Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Rachel Mateti

Peace Nights Connect Mosaic Youth

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by Rachel Mateti

 

The fall 2024 Peace Nights were funded in part by a Mosaic Conference Missional Operations Grant (MOG) requested by Salford (PA) Mennonite. The grant helped to cover expenses for food, supplies, and transportation for the Mosaic youth groups who participated. 

 

This fall, youth from around the southeastern PA congregations of Mosaic Conference have the unique opportunity to come together to learn about the peaceable way of Jesus through fellowship, formation, worship, and games.  

The original idea for the Fall 2024 series of four Peace Nights was a collaboration between Ambler (PA), Salford (PA), Zion (Souderton, PA), Whitehall (Allentown, PA) and Plains (Hatfield, PA), with the support of Mosaic’s youth formation team.  

A slide from the teaching portion of the “Peace with God” session on Sept. 14. Photo by Rose Bender Cook.  

 

The first Peace Night of the series took place in September at Zion, on the theme of Peace with God. Around 70 persons were in attendance, including youth and leaders from the above-named congregations and Souderton (PA), Ebenezer (Souderton, PA), Indonesian Light Church (Philadelphia, PA), and Deep Run East (Perkasie, PA). The second meeting took place on October 6 at Plains with the theme “Peace with Self.” 

“The idea for Peace Nights started as a way for churches in southeastern PA in Mosaic Conference to share resources and provide programming for youth faith formation,” shares Andrew Zetts, Associate Pastor of Youth and Outreach at Salford.  

Youth and leaders from Whitehall (PA) Mennonite. Photo provided by Rose Bender Cook. 

 

“As I ran the idea by other Conference youth leaders, a few goals emerged. In addition to sharing resources and gathering a critical mass of youth in one place, we wanted to live into Mosaic’s intercultural priority and bring youth from various geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds together to develop meaningful relationships; and to teach peace theology as a foundational part of living out the ways of Jesus.”

At Plains, the youth group is small but growing, with grades 6-12 together. It can be hard to provide spiritually invigorating activities for a large age range. Peace Nights are one of the few places they can interact with other Mennonite peers in a church setting. 

Youth from eight congregations work together during the games portion of the first Peace Night. Photo by Rose Bender Cook.  

 

Instead of one shared culture, multiple cultures are represented at Peace Nights. Instead of most kids knowing each other, the majority are meeting for the first time. Awkwardness abounds, but a willingness to participate has prevailed. Through games like 9 squares (provided by Bloomin Glen [PA] Mennonite), and “Get -to-Know-You” Bingo (crafted by Andrew Zetts) youth have opportunities to make connections while having fun. Good food energizes everyone to talk and fellowship around tables deepens relationships. 

Loud voices singing together in worship has been a blessing. Youth seeing other youth singing boldly invigorates the whole group and creates a spirit of readiness for our teaching time. Teaching is followed by discussion groups that give youth a chance to come together and internalize the message they have heard. It is beautiful to observe. 

Participants from Deep Run East led worship. Photo by Hendy Matahelemual.  

 As Andrew Zetts shared, Peace Nights have a many purposes (sharing of resources, teaching peace theology, making connections outside our own congregations) but I also see Peace Nights as a place for youth to belong. Even those who might have held back in the beginning of our gathering seem to find their place throughout the night.  

Being Mennonite in our modern world can sometimes make a person stick out or feel different. Being a Christian youth can also feel alienating at times. Finding a place of belonging is, therefore, vital in keeping our youth engaged, connected, and inspired to follow Jesus. 

Peace Night worship. Photo by Mike Ford. 

The third Peace Night took place at Zion on Saturday, Nov. 9, 5-7:30pm; the theme was Peace with Creation. Our last gathering will be on Sunday, December 8 at Plains where we will look at Peace with Others; all Mosaic youth in 6th-12th grade and their youth leaders are invited to join us.

Plans for future gatherings in 2025 are underway and will be shared with congregations soon. As a leader, I am encouraged to see this vision come to fruition and to hear other leaders express their sense of energy and hope for the future of these gatherings. 

Participants gather outside for games. Photo by Hendy Matahelemual. 

Rachel Mateti

Rachel Mateti is the Children and Youth Minister at Plains Mennonite (Hatfield, PA). She is married with three kids and lives in Telford, PA. She enjoys reading when she finds the time and recently picked up running as a hobby.

Plains and Curious

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by Jim King, Plains congregation (Lansdale, PA)

Four-year-old Jaya Mateti was immediately aware that the music in the May 19th worship service was different.  It had a beat and it was LOUD!  As soon as she saw everyone standing for the music, she asked to be lifted up so she could see.  With her feet firmly planted on the back of the bench in front of her, she looked around at our guests from Evangelical Center for Revival and exclaimed, “There’s a lot of ‘Indians’ here today and they look like me!”

At the beginning of our worship service, our worship leader Rina Rampogu reminded us that our worship time could possibly have less structure and more spontaneity.  About halfway through the service, smells of Congolese food being heated in the kitchen downstairs wafted up.

How did we get to having a combined worship service with a Congolese congregation?  And what is the point of this interaction?

During the summer of 2017, when U.S. politics seemed to focus on borders, boundaries, and walls, a small group of people met during the Sunday School hour to discuss immigration issues.  We had heard from recent immigrants that Lansdale was an immigrant-friendly community, but we wanted to do more in making people feel welcome in our church.  We noticed that our playground had already become a welcoming place for children of various cultures to come and play together.

This immigration task force, led by Rachel and Kiron Mateti (conference board member), helped us focus on ways we could be more welcoming and culturally aware of our neighbors.  We decided that a July 4 celebration in our church park could help us develop friendships with those who have come to the U.S. more recently.  To ensure that this would truly be a cross-cultural event, we asked Evangelical Center for Revival to co-sponsor this event with us.

Penny Naugle shares a story with children from both congregations.

After this experience, some Plains members indicated that they were curious about how the Congolese congregation worships, so about twelve of us attended their worship service in Elkins Park.  As Pastor Maurice Baruti and I sat together at the fellowship meal, we observed how different groups from Plains ate with members from the Center congregation and we talked about the possibility of doing a joint worship service together at Plains.  At first he wasn’t so sure it would work; their worship service starts at 11:30, ours starts at 10:15.  We ended up with a compromise of 11:00.

Pastor Maurice Baruti (L) and his wife Berthe (R) with Jim King.

Prior to the service, Pastor Baruti asked how long he should speak.  When he was told that we expected about 20-25 minutes, he smiled and said he was comfortable with speaking for an hour.  During the worship he spoke in French and was translated to English by his wife Berthe.  Rampogu said that as she looked out over the audience, “there seemed to be an expression of anticipation and curiosity on the faces of the congregation.”  Several guests from the Center congregation shared that they had just come off working a night shift but that this was a service they didn’t want to miss.

As we at Plains look to fill an Associate Pastor position, this worship service reminded us that we could me be more flexible in how we do worship.  With friendship, food, and fellowship, we will work it out.  Our pastor, Mike Derstine says, “Anytime we worship with another congregation we are stretched by new patterns and ways of doing things, new songs and differences in worship style, and fresh testimonies during sharing time from people in different work and life situations.  Then there was the stretching experience of different foods and table fellowship after the worship service, all of which serves to remind us that our concept and understanding of God is always beyond us.”

We realize we need to continue to change to be more culturally welcoming.  The last verse of our 250th Anniversary song, written by Justin Yoder, says it well: “Teach us new songs, while we hold dear the strains of long ago.  When we sing, the Spirit is here: may it be ever so!”