sessions and worship.

“As I plan this event, I feel the weight of addressing all the needs and issues,” he said. “They vary so much from group to group and even within each group. I need to be sensitive to each group’s needs and agenda and fair to everyone.

“But all groups need better access to the resources within the denomination as well as more empowerment to develop and share their own resources.”

Guyton’s upbringing and young adulthood taught him what it means to develop resourcefulness and flexibility in situations when he and others were on the margins.

“I grew up in an African-American community but also had lots of interaction with Hispanic and various Asian groups,” he said. “That’s when I developed a good perspective on needs of different racial-ethnic groups. My parents were not wealthy and I learned to appreciate the struggles of different socio-economic groups. Many times growing up in Houston, Texas, I had to find the resources I needed, even in the midst of the financial struggle.”

Guyton also came into Mennonite culture from a different religious and political background. He grew up Presbyterian and is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. His first station of duty was in Hampton where he met his future wife, Cynthia, with whom he is raising two children, and, as a young military officer, began attending Calvary.

“Bishop Leslie Francisco III talked with me about the military, and he introduced me to Titus Peachey from Mennonite Central Committee,” he said. “After spending time with Titus and gaining a better understanding of the peace position, I got rebaptized and I eventually left the military.”

At Calvary he also served as a trustee for Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va., and engaged with the college’s program, LEAP (Learning, Exploring, and Participating), geared for helping youth explore theological education. It was there he worked with Ervin Stutzman, vice president and seminary dean. Stutzman is the incoming executive director for Mennonite Church USA.

Guyton will work with Stutzman and other leaders, many whom he learned to know while serving on the Executive Board.

“Glen’s experience in so many parts of the church and his capacity to learn quickly on the job means that he has been able to serve as an advocate for racial-ethnic people in our churchwide system almost from his first day of work” said Ron Byler, acting executive director of Mennonite Church USA.

During his years at Calvary, he was also part of the denomination’s Youth Ministry Leadership Team, where Rachel Swartzendruber Miller, director of convention planning, kept telling him how great it was to work within the larger church. Though Generation X has also been called “the lost generation,” Guyton feels anything but lost as he embraces his new niche and responsibilities in God’s multiracial family.

“As I approached 40, I dreamt about what it might mean to make a change and to perhaps work for the denomination,” he said. “Calvary has always been part of resourcing the denomination on issues surrounding people of color, and now I get to do that in a more immediate and direct way. I am very excited about the opportunity to work with many great people more closely.

“What’s best about this is I can still keep my interest in young people at heart and help empower youth and young adults. I can help the church not only survive all its changes today but help young people thrive in the church’s future.”

by Laurie Oswald Robinson for Mennonite Church USA

Joanna Shenk, a 25-year-old seminary student, had questions about the institutional church. When she first encountered Andre Gingerich Stoner in spring 2008, she felt a flicker of hope as she sensed that work for her within the denomination may be a possibility. Stoner is director of Interchurch Relations for Mennonite Church USA.

In her mission and peace class at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), Elkhart, Ind., Shenk was inspired as she heard Stoner, a visiting speaker, describe his journey into church work and his vision of leadership as capturing a vision and empowering others. The more she listened to him articulate his views on church work, the more she began to envision herself exploring a similar vocation.

“Having come from a family heavily involved in the church, I wanted to make a contribution authentic to my journey. This put me on a long road of discernment,” she said.

At the end of that road, Shenk, a spring 2009 AMBS graduate with a master’s degree in theological studies, began her full-time position Aug. 3 with Mennonite Church USA Executive Leadership. She is working for the denomination as associate for Interchurch Relations and Communications.

In her first Communications project, she is coordinating the collection of data for an audit of women in leadership within Mennonite Church USA. This audit is a response to the call from Mennonite Women USA to investigate declining numbers of women in Mennonite organizational leadership. As a young woman, Shenk is encouraged that the church is taking seriously the involvement of women, and she hopes to continue and resource the conversation with her work.

“It is a real opportunity for us to have Joanna as a member of the Executive Leadership team,” Marty Lehman, director of administration and advancement, says. “Not only does she bring a youthful perspective as well as a passion for the church, but also strong communication skills and experience in ecumenical settings. We are grateful for the gifts she brings.”

Shenk grew up in Springfield, Ohio, and, in junior high, went to Dagestan, Russia, with her parents, Phil and Alice, who served as mission workers with Mennonite Board of Missions and later the Mennonite Mission Network. She graduated from high school at Bethany Christian Schools in Goshen, Ind., a Mennonite Church USA school.

She attended Huntington (Ind.) University where she was a leader in student government. One summer she studied in Beijing, China. She also spent a semester in Colorado Springs at Focus on the Family.

Following her graduation, Shenk held various jobs in the Huntington area before heading to AMBS. She was assistant to the executive director of United Way of Huntington County and assistant manager of One World Handicrafts, a fair trade store in North Manchester, Ind. She also served as research assistant to theologian Beth Felker Jones in the publication of Jones’s book, The Marks of His Wounds: Gender Politics and Bodily Resurrection.

Shenk, who is part of Fellowship of Hope Mennonite Church in Elkhart and an associate member of Jubilee House, the MVS house, has already been exposed to the margins. She’s worked alongside neighbors to think creatively about responses to high unemployment, poverty and violence.

In June she taught a jewelry making class to young people and adults in her Elkhart neighborhood as part of a community-initiated summer academy.

“The teachers and students, a mix of genders, ethnicities and ages, created the academy as a space for the community to come together and learn from each other,” she said. “Clearly, no one homogenous group has all the gifts.” This idea she brings to her work with Mennonite Church USA.

Shenk has come to believe that these kinds of mutually beneficial relationships within diverse groups call all people out of controlling positions and into new ways of working together and being the body of Christ.

“We don’t need to be threatened by new approaches or new voices,” she says. “We can both explore new ways of relating, such as through interchurch relationships, and also hold on to the best of our traditions and institutions. For us as Mennonites, this is an opportunity, not a risk to our identity or our denomination.”

For example, in her Interchurch Relations work, one of her projects is to engage with intentional communities and other emerging churches across the country. These groups want to be in relationship with Mennonites due to their interest in Anabaptist-Mennonite theology and ethics but not necessarily join a denominational structure.

“With her wide range of experiences and relationships, Joanna will make a strong contribution to the Interchurch Relations work of Mennonite Church USA, especially as we build relationships with new discipleship communities that share a kinship with Anabaptism,” says Stoner.

To summarize her vision for work within the denomination, Shenk quotes contemporary Canadian theologian Mary Jo Leddy in saying, “Our critique of the church needs to be as strong as our hope for the church.”

That’s the tension Shenk hopes to sustain in her work. “I want to offer my gifts in a way that is helpful for the future and, at the same time, draw on the strengths of the past,” Shenk adds.

by Patricia Burdette

Ruth Lapp Guengerich, Goshen, Ind., assumed the board presidency of Mennonite Women USA during the Mennonite Church USA Assembly in Columbus, Ohio, in July. She replaces outgoing president, Rebecca Sommers, longtime resident of Sarasota, Fla., now living in Goshen.

At the Mennonite Women dinner, Sommers presented Guengerich with a shawl she had made for the occasion to symbolize the leadership change.

“I have felt called to work with women’s issues within the church,” Guengerich says. “I desire to see women in Mennonite Church USA overcome the hurdles that may have limited them in finding their niche within church structures or that prevented them from finding fulfillment in their daily lives. It is my goal that Mennonite Women will be a means of empowering women to use their energy in positive ways to serve God, empower others through friendship and challenge the church to reflect the diversity that we bring.”

Having recently moved to the Goshen area from Archbold, Ohio, and Zion Mennonite Church, Guengerich attends Silverwood Mennonite Church where her husband, Ron, pastors. A professional clinical counselor for 25 years, she works as the international personnel counselor and recruiter for Mennonite Mission Network.

During her tenure as president, Sommers led the redesign of Timbrel: Women in Conversation Together with God, the organization’s bi-monthly magazine. She also gave leadership to the creation of the Miriam Group giving circles and the development of the Sister-Care Seminars, a new program of Mennonite Women USA. Sister-Care is designed to train women in the church to reach out and offer healing and hope to other women.

“I have been blessed by the women who have given energy and service on our board. What a great group of women!” Sommers says. “I have also been blessed by the many women I have met across the United States as I heard their stories and encouraged and affirmed them in the ways they serve the church.”

Sommers and her husband, Merle, are members of College Mennonite Church. Rebecca is a fabric artist and retreat leader.