New Hope Fellowship Baltimore

Generations Mennoniting together (To Mennonite Blog #5)

July 3, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Ubaldo Rodriguez, New Hope Fellowship/Nueva Esperanza (Baltimore, Md.)

I appreciate the opportunity to express my Latino perspective of what it means to Mennonite. I grew up as a Catholic and I became a disciple of Jesus in a Mennonite Church in Colombia, South America.

I define myself as a disciple of Jesus who is part of the Mennonite family and uses the Anabaptist theological glasses by which I read the Scriptures in a particular way: using the historical Jesus as the paradigm for personal and social ethics for Christian living; participating with God and my community of faith in the formation and transformation of individuals and societies; discerning in community our mission or reason for existence here and now in our particular context; making disciples in order to keep expanding the kingdom of God.

I believe the communal Christian life is like a boat that continuously moves back and forth from the river to the pond. When the boat is on the river of the Spirit, it brings life, newness, challenges, and hope for the future. In the river, we take the risk of being led by the flow of the Spirit and many times we end up in wonderful places and situations where we never expected to be. On the other hand, when we are on the still waters of the pond of tradition, we are like a lighthouse that guides those who are traveling in this world with no direction and purpose in life.

In my own experience, I have been in both –the river and the pond waters in the Mennonite Church. What I have been discovering is that both places are important in order to be relevant in this changing and needy world.

I am glad that the Lord allowed me to live in this particular time of history in the Mennonite Church, because along with many brothers and sisters we have this great opportunity to be history makers. I believe we are living in the time that the prophet Joel prophesied (2:28), when the Lord is going to pour out his Spirit on all people–in our case, all those riding the Mennonite boat in the river of the Spirit sharing the richness of our Mennonite Anabaptist theological tradition.

This promise gives me hope for unity, for integration; for working together as people of God in the same spirit, a spirit in which the older generations share their unfinished spiritual dreams to the younger generations and empower them to accomplish those dreams by the power of the Spirit through a fresh vision.

This sounds very exciting to Mennonite in a new way. This is one of the times in our Mennonite history when we need leaders with the spirit of Caleb and Joshua, (Numbers 14:6-9), who saw the challenges as opportunities to experience God’s faithfulness and mighty presence among them. As the Mennonite church, we should keep moving forward; the desert of power and fear of change should not stop us from moving to the promise land that flows with milk and honey.

“Franconia’s got talent–” we have people with amazing gifts that can take the conference to the place where the Lord wants us to be. So now we wait and see what Mennonite history will tell about us, if we were a generation that made a difference.

Next week, Maria Byler, Philadelphia Praise Center, will share a ritual component of Mennoniting. How do you “Mennonite”? Join the conversation on Facebook or by email.

Who am I? (To Mennonite Blog #1)
Serving Christ with our heads and hands (To Mennonite Blog #2)
Quiet rebellion against the status quo (To Mennonite Blog #3)
Mennoniting my way (To Mennonite Blog #4)
Generations Mennoniting together (To Mennonite Blog #5)
Body, mind, heart … and feet (To Mennonite Blog #6)
We have much more to offer (To Mennonite Blog #7)
Mennonite community … and community that Mennonites (To Mennonite Blog #8)

Christmas light, shining into the new year

January 24, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Emily Ralph, eralphservant@mosaicmennonites.org

Ubaldo Rodriguez, pastor of New Hope, Baltimore, stood in the Walmart parking lot on Christmas afternoon, at a loss. Even in the midday light, there was a hovering shadow. What were they going to do?

Weeks earlier, he and his congregation had received a call from a family in Pennsylvania who wanted to join them on Christmas to serve the homeless in their community. The family was going to bring all the food—what a wonderful way to celebrate Christmas!

So Rodriguez invited fifty people to share the love of God—and Christmas dinner—with them. The dinner was set for 2pm on Christmas afternoon at Wilkens Avenue Mennonite Church.

Just past noon on Christmas Day, however, they made a shocking discovery—the food from Pennsylvania had spoiled on the trip. How were they going to feed their guests? They went to the supermarket, to Walmart—everything was closed. It was Christmas, after all.

Franconia Live Nativity — Franconia shares a live nativity with the community.

Now, as they stood in the parking lot at Walmart, trying to figure out some way to redeem this Christmas, they received a phone call. A member of Wilkens Avenue who owned a restaurant had come to the dinner—with enough food to feed fifty people.

In that moment, Rodriguez and his congregation experienced a real Christmas miracle. There was a light shining in the darkness.

And it was a light that could not be quenched. All throughout Franconia Conference this Christmas, congregations stood alongside Christ as light in the darkness.

2011 Souderton Christmas Parade — MIddle School students from Penn View walk in the Souderton Christmas Parade

Franconia (Pa) congregation kept watch in a live nativity during the week leading up to Christmas, providing soup, hot dogs, cookies, and hot chocolate for their visitors. Middle school students from Penn View Christian School (Souderton, Pa) took their live nativity on the road, walking in the Souderton Christmas Parade.

Plains (Hatfield, Pa) has a yearly tradition of caroling at the Montgomeryville Mall, an event that always draws crowds and participation from bystanders who can’t help but join in the breathtaking harmonies. This year, they also hosted a gift exchange for Manna on Main Street, a Lansdale (Pa) soup kitchen, providing gifts for almost 450 children.

Christmas gift exchange at Plains — Plains partnered with Manna on Main Street to distribute gifts to local children.

Upstate at Whitehall, the light was particularly bright on Christmas Eve, when the Christ candle in the Advent wreath was finally lit after a long season of waiting. The woman who carried the candle up the aisle battles mental illness. She lit the Christ candle and proclaimed, “Arise, shine, for your light has come!” The congregation stood and responded, “The light shines in the darkness . . . and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Christmas Eve is only the beginning—the Christ has arrived and continues to walk with his people through times of darkness and difficulty. This is why Whitehall also celebrated Ebenezer Sunday the week after New Year’s.

The congregation brought in a big stone like the one the prophet Samuel erected while Israel was battling the Philistines (1 Samuel 7). Members of the congregation wrote on the stone, listing the good and hard times that God has led them through. The stone will sit as a memorial of God’s faithfulness, first inside the sanctuary and then later in the church garden—an Ebenezer, their “stone of help,” for “Thus far has God helped us” (vs 12).

Whitehall-Ebenezer — A stone of help from Whitehall's Ebenezer Sunday

The light of Christmas shines into the new year—through darkness, uncertainty, and fear.

And the darkness has not overcome it.

“We praise the Lord for his continued love for people [and] his provision,” said Rodriguez, reflecting on his Christmas miracle. But he acknowledged that the love, provision, and light are not just for us to enjoy, but to extend to all people. “I hope we continue to share in practical ways with others the gift given to us all,” he said, “the gift of love, hope, and joy from our Lord Jesus Christ.”

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Has your congregation had a meaningful service or event? Are you planning something special? Send stories and photos to Emily or let us know what is coming up!

God’s call from the Andes Mountains

September 16, 2011 by

Ubaldo Rodriguez, New Hope Fellowship Baltimore, ubalrod@hotmail.com

I am glad that the Lord called me when I was a teenager. I believe nowadays that listening to God’s call is hard because we must listen through the worries of life and the distraction of the world’s noise to hear and respond to his call.

During the preparation for “my first communion” in the Catholic Church, I started to feel the Lord’s call toward service. I was 12 and lived with my parents by the Andes Mountains thirty miles north of Bogota, Colombia. I remember that I had some questions about Jesus and the Catholic Church. I asked questions like, “Why did baby Jesus not grow up?” “Why did we have to pay for baptisms, confirmations and funerals?” and “Why was preaching not relevant for real life?” I knew, somehow, that something was not right, but I did not know what.

When I was 19, my parents sent me to Bogota to study. After a semester of living in a big city, my father and I got involved in a witchcraft situation without knowing it. We went to different places for help, but we could not find any release. We could not become free from that evil power. My uncle, who was Christian, told us that the only way to overcome that evil power was through Jesus Christ. Therefore, we decided to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and we started to attend a Mennonite church in Bogota. After several months of attending, we were free from that evil influence. After a year, I was baptized by water. I remember that after my baptism, I began to pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I prayed for a long time, believing Luke 11:13b: “. . . how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (NRSV) After three years of prayer, I was baptized in the Spirit in a worship service.

Years later, I studied in Bogota in a two-year evangelical Bible institute. After that, the Lord granted me a one-year opportunity through the Mennonite Central Committee International Exchange Program in the US. Reflecting back on that time, I realized that the Lord was opening doors for me in different places. It was during that time, as I walked through those doors in obedience to God, that my ministry began to take shape. It was also during that time in 1993 that I decided to open my life completely to God and to serve the Lord only. I quit my job and said, “Lord, here is my life, use me as you wish.” God started to open doors outside Colombia for my Biblical and theological formation. I went to Hesston College’s Pastoral Ministry Program. Years later, I went to Costa Rica to study the scriptures from the Latin American perspective. I thought Colombia was going to be the place for a long-term ministry, working with the poor and the victims of the country’s internal conflict, however the Lord had other plans for me. In 2006, God, in his mercy, allowed me to come to Eastern Mennonite Seminary for further education. Maybe God took me out of my country in order to serve somewhere else and not become one of the hundreds of pastors killed recently in Colombia.

God’s call in my life has been a process: accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, witnessing God’s power against the powers of darkness, experiencing baptism in the Holy Spirit, responding in obedience, receiving an excellent Christian education and committing to serve in the Mennonite Church.

New Hope Fellowship Baltimore is a new church plant connected with Wilkins Avenue Mennonite Church and New Hope Fellowship in Alexandria, VA. If you are interested in supporting this initiative to reach Spanish speakers in the city, contact Steve Kriss, skriss@mosaicmennonites.org.

New Hope Fellowship Baltimore

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