Salford

A Franconia Conference Summer

September 27, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

We asked for stories from summer activities from around the Conference and got this jewel from Kim Moyer, Blooming Glen congregation:

The theme for our Summer Bible School was “Be Bold! God is with You!” The children learned through songs, dramas, stories, crafts, and games, that God is with them, even when they are scared.

One mother told me a story about her 5 year old son who has always been afraid to go into the basement of their home by himself. The week after SBS, he asked his mom to go with him to the basement so that he could get his blanket. His mom couldn’t go with him at the moment, so he decided he would try to go by himself. When he returned to his mom with his blanket, he told her, “I was able to go down in the basement because I kept telling myself, God is always with us, God is always with us.”

A piece of SBS that caused a lot of excitement among the children was an offering project competition between the girls and the boys. The children were raising money for a Mennonite Mission Network project, which sends children in South Africa to Bethany Bible School, a camp that teaches the children about Jesus. It costs $20 to send one child to the camp, and the boys and girls at SBS were competing against each other to send the most children to camp. If the boys won, then the Children’s Ministry Director (me) would get a pie in her face, and if the girl’s won, then the Lead Pastor would get the pie in his face.

The children took this competition seriously and were bringing in their piggy banks, doing extra chores to raise money, and asking grandparents to write out checks. By the end of the week, the 70 children at SBS collectively raised $1,162.53, sending 58 children to Bethany Bible School! Although the boys won, and I got a pie in the face, it was decided that the real winners were the 58 children that would now be able to attend the Bible Camp.

Thanks, Kim, and everyone else who shared their photos and stories this summer! And if you haven’t already read them, check out these stories about Peace Camps, Bethany’s anniversary celebration, a special service at Plains, Salford’s listening project, Kingdom Builders construction in Philly, Germantown Historic Trust’s painting project … and this is just some of what has been happening in our Conference this summer.

Enjoy these fun photos that were taken at camps, picnics, outdoor services, Bible Schools, and more. If you’d like to add photos from your congregation’s summer to this gallery, send them to Emily with captions and photo credits.

View the photo album

Teaching the whole story

September 12, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Joyce Hunsberger, Salford

Some of you older folks may remember the days before cell phones. When I was in college and wanted to talk to my parents, I put my finger in the dial (no buttons to push…) at “O” for operator and actually heard a real live voice ask “May I help you?” I would say “person to person collect call to Geraldine Willcox.” My mother had the option of accepting or refusing the call. I am glad to say that she always accepted her daughter’s call. Have I answered the right calls throughout my life?

As a young person, I always felt a special love for children. One summer, my friend Amy and I went around the neighborhood each morning, gathering up the children and bringing them to my back yard to have summer play school for 2 hours at the bargain price of 10 cents an hour. As a child, I never went to Vacation Bible School, and we didn’t teach Bible lessons in our play school, but now I realize that this experience was preparing me for a bigger calling later in my life. I didn’t attend a Christian college, but I still found ways to serve and to share my gifts. I was a member of the Scarlet Key Club that extended hospitality to new students on campus. I tutored very needy neighborhood children, referred to by most as nuisance “townies,” but, for me, they were precious. God was leading me to a later calling.

There was very little Christian teaching in my childhood and I attended public schools. Our family didn’t talk about God. We didn’t pray together or read the Bible. I have no memory of my being baptized as an infant, so, unlike believer’s baptism, that event did not play a very immediate role in my spiritual formation! I attended Sunday School now and then, but what I remember most is the disrespect some of the boys showed for their teacher and the humiliation I felt when laughed at for incorrectly answering the question “Who wore a coat of many colors?” with “Jacob” instead of “Joseph.” To this day, I have a fear of confusing the many Old Testament names beginning with the letter “J”!

My first job was teaching French and German in the Allentown School District, where, instead of leading devotions each morning as is done at Penn View Christian School and Christopher Dock Mennonite High School, I was required to lead in the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance. I did sneak in a limited Bible lesson, however… when a French student misbehaved, I had him write the Golden Rule ten times in French: “Tout ce que vous voulez que les autres fassent pour vous, faites-le de meme pour eux! Mathieu sept: douze.” All of my students could recite it from memory by the year’s end.

As I immersed myself in the demands of a first year teacher, I somehow found time to meet and fall in love with my husband. In saying “yes” to this call to marry a Mennonite man who embodied the values I knew I wanted to live by, I gradually began to understand and trust my life-long call to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Ray came from those “peculiar people” who did not conform to the world. I came from the elite college town of Wellesley, Massachusetts, where appearances mattered most. Now I was free to become all that God was calling me to be.

My call to children’s ministry has brought it all together. I knew as a young girl that I wanted to become a teacher and never wavered from that goal. As I became a part of the Mennonite Church, I realized that my gift of teaching also fit into this area of my life. Employment in a public school for most of my career allowed me to use my gift of teaching, but ministering to children in a Mennonite church feels like the culmination of where I have been heading all my life. Now I can teach the whole story – of God’s love for all of creation and of God’s desire for forgiveness, redemption, transformation, and healing for all.

There are many calls in life. We cannot answer them all. It’s OK to let the answering machine get a few. Maybe it was the wrong number anyhow. I am grateful that I picked up when the call to children’s ministry came! As I serve as Director of Children’s Ministry at Salford, I rejoice that God knew my number and that I picked up.

Teens’ China service brings comfort with the unknown

August 29, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Wil LaVeist, Mennonite Mission Network

Swartz-China — Radical Journey participants Laird Goertzen (left) Kate Swartz and Paul Dyck recently completed a 1-year service assignment in China. Photo provided by Mennonite Mission Network.

When many Radical Journey participants prepare for their first overseas mission assignment, they tend to use words such as “paralyzed” and “blurry” to describe their thoughts. A year later, they use words such as “maturation” and “new perspective” instead.

This is how participants Kate Swartz, Salford congregation, and Paul Dyck of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, described their experiences. Along with Laird Goertzen of Goessel, Kansas, they formed a three-member team that recently returned from a year-long stint in China as part of Radical Journey, a Mennonite Mission Network international learning and service program for young adults.

There, they taught English classes at North Sichuan Medical College and at Sea Turtle, a foreign-language training center for children. They learned Mandarin and connected with China’s culture and people as they explored God’s work in China and ways to join in.

Radical Journey participants are typically divided evenly among recent college graduates, college students, and recent high school graduates. In addition to China, two served in South Africa, five in Paraguay, and three in England.

Swartz, 19, said she was not ready to “jump right into college,” but knew that she wanted to explore mission work at some point in her life.

“I decided to just let them place me where they wanted to,” Swartz said. “I had preconceived notions about all of the places … I just allowed China to choose me.”

Dyck, 19, also found himself in the city of Nanchong in the province of Sichuan without a clear calling to serve in China.

“The only concrete ideas I carried with me were the same blurry and rather idealistic intentions that I had before I signed up for the program,” he said. “I was excited to behold the open canvas that this year could be, and start painting a picture, even if I didn’t know what colors were available.”

As Swartz and Dyck started their assignments, mingled with Chinese neighbors, and explored their surroundings, their minds began to transform.

“I learned that the majority of people are caring, complex, and are worth getting to know,” Swartz said. “The world is huge and infinitely more complex than I originally thought, and (the experience) expanded everything that I think about or perceive.”

Dyck cited an excursion he, Swartz, and Goertzen took during the winter break as one of their more enjoyable and bonding moments. They took the “scenic route” by train back from a conference in Hong Kong, and hiked with a Chinese group to the peak of the Tiger Leaping Gorge. They had to speak Mandarin with fellow hikers.

“China is actually a really diverse place, and it was amazing to see all the differences and awesomeness that is all a part of the culture in China,” said Dyck, adding that the trip was fun and educational. “Living off our wits and with our language skills for a month on the road gave our team lots of challenges and opportunities to bond and grow,” Dyck said.

They also benefited from frequent visits with mission workers Don and Marie Gaeddert of Larned, Kan., who are in the middle of a two-year assignment with Mission Network. Swartz said that spending time with the Gaedderts helped her to feel at home.

“They invited us over for a Western meal with regularity, and that was always really, really appreciated, as it would often be our only spaghetti or biscuits or whatever for the month or so … They were loving and welcoming, and it was wonderful to share portions of our time with them.”

The Gaedderts, who became mission workers after becoming empty nesters, said they were impressed that young people fresh out of high school would be willing to go across the world to serve.

Upon returning to America and Canada respectively, Swartz, whose home church is Salford Mennonite Church, and Dyck of Charleswood Mennonite Church, are still processing their experiences. Both said they’re more open to the unknown of where God is leading and that they’re ready for college. Swartz will attend Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va., and Dyck will attend University of Winnipeg this fall.

“Even taking spiritual and personal growth aside, this year was worth it just for the academic onslaught of insights on such an interesting culture,” Dyck said. “When you live abroad, one thing that is really clear is that everyone around the world is the same (sharing similar values such as family, community, and a need for love and affirmation). But the other thing that’s also clear is that everyone around the world is completely different (such as cultural perspectives and approaches to life). In China, everything seemed to have contrast, and it was a great space for us to look at the uniqueness of ourselves as we became more a part of these other people.”

“I’ve grown more confident, more at home with myself, and more at peace,” Swartz said. “I’ve also developed more tolerance and acceptance toward people who are different from me. The two are more likely than not directly correlated to each other. I want to connect more personally with others, as I’ve connected more personally with myself.”

This article was originally posted by Mennonite Mission Network and is reposted by permission.

2012 Peace Camps: Love on a Local Scale, part 1

August 23, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Samantha Lioi, Minister of Peace and Justice

What does Anabaptist witness and ministry look like up-close? When summer comes, for some folks it looks like teaching a second-grader to explore ways he can care for the earth, or giving a 10-year-old creative ways to deal with conflicts she’ll face at school. Congregations from Allentown to Philadelphia have created summer Peace Camps as practical places to live Christ’s transforming love among their neighbors. In some ways, the camps function similarly to traditional Vacation Bible Schools, but with content deeply relevant to the conflicts and crises kids face in our increasingly fragmented culture. Peace Camps can offer space for children to claim their identity as God’s children, to believe they can be active in stirring up hope in their part of the world.

In the next few weeks, Samantha Lioi, Minister of Peace and Justice for Franconia and Eastern District Conferences, will take a look at three conference Peace Camps that are giving space to putting here-and-now flesh and bone on our Anabaptist understandings of Christian faith, beginning with Salford Mennonite Church in Harleysville, Pa., then moving on to Philadelphia Praise Center in South Philly, and finishing with Samantha’s own experience helping to lead the Peace Camp for Ripple Allentown.

Since 2007, Meredith Ehst of Salford has brought her experience in public education to her leadership of the congregation’s summer Peace Camp, a week-long evening program serving children from Kindergarten through fifth grade. This year they welcomed 75 children, their largest camp yet, drawing 46 kids from the area who are not directly connected with the congregation.

The camp was born in 2006 after the community’s Vacation Bible School had lost energy. Mary Jane Hershey, a Salford elder in the realm of peacemaking and justice-building, saw an advertisement for a Peace Camp run by Quakers in nearby Gwynedd. She asked if she could come and observe, and left with copies from their notebooks and eagerness to try it back home.

Each year Salford chooses a theme verse and age-appropriate learning goals for the week. The youngest learn that they are loved by God and created with unique gifts. They learn to accept the differences between themselves and others and celebrate what each person brings through self-portraits.

Second and third-graders are old enough to learn about peace with the earth, touring and working in Salford’s community garden. They create original “ads” that they post on paper grocery bags to encourage the public to make ecologically responsible choices. This portion of the camp is grounded in what the kids already know when they arrive, and they have the chance to build on this and take ownership for making a difference in their community. Meredith laughed remembering that each year, inevitably, this group decides they can go without electric lights, and they spend the rest of the week in a slightly darker classroom!

The oldest children engage a curriculum called Talk It Out, gaining skills for reconciling conflict without resorting to physical force. Everyone spends some time in the classroom, some playing cooperative games, and some sitting down to eat together.

In fact, sitting around tables for dinner is one of the most significant parts of the Peace Camp, says Pastor Joe Hackman, as it provides a practice and space for community that is unusual for some of the children. This ministry is giving birth to possibilities for new forms of witness; this year included an adult portion of Peace Camp and a barbeque for the parents on Friday as part of their closing celebration.

Peace Camp has become a way to spread practical knowledge and skills for peacemaking to people around them – ministering from a place of knowing their neighbor’s needs as well as their own children’s needs. “We always have children with no fixed address,” says Mary Jane. “We send out mailings and some come back.” They are glad to know they are connecting with kids who experience frequent transitions, which can foster feelings of insecurity and deepen the need for an identity as God’s beloved child—and for skills to handle differences and disagreements.

Next week, Philadelphia Praise Center →

To "Mennonite" when we're each other's enemies

August 13, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

To Mennonite Blog #11

by Michael A. King, dean of Eastern Mennonite Seminary (Salford)

Michael King — Photo provided by Eastern Mennonite University

Pondering what it may mean “to Mennonite” reminds me of a friend who leads a state agency serving persons with disabilities. Just returned from Washington, D.C., he reported a grim picture: the likelihood that a divided Congress won’t get its act together to release funds his agency relies on. Any cuts will hurt people with faces I cherish, because my friend has come to lead this agency as an outgrowth of love for his own children with Down Syndrome.

I found our conversation chilling. Has it come to this? Are we so divided we can’t find common ground even to support persons with disabilities?

This is not to minimize complexities; it’s appropriate to ponder the roles of, say, government versus church in caring for “the least of these.” But my friend works tirelessly to raise funds from church folk—yet they provide a fraction of the needed revenue.

So how have we reached a juncture at which even seeing some role for government to play in funding my friend’s agency—why should my taxes support those takers!—may pull me into the vortex of mutual hate which seems the only thing we now know how to build together?

My point isn’t to argue specifics of one more divisive matter. It’s to grieve what seems our loss of ability to work across legitimate differences to discern solutions. And it’s to suspect that an important meaning of “to Mennonite” in such bitter times is for us to learn and maybe model what love amid division can look like.

From our beginnings Mennonites have sought a “third way,” an understanding of Bible, faith, and life that doesn’t quite fit into Protestant or Roman Catholic categories though it can enrich and be enriched by both. Key to third-way understandings has been unusual passion to take Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount literally. This in turn has led Mennonites to believe that Jesus actually meant for us to love even enemies (Matt. 5:44)—here, now, concretely.

Perhaps our most prominent expression of such love has been through conscientious objection to killing enemies in wartime, and this remains a vital Mennonite conviction. Increasingly, however, I wonder if we risk so focusing on enemies out there that we fail to learn how to love the enemies we make of each other.

When we differ over today’s hot issues we seem ever more inclined not to treat persons who hold different views as fellow pilgrims seeking, with us, to hear God’s voice amid our common finitudes and frailties. We seem ever less inclined to trust that God could be threaded through any view other than our own. Rather, we seem ever more ready to believe that if you hold a view other than mine you are my enemy.

Maybe with so much alienation swirling, the one who is not my friend is, precisely, my enemy. But even if we accept such a troubling conclusion, to Mennonite our way through it may then be to ask what it means to love the viewpoint opponents we have made our enemies.

Amid my own limitations of vision, let me not offer a formula for navigating such complicated terrain. Yet let me at least suggest that to Mennonite our way through a time in which we turn even other Christians and Mennonites—not to mention, say, atheists or Muslims or Republicans or Democrats—into enemies is to find ways to repay even what we consider evil with good (Rom. 12:21).

When I was growing up, I saw my parents model what such Mennoniting might look like: no matter how much they might disagree with a person’s beliefs or choices, precisely because they always took seriously that even the enemy was to be loved, they always spied treasure in the other. It might be tarnished; it might need polishing; the light of Christ might barely brighten it. But it was there—and thus was something even in the enemy that could be cherished, learned from, not merely vanquished. I would like to try Mennoniting like that in today’s world and see where it takes me and us.

Our summer blog series will soon be wrapping up. Have there been any insights that have touched you, made you think, connected with your experience? How do you “Mennonite”? Join the conversation on Facebook & Twitter (#fmclife) or by email.

Simple obedience 'to Mennonite'

August 9, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by John Ruth, Salford

I was baptized after an emotional week of revival meetings with a tearful preacher in an old store-building at the young Finland Mennonite mission in the hills above “The Ridge” nine miles from the Lower Salford farm of my birth. I was all of eight years old, and in third grade. Other boys from Salford Mennonite families made fun of me, calling me, “Chun the Baptist.”

When Bishop Arthur Ruth of Line Lexington arrived at Finland for the service, and asked me some introductory questions, I felt I was flunking. I knew from Sunday School and family worship that we were saved because “Jesus died on the cross,” but I couldn’t answer the bishop’s follow-up question, “How do we know that?” The bishop helped me out: “The Bible tells us.”

Well, I had known that too. I had memorized a lot of Bible verses. And with all my immaturity I now found the church commending me on the solemn “step” I had taken.

This was only one of some questionable actions I would observe my church taking. So why did I continue to respect it and grow to love it?

I did not rebel when my extra-conscientious parents sent me fifty-five miles west to a two-year-old Mennonite High School at Lancaster (there was no Christopher Dock High School for another decade). I enjoyed my new Lancaster friends, visited their homes, dated a girl, and even got a “plain coat” for my graduation, like my Lancaster buddies.

While working in 1948-9 to earn money for college, I was asked to teach Sunday school in Conshohocken, at one of the many new “mission stations” then springing up in the Franconia Conference – many out of lay initiative. I think my plain coat had caught the attention of the bishops, because they put me in the lot for minister even though I was between my freshman and sophomore years at “EMC.”

Then when the “lot was cast” between me and two other men, both at least twice my age, it fell on me, as it had on even younger fellows like Paul Lederach of Norristown and Al Detweiler of Rockhill. Alas, I hadn’t yet really begun to think for myself. But the church had chosen me, and I chose to be chosen ecause in the voice of the church I heard the voice of God.

Sixty-two years later, my respect for the Church of Christ is a key to my Mennonite loyalty. In its fellowship I found a good wife, and was allowed both to finish college and a Ph.D. program in English at Harvard University, and teach literature for a dozen years at Eastern University. After that, I had a “second ordination,” again under the leadership of a bishop, Richard Detweiler. For thirty-five years I have been making films and videos, writing history books, and leading Anabaptist heritage tours in Europe, while serving as an associate pastor for twenty-two years in my beloved congregation at Salford.

I respect the Church because I believe, as Paul wrote in Ephesians 3, that it is the means by which God makes experiencable the mystery of salvation. Being reconciled to God and each other is what salvation is about. It is what our church is about. Our first confession of faith (Schleitheim, 1527) is about church, because the way we do church is the evidence of what we believe . Not complicated doctrine but simple acceptance of this mystery and living by it is what church is about. Not trying to be “realistic” about politics, war and economics, but simple obedience to the great Pioneer of our reconciliation, is what our church fellowship is, by birth and continuing discernment, about.

When I asked Indonesian members of the Praise Center this summer in Philadelphia why they would want to be a part of our Conference, they said, “Because you know what it is to be marginal” (i.e., non-conformed to the world). We don’t find that sense in other potential fellowships.”

“Well,” I said, “what about the fact that we’re pretty much part of the establishment now?”

“Yes,” they replied, “but at least you have the historical memory.”

I know what it feels like to be touched by that Mennonite memory. Seventy-four years after my immature baptism, though my church is still imperfect and tempted to imitate instead of obey, its noble birth-message of reconciliation makes it where I want to belong, be accountable, and share the mystery of salvation with a whole new set of neighbors.

Learning to listen across generations

August 7, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Joe Hackman, Salford (Harleysville, Pa.)

Salford listening — Joe Hackman and Sanford Alderfer from Salford congregation. Salford is focusing this year on learning to listen across generations. Photo by Tim Moyer.

“Thank you for listening!” say several excited young children at the end of every episode of Salford’s Listening Project. Our church has been doing a lot of listening these days.

Last summer we set aside several months for prayer and discerning what God might be calling us to for the next several years. The discernment led us to something pretty basic: learning how to get better at listening to God.

In the next several years we will be learning to listen for God in our personal lives, in our local community, in hospitality, and in difficult conversations. This year we’ve given special focus to learning to listen to God in intergenerational relationships.

One young woman who recently joined our church told me, “The reason I’m drawn to this community is that older people are curious about my family and me. They really want to know who we are and what we’re thinking.”

But trying to get different generations to listen to one another and for God’s movement in those relationships has proven to be a joy and a struggle. Some of our ideas have flourished while others have not.

Salford’s Listening Project invites people from across generations to sit in our old sound booth above the church sanctuary to share and record stories of faith with each other. In a recent episode, two women discussed a time when the church prevented a person in FBI training from serving as a youth sponsor because he was required to carry a gun. For the woman in her 80’s, this was a time when church leadership took a stand and did not compromise on a core belief. For the woman in her 30’s, who was a member of the youth group at that time, the same story created much hurt; she interpreted it as a low point in her experience at Salford. Sharing the story and the different ways it was understood helped both women listen for God’s movement in both the joy and pain of this event.

But intergenerational listening hasn’t always been a success. After Easter we started an intergenerational Sunday school class called “Jesus through the Ages.” We had willing participants (mainly Gen Xers and the Silent Generation) gather around tables and look at scripture passages together, led by a team of skilled facilitators. But, try as we might, the class struggled to thrive.

Why? We’re not completely sure. But we learned that different generations have different expectations for Sunday school and how it should be formatted. We decided to cancel the class after July and encouraged folks to return to their regular classes—which are traditionally split along generational lines.

I remember a few years ago the theme for the Mennonite Church USA Convention was “Can’t Keep Silent,” and I sometimes think of the irony: our congregation believes God is calling us to listen right now! The church is called to offer people a new way of life brought about by the presence of a countercultural, spirit-filled reality. And in a world that is increasingly polarized by talking heads on radio, television, and Twitter feeds, Salford needs to do the hard work of learning to listen to God and to each other; this is a message of good news for our church and our world.

Church as an extension of family

July 26, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Ben Wideman, Salford

I am a child of the Mennonite world – my parents met while doing Voluntary Service in Mississippi and were married soon after. Believe it or not, I was even born on the day of our area Mennonite Central Committee relief sale! My parents recognized the value in bringing me up with the church as an extension of my family system.

The church (no joke: WIDEMAN Mennonite) was where I found my biggest supporters, best friends, and strongest mentors. From an early age I was given the opportunity to participate in the life of the church through handing out bulletins, participating as an usher or greeter, reading scripture, and then transitioning into helping with music and worship leading.

Looking back, I am certain that those church leaders who tapped me on the shoulder were extremely influential in shaping my calling. They provided me with confidence, encouragement, and a belief that there was real value in an authentic church community. However it wasn’t until leaving that my home congregation that I felt a more direct sense of calling toward church ministry.

As I prepared to head off to college, I found myself wondering what path I would take. I originally applied to Eastern Mennonite University as a business major, but was unsure of how that would unfold. I clearly remember the Nashville Youth Convention as an experience where I felt a strong sense that God was directing me toward pastoral ministry, and after that week was over, I contacted EMU to switch my intended major to Biblical Studies. As I began to share this decision with my friends and family, I was surprised by how many people affirmed this decision as if they had expected it all along! From that point on, I have seen God at work shaping this call through a variety of people and experiences in my life.

I graduated from EMU and began to work at the Admissions Office on campus. I spent three years in that role as a college recruiter and inadvertently explored and experienced the denomination as I traveled throughout the country. After I left my position at EMU and moved to California, my experience at Fuller Theological Seminary allowed me to dig deeper into my faith tradition and theological convictions in a multi-denominational environment. It was an incredible experience and one that has continued to shape who I am today.

My calling to Franconia Conference and Salford Mennonite Church was an unexpected transition. My wife Meredith and I had all but ruled out this area as an option for ministry, preferring to find a congregation in an urban, non-traditional Mennonite context. It was the pastoral leadership at Salford who reached out to us and began the conversation that eventually led to our arrival. We did not expect to find a home here, but we have been blessed by a wonderful faith community and a new church family.

My new role as associate pastor of youth and young adults allows me to experience many different aspects of pastoral ministry, while continuing to develop who I am as a new pastor. I look forward to God’s continued guidance in my life, wherever that may take me in the future.

Salford

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