Souderton

Hiding treasures where others may find them

February 12, 2013 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Sandy Drescher-Lehman, Souderton

Making safe space for people to experience the love of God has been a passion of mine ever since I can remember. That passion has been given life in camp settings, in prison cells, in our home and yard, in homeless shelters, on bicycle trips, in mental health facilities, and in churches.

Thirty years ago, after a profound experience at a retreat center of God’s love totally enveloping and holding me, my life verse became Isaiah 43: “But now, [Sandy], the Lord who created you says, ‘Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name. You are mine.’” Since that day, I have had the desire to live as many minutes of my life as possible in the heart of that much Love and to help others to connect with that much Love in whatever way they can experience it, thus receiving the healing we all need to become more fully human and to hold more of the Divine.

House of Prayer: Life's Transitions — House of Prayer: Life’s Transitions

A formative book for me was, “Prayer and Temperament” which taught me the different ways that different personalities pray. I resonated with Sue Monk Kidd, when she said “Symbols are the language of the soul” and Paul Tillich who called Christians to the revitalization of their inner lives through the recovery of symbols. I began to notice how not only symbols but color, also, called my soul to go deeper into the wordless heart of God.

Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach encouraged the practice of looking for God in everything. I noticed, as a worship leader, that when all of our senses are called for, people more easily engage in the heart of worship rather than only staying in their head with words and reasoning. And I’ve always loved the stories of Pippi Longstocking, who hid treasures in old tree stumps so she could watch her friends joyfully discover them on their “thing-finding” adventures.

So, when I became one of the pastors at Souderton Mennonite Church, I had the chance to combine all those learnings and passions! Joy Sawatzky and I began inviting people to special times of prayer to begin the Lenten season, combining input with times of silence; spending time alone with God in any of the several prayer centers we created, each with colors and symbols and scriptures. The variety was in the ways participants were invited to use their body or mind or taste buds or ears or sense of smell or sight. When we ended these retreats by “sharing the wealth” of our time with God, we were always overwhelmed to hear how God had come to each person in exactly the way that was most needed – far beyond anything we could have planned or imagined!

Then about 7 years ago, the ideas for different ways to pray suddenly exploded into 50 and then 60 centers, as more people joined the team, creating ways to express and make available to others how they prayed most easily. In experimenting with each other’s favorite methods and colors and symbols for praying, we discovered that when we try new ways of prayer, we sometimes go even deeper into the heart of God than engaging our usual patterns over and over. We organized the centers into rooms of a house – the kitchen (where we pray as we eat), the study (where we pray as we read and write and kneel and listen to music), the playroom (where tactile centers and craft centers help children play their prayers), the bedroom (where it’s enough to just BE; resting in God’s comfort), the art room (where all kinds of things to create wait to be discovered), and the great outdoors (where the sounds and smells and sights of creation invite us to pray in our walking and in noticing God in the world)

And my Pippi-heart loves to hide treasures in places where those who enter may or may not find them! The “House” symbolically calls us to see every room we enter as a place of prayer; every moment we live is another chance to be aware of God’s love and peace and mercy and grace and healing and whatever else we need from the One who created us and continues to create through us!

Souderton’s Lenten House of Prayer will be open February 8-18th, from 9am to 9pm in the congregation’s fellowship hall. All are welcome to visit. For more information or to access other Lenten resources from Souderton congregation, visit their website.

Reflections on building an intercultural relationship

February 6, 2013 by Emily Ralph Servant

Urban Promise at Souderton — A team of interns from Urban Promise leads singing at Souderton congregation. Photo by Emily Ralph.

As a church seeking to connect with the mission of God in the world, it has been exciting to connect with the ministry of Urban Promise in Camden, NJ. Initially, several of our college students served as summer interns and Bruce Main and some of their interns came to a worship service on a Sunday morning. But this past year, the Senior High youth group did a week of service in Camden and for many of the youth it was life changing. Relationships were established. They connected with what God was doing in the city and the invitation was given to come to Souderton for an exchange visit. Seeing this come together on January 20^th was encouraging and confirmed the truth that mission in the Kingdom of God is more about building relationships than it is about programs.

–Pastor Gerry Clemmer, Souderton congregation

Urban Promise--Carlee Moyer — Carlee Moyer (left), a senior in Souderton congregation’s youth group, participated in a summer school camp. What she saw and experienced led her to consider teaching in the inner city someday.

I didn’t know what to expect walking through the doors into camp that first day—it was a huge eye opener. As Caucasian teens, we went from being the majority back at home in Souderton to being the minority in Camden! This gave me a sense of how other people view the world; I experienced what it feels like to not fit in. Each morning we had devotions and the main topic that they kept coming back to was about judging other people. In Camden, I tried to remember that I have no idea what these kids are going through and they know nothing about me either. If you have an open heart to everyone, you will not only see happiness in others, but happiness in yourself also.

Coming back home and starting my junior year in high school, something had changed. I tried to take a broader look at myself as a person. I have become more aware of how I treat people and think about how God would want me to treat others. Even though the children that were in the camps were young, they still taught me something that will stay with me forever. Not a day goes by where I don’t think about the people that made a huge impact on my life.

–Jillian Moyer, junior

Wow! Where do I even begin to talk about the experience our youth group had at Urban Promise? One of the things that fascinated me most was Urban Promise’s “street leader” program. This program is for the older children (9^th-12^th grade) who have gone to the camps before, but are too old to be a “camper”. They help run the camp and facilitate activities. It was great to see how these kids worked their way up through the program and are now given responsibility. As a teacher, I notice that kids rise to higher levels of maturity when they are given a responsibility, especially when that responsibility is to take care of younger children.

I know many of our youth want to go back and visit our friends from Urban Promise and some have showed interest in working there for a summer. What an amazing and life changing experience it was for our entire group! Urban Promise is truly ushering in God’s Kingdom in a very real way.

–Elyse Hackman, youth leader

Extravagant, reckless love

February 4, 2013 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Emily Ralph, eralphservant@mosaicmennonites.org

“When I was growing up, I was only allowed one scoop of ice cream for snack,” I told my congregation’s children a number of years ago during our Easter Sunday service. I wrinkled my nose as I looked at the piddly scoop of ice cream in my hands. “That’s not very extravagant, is it?”

Such a big word deserved a big illustration, so I pulled out a giant mixing bowl and began scooping ice cream out of a bucket. Eventually, I gave up and just dumped in the whole gallon, much to the children’s delight.

The boys and girls pushed in closer around the kitchen cart with their eyes wide, gasping as I squeezed an entire bottle of chocolate syrup onto the ice cream, giggling and bouncing on their toes as I covered the surface with sprinkles, unable to contain their excitement as I added cans of whip cream and finished it off with a whole jar of cherries.

God’s love isn’t just a scoop of ice cream, I told the children as their eyes remained glued to the overflowing bowl of goodness. God’s love is extravagant—like this giant ice cream sundae. A love so extravagant that it couldn’t stay dead. A love so extravagant that it came back to life again.

Years later, children and adults alike tell me that they still remember the illustration of the extravagant love of God. And that word, “extravagant,” has remained a favorite in my vocabulary.

On a recent Sunday, I visited Souderton (Pa.) congregation for a service celebrating the congregation’s partnership with Urban Promise, a ministry that works with kids in the heart of Camden, New Jersey. The ministry’s director, Bruce Main, shared the story from Matthew 26 of the woman who poured a bottle of perfume on Jesus’ head. The disciples responded with shock: “What a waste!” Most of us, Main suggested, would have responded to that woman’s act of love with the same disgust as the disciples—how could she be so reckless?

As Main encouraged us to love recklessly, I found myself thinking about traditional Swiss-German Mennonite values: living simply, frugally. What a difference there is in how we hear “love extravagantly” and “love recklessly!” While they mean virtually the same thing, extravagance can be controlled: we can weigh the options, evaluate the outcome, and then, when we decide our love will be effective, love extravagantly.

But what Main, and I believe Jesus, is encouraging us to do is to love with risk. To pour our love out in ways that we can’t control, can’t predict, ways that may not be efficient, may seemingly not be effective.

Jesus poured out his life knowing that we might still say, “No thanks.” If we are truly going to join God in God’s mission in the world, we can’t control how people will respond to our love. We can’t prevent our love from being rejected or ignored. Perhaps the greatest hindrance to mission is our fear that our experiments will fail and our money, time, or emotional energy will have been needlessly depleted.

May we instead judge extravagant love by the act, not the outcome. May we see reckless love not as carelessness, but as overflowing compassion. And may our extravagant love draw others to a God who first recklessly “wasted” his love on us.

Paint a Piece of History!

July 26, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Liz Einsig Wise, Executive Director, Germantown Mennonite Historic Trust

Germantown Historic Meetinghouse — Volunteers from around Pennsylvania helped paint the historic Germantown meetinghouse in June. Photos courtesy of Germantown Mennonite Historic Trust.

The historic 1770 Germantown Mennonite Meetinghouse is a powerful symbol of the origins of the Mennonite experience in America and an important touchstone of the Anabaptist faith. Now cared for by the nonprofit Germantown Mennonite Historic Trust (a Conference Related Ministry of Franconia Conference), the Meetinghouse hosts hundreds of visitors each year, from school groups learning about early Mennonite history to genealogy enthusiasts and others generally interested in American colonial life. Others discover the Meetinghouse in the context of visiting Historic Germantown, learning for the first time of the Mennonites’ central role in early Pennsylvania and about the Mennonite influences contributing to America’s first written protest against slavery.

With a very small staff (less than one full time equivalent) and a modest budget, most of the grounds upkeep for this historic site is done by volunteers. On June 9-12, GMHT’s Paint a Piece of History! Work Week hosted 50 volunteers from all over the region who donated over 237 hours of labor to spruce up the Meetinghouse and grounds.

Two primary tasks awaited: repainting the 1908 Sunday School Room and the wrought iron fence that runs the length of the property. With ready enthusiasm, volunteers from Souderton Mennonite Church, Boy Scout Troop 1719, Frazer Mennonite Church, Oxford Circle Mennonite Church, Germantown Mennonite Church, Circle of Hope Brethren in Christ Church (Broad & Washington and Frankford & Norris campuses), VolunteerMatch, and others all pitched in. Skilled volunteers also began work on the exterior wood trim of the Meetinghouse.

Even with so many hands, work remained unfinished at the end of the official work week. Fortunately, during the last week of the month, another group from Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ Church, in Philadelphia for a work week with Kingdom Builders Construction, helped finish the project (and even more grounds work!) with another 175 hours during one of the hottest weeks of the summer.

Before the paint was even dry, the Meetinghouse hosted a tour group, a jazz concert and a game night! Coming up, the “Dog Days of Summer” on August 11 will feature GMHT’s 3^rd Annual Rook Tournament & Barbecue sale, as well as live music and frozen treats on the lawn. Later this year, their beloved Christmas Candlelight Service, featuring special ensembles from several congregations as well as a cappella congregational singing, will be held on Saturday, December 8.

Germantown Mennonite Historic Trust welcomes individuals and groups for tours by appointment, or during Historic Germantown’s “2^nd Saturdays” on the second Saturday of every month from May through October from 12:00 – 4:00 p.m. A special presentation customized for your group may also be arranged at your location. For more information or to schedule a tour, please contact GMHT at (215) 843-0943 or gmht@meetinghouse.info.

A Combined Call

May 18, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Kirby King, Minister of Adult Formation at Souderton Mennonite Church

To speak about call in my life for church work requires that I speak about my call to teach at Christopher Dock Mennonite High School (Dock) as well as my call to become a licensed leader of adult formation at Souderton Mennonite Church. Both calls are so intertwined that I cannot separate them.

As a student at Lancaster Mennonite High School in the early ’80s I began to see myself as a person who could possibly have gifts in presentation and publicly leading or teaching a group. This is largely due to several teachers who gave me an opportunity to explore the “stage” of the classroom with presentations. My youth group at Maple Grove Mennonite Church complimented this by opening up leadership roles for me; specifically leading/teaching Bible study. A call was beginning to form inside me from those around me.

Fast-forward a few years, Laura Stoltzfus challenged me to go to college and become a teacher. I shared this with a small group and found support and encouragement. Again, the words from brothers and sisters of the faith sparked an internal call.

At present I have been teaching at Christopher Dock for 19 years. Even though I have completed my Master of Arts in Education, I have enrolled in Eastern Mennonite Seminary (EMS) to work toward a second Master’s degree. I feel an internal call to continue my education but this call is also tested and confirmed by my colleagues at Dock, my professors at EMS, and my peers at church.

Over the past two years, my work in my congregation (Souderton Mennonite Church) has blended smoothly with my professional teaching career. I have been assisting and leading in the adult Sunday School classes as a support person, class room teacher, and mass session leader. I also have added what I can to the preaching rotation; some during the summer months and some during a pastor’s sabbatical leave.

Souderton Mennonite Church recently asked me to accept a call to become our first leader of adult formation. This fits well with my internal call to teach and my full time occupation at Dock. I remain open to God’s leading in this new role. Based on my experience with God’s call, some future calls will stir up within me and some future calls will be clarified or brought to light from those around me. My prayer is that I hear and listen to God’s call as this new role develops.

Spring Training 2012

May 1, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

Franconia Conference credentialed leaders from up and down the east coast met on Saturday, April 21, at Towamencin Mennonite Church for the first annual Spring Training, a time of equipping planned by the conference as part of a commitment to continuing education.

The day focused on interculturalism and included times of worship, table conversation, resourcing, and, of course, food!

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Morning Session #1 (1:02:37)

[podcast]http://www.mosaicmennonites.org/media-uploads/mp3/Spring Training Session 1 (low).mp3[/podcast]

Morning Session #2 (43:29)

[podcast]http://www.mosaicmennonites.org/media-uploads/mp3/Spring Training Session 2 (low).mp3[/podcast]

Afternoon Session #3 (57:37)

[podcast]http://www.mosaicmennonites.org/media-uploads/mp3/Spring Training Session 3 (low).mp3[/podcast]

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Walking together on the road to Easter

April 18, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Emily Ralph, eralphservant@mosaicmennonites.org

It’s a familiar story, especially for those who have grown up in the church. So how do we retell the story of Jesus’ passion and resurrection year after year in ways that open us up, once again, to the pain, the beauty, and the wonder of Jesus’ sacrifice and victory over death?

dove scripture picture — Members at Souderton congregation contributed artwork made of scripture. Photo provided.

The season of Lent, celebrated for the forty days leading up to Easter, marks Christ’s journey to Jerusalem. It invites those who follow Jesus to walk with him by remembering his life, practicing disciplines of fasting and sacrifice, and engaging in deeper commitment to their brothers and sisters in the church.

Souderton (Pa.) congregation began Lent by diving deeper into Mennonite Church USA’s “Year of the Bible” with an art project. Members of the congregation were invited to choose a word or phrase from scripture on which they wanted to meditate and to write it over and over on a panel using colors to create images. These panels became banners that hung in the front of their sanctuary during the Lenten season.

Souderton wasn’t the only congregation to celebrate the imaginative Spirit. Swamp (Quakertown, Pa.) spent Lent exploring God as creator, “littering” the steps of their platform with items created by members of the congregation, symbols of God’s unique creative work in them. Their children memorized Psalm 139, which they recited on Palm Sunday after leading the entire congregation in a procession, joyfully waving palm branches.

Plains maps — Plains congregation used maps to illustrate their prayers for their region, country, and world. Photo by Dawn Ranck.

Palm Sunday marked the beginning of Holy Week and was the day when Jesus entered Jerusalem to the adoration of the crowds. The week soon turned more somber, however, as Jesus ate his final meal with his disciples, washing their feet, and predicting his betrayal. These events are remembered on Maundy Thursday.

Conference congregations reenacted Christ’s humility with their own experiences of footwashing. Traditionally, Mennonites have practiced footwashing in groups divided by gender. At Perkiomenville (Pa.) congregation this year, footwashing was one of several stations that members could visit, which, for the first time, allowed married couples or family members to wash each other’s feet.

Franconia Conference members joined Christians from all over the Philadelphia region for a Good Friday vigil outside a gun shop. Photo by Jim McIntire.

In addition to footwashing, Plains (Hatfield, Pa.) congregation acted out Christ’s care and humility by setting up prayer stations with large maps of the world, the country, and their region. Members could pray for and mark areas on each map with a dot or a heart.

Compassion for the community continued to spread into Good Friday, the day when followers of Jesus remember his death on the cross. Members of churches all over the Philadelphia region gathered outside a gun shop in the city for a Good Friday vigil. As these believers stood against violence in the city, others gathered in Good Friday services to remember that Jesus’ death made peace and reconciliation with God, and one another, possible.

Salford power outage — Salford congregation spent part of its Good Friday service in the dark, thanks to an unexpected power outage. Photo by Emily Ralph

Just when Good Friday seemed like it couldn’t get any darker, Salford (Harleysville, Pa.) congregation’s evening service was suddenly interrupted by a power outage. For just a few, brief moments the congregation was surprised by the darkness and powerless to do anything but sit in the shadow of the cross.

There was a hush in Franconia Conference on the Saturday of Holy Week, as though the Church was holding its breath, waiting for the joy they knew was coming on Easter morning.

And the joy did come—in colors and flowers, in song and story, in food and hope and promise. Crosses were draped in white and lilies and hyacinths and forsythia decorated sanctuaries. Congregations met as the sun rose, around breakfast tables, and in their morning services to celebrate an empty tomb.

Philadelphia Praise Center viewed a video in which church members took to the city streets to ask people about the significance of Easter. Blooming Glen (Pa.) congregation acted out the resurrection story in a chilly sunrise service and a member at Deep Run East (Perkasie, Pa.) built a custom tomb to display on Easter morning. In Vermont, members of Bethany congregation participated in an ecumenical sunrise service on the side of Mt Killington and then, after brunch, were led in worship by a new generation of storytellers–their children.

It’s a familiar story, and yet it’s born fresh each year as we once again walk with Jesus through Lent, Holy Week, and the Easter season. In this story, we recognize what theologian H.S. Bender once wrote: we live on the resurrection side of the cross. May we continue to celebrate Christ’s resurrection by living our lives as a resurrected people.

He is risen: He is risen indeed!

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Gathering of “sisters” provides training and care

March 28, 2012 by Emily Ralph Servant

by Emily Ralph

One hundred and thirty women gathered for training and fellowship at Souderton Mennonite Church on March 23-24. The Sister Care seminar, developed by Mennonite Women USA, was sponsored by Eastern District and Franconia Conferences as part of their continuing work to equip and train congregational leaders.

“The depth of the sharing and the tears move, inspire, and teach us that the female characteristics are God-given and that we, as God’s women, have much honesty and healing to bring to the world,” said event planner Anne Yoder, West Philadelphia congregation. “I was most thrilled about the number of women who came from smaller churches and were able to connect with the larger church body.”

Sister Care was born out of a 2006 question to Mennonite women: How can congregations provide better care for women’s needs? After two years of meeting with a focus group, Sister Care materials were developed. Since 2008, Mennonite Women USA has been offering the seminar through conferences all over the country.

“Pastors are overwhelmed. They don’t have time to do one-on-one counseling with individual parishioners,” said Sister Care co-presenter Carolyn Heggan. “Women often have natural gifts of compassion and caregiving. Sister Care, we hope, affirms the gifts they have and have been using and gives them some insights and confidence to see their caring relationships with others as important ministry.”

This empowerment and equipping becomes an important tool for church leaders, Heggan added. “Pastors are thrilled if they are not the only one that people can turn to in the congregation.”

Vicki Cook “collapses” in frustration after Rhoda Keener fails to follow the principles of active listening. Photo by Gay Brunt Miller.

The two-day seminar included times of teaching, dramatic readings, singing, table conversation, individual reflection, congregational brainstorming, and symbolic action. A highlight for many was co-presenter Rhoda Keener’s illustration of active listening by play-acting a conversation with friend Vicki Clark in which she repeatedly got distracted; Clark ended up falling to the ground in frustration.

In addition to teaching skills for listening and offering a healing presence, the seminar emphasized the need for self-care. Without caring for self, people in ministry become run down and unable to help others. “We, as Mennonites, may be more susceptible than others,” said Heggan. “We equate being busy and doing good things with Christian virtue. Sometimes we carry our busy schedules and being harassed with too much to do almost as a badge of courage.”

Souderton’s Sister Care seminar was groundbreaking for Mennonite Women USA—it was the first time they have used materials translated into Spanish; Spanish-speaking participants were also equipped with translation headsets. As a result, the seminar was well-attended by Spanish-speaking members of Philadelphia Praise Center and Nueva Vida Norristown New Life.

“Mi grupo de mujeres quedaron muy contentas en su primera experiencia y ya estamos planeando como pober en practica las herramientas que se nis dio en el taller [My group of women were very happy with their first experience and we are already planning how to put into practice the tools that we were given at the seminar],” said Leti Cortes, a pastor at Philadelphia Praise Center. “Estan tan animadas que estamos pensando en un retiro de mujeres y usar algunas dinamicas que nos ayudaron a poder expresar lo que hemos vivido,espero le sirva este mensaje [We were so encouraged that we are thinking about having a women’s retreat and using some of the group activities that help us to express what we have lived].”

For more information on Sister Care, visit Mennonite Women USA’s website.

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