Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Stephen Kriss

Cultivating Next Generation Leaders 

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by Stephen Kriss

Within the first weeks in my role as executive minister of Franconia Conference, one of the predecessor communities of Mosaic Conference, then-moderator John Goshow (Blooming Glen [PA]) told me to begin to look for my successor. John told me that while I wouldn’t get to choose my successor that I should build a team in such a way that the successor would be nearby. He remarked that within Franconia Conference leadership was usually cultivated within. That had been true in my experience; every person in executive leadership roles had either worked in the Conference before or grown up within a Franconia congregation. 

I thought to myself, “This is how 300-year-old communities keep their legacy alive.” And I began the slow work of constructing a team that includes the diversity of who we are, expanding on that as our Conference has grown and changed to become Mosaic. This invitation gave me permission to seek out young leaders alongside experienced leaders. Currently we have a staff of nearly 25 persons with a mix of strengths, gifts, and backgrounds. I feel privileged to lead alongside them. 

The invitation to cultivate next generation leaders is what initially brought me to Franconia Conference. In 2005, the Conference recognized a need to support next generation leaders (then the millennial generation in their 20s). We listened together, visited colleges, developed initiatives, and laid the groundwork for what would become today’s Ambassadors program. The process opened the doors for next generation pastors and leaders across the Conference.  Never did I imagine that it would also mean I would be leading a community called Mosaic. 

This is some of the church’s most important discipleship work. I am always inspired by young leaders who chose to invest in the church. I value the sometimes-tough questions they ask.  The church both needs and can withstand rigorous questions and doubts. Jesus met Thomas’ doubts with an invitation to engage. My life has been changed by working alongside those millennials who have challenged and inspired me. 

We are now pivoting to the next generations: Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Some of the questions they face are entirely new, spurred on by technology and the interconnected nature of the world around us. Jesus continues to call leaders, sometimes those we don’t expect. 

Our shared work of creating a context where next generations can choose to follow Jesus and respond to the “call within the call” means taking postures of humility and care, alongside creating brave spaces where it’s safe enough to try and do, to sometimes succeed and sometimes fail.  

This summer I’ve had the privilege of working alongside Brendan Sagastume who was shared between Mosaic and his home congregation, Perkiomenville (PA), though the Ambassadors program which wrapped up last week on retreat in Tampa, FL. Brendan’s quiet and efficient steadiness helped me to become a better leader, learning how to listen well, to invite, and to respond.   

Cultivating next generation leaders is essential transformative work. Until the reign of God comes fully, in each generation we must navigate how to embody the reconciling love of Jesus in our broken and beautiful world by calling younger persons to serve and lead alongside of those of us who are more experienced. This is the work of discipleship. And the way is made together toward God’s future. 

Stephen Kriss

Stephen Kriss is the Executive Minister of Mosaic Conference.

Resourcing Our Pastors and Leaders for Holistic Wellness

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by Stephen Kriss

This spring a group of Mosaic pastors and leaders gathered to watch a session on the annual Barna Report at our conference offices. Barna does research on the Protestant world in the U.S. context. The most striking thing in this year’s report was the challenge of mental health for pastors. Pastoring has never been an easy calling. However, in recent years in the U.S., it has become even more precarious, with nearly one in five pastors reporting having suicidal thoughts. We are not immune to this in Mosaic. 

The pastoral calling can be isolating. It is lived within community; however, part of the call is to be set apart from the community. Pastors carry special burdens with their families and their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. I’ve struggled with some of these areas myself, not finding easy rhythms when there is always work to be done. Though the work can be taxing, it is meaningful and with people I sincerely love. 

Everence initiatives through the Lilly Foundation have sought to provide places and pathways for pastors to maintain their own wellness, including grants and financial counseling programs.  This spring Everence helped Mosaic sponsor a day away for our pastors. It was notable to me how many pastors signed up for the 15-minute massage sessions offered. Our bodies are carrying both primary and secondary trauma. We also offered time for personal, intentional prayer for pastors, from a team of pray-ers. All these sessions filled too.  

Mosaic leaders from California, Florida, and Pennsylvania participated in a “Mosaic Leadership Day Away” in scenic Lambertville, NJ along the Delaware River.  

Our Conference maintains a special fund to assist pastors with counseling, spiritual direction, and other needed resources of support. It is well-used, and we have relied on extra funds we received during the pandemic to strengthen this resource. We have nearly 150 active credentialed persons who serve in a variety of contexts. Some have access to wellness resources more readily than others. We want to make sure that all our credentialed leaders can have the care they need. 

Our leadership ministers regularly check in with lead pastors. We have regular learning communities and support groups for specific pastoral contexts. Our goal is that every pastor has at least two places of support from Mosaic Conference:  a direct line of accountability and accompaniment, and a peer group for sharing and resourcing. This is a goal yet to be achieved. We hope all our pastors have a friendship beyond their family in which they can process and feel support, whether that is a formalized mentor, trusted friend, spiritual director, or counselor. 

Our pastors serve diverse needs and communities. In some congregations, the pastor is called upon to lead the community in ways that an executive director would lead a non-profit. In other settings, the pastor is akin to a social worker, responding to various needs and identifying access to resources. In some settings, pastors are community workers serving neighborhoods and small towns. In many congregations, pastors must serve in almost every kind of role, from janitorial to preaching. We have pastors who serve as chaplains and organizational leaders, with their own sets of needs and challenges. Many of our pastors are bi-vocational. 

In our community of nearly 8000 people, the unique calling of pastor is carried by about two percent of our constituency. We rely on the contributions of our congregations, individuals, foundations, and our investments to ensure resources are available to cultivate healthy leaders and vibrant communities. 

With the reality of the Barna report in mind, we continue to invest in caring for our credentialed congregational and emerging leaders. We ask congregations to continue to recognize the significant calling their pastors carry and allow time for sabbath and connection with family and friends, for retooling and learning. Congregations and communities thrive when pastors and leaders thrive. 

I pray our ongoing support can allow our credentialed leaders to live out their sense of calling, knowing that they are worthy of God’s love, surrounded by honest and real networks of care. 

Stephen Kriss

Stephen Kriss is the Executive Minister of Mosaic Conference.

Marking Our 4th Anniversary as Mosaic

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by Stephen Kriss

This Pentecost marked our 4th anniversary of becoming Mosaic Mennonite Conference. We took our name during the lockdown period of the COVID-19 pandemic, during a weekend of protests surrounding the murder of George Floyd. Pentecost 2020 was for many of us, during a tough time, a bright spot to celebrate a coming together. (If you need a reminder of our unveiling, here’s the video, which was filmed at Zion [Souderton, PA] and Centro de Albanza [South Philadelphia] while trying to social distance, at a time when many of us couldn’t get haircuts). 

This year we marked Pentecost by encouraging #MosaicTogether gatherings across our Conference which brought congregations together in a variety of ways. That same weekend, the Mosaic board met at Bethany Birches Camp in Vermont for equipping on discernment and decision making and affirmed the anchor/foundational statements of our Pathways strategic plan. Our previously scheduled Vermont board meeting had been cancelled during the pandemic time due to Vermont’s rigorous regulations on COVID. In a lot of ways, we are still catching up and adjusting to the newness and challenges of the timing of our beginning together. 

Since our birth in 2020, we have received congregations in Florida that now make up about 15% of our membership. We have had several congregations leave our conference after the special delegate session of Mennonite Church USA 2022 and had several congregations close. In the meantime, we’ve supported numerous new church planting initiatives in the United States, Mexico, England, and Colombia, and have had our first online-based communities emerge. We are in the midst of significant change around us and within us. 

I’ve been thinking about what holds mosaics together. It’s easy to see the brilliant, unique, and bright pieces, but harder to notice the quiet work of holding the pieces together. The work of cement and grouting is not particularly glamorous but essential. The task of our Mosaic Conference structure is to hold and situate each piece. We are a community of communities and ministries, not individuals. It takes work that is both individual and communal to hold us together. 

In becoming Mosaic, we had lofty dreams. We didn’t fully know what we would be living into together. We moved forward with hope, believing that our foundation in Christ, our commitment to community, and our willingness to work at reconciliation would give us plenty to do and the strength to do it. Early on we confessed in our vision statement that we work within a broken and beautiful world. That reality makes a mosaic possible. And difficult. 

Cynicism can come from unmet high expectations. Unfulfilled hope placed only in the human realm, not within the reign of God, can frustrate us. We can find ourselves constructing a tower of Babel rather than participating in the fullness of the Spirit’s Pentecost work. The culture around us needs for us to become fully Mosaic, embodying the reconciling love of Jesus, and will attempt to disassemble it.   

I continue to be aware of both our beauty and our precariousness. I am grateful for the ways that so many of us have invested time, prayer, work, and resources that help situate our Mosaic reality, to hold our beauty and brokenness together. Our faith grounds us. The Spirit gives us hope to live out our vision and mission. And love, both of God and each other, is what will hold our mosaic together through the bonds of peace (c.f. Ephesians 4:3). 

Stephen Kriss

Stephen Kriss is the Executive Minister of Mosaic Conference.

Three Possible Pathways for Our Future as Mosaic 

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by Stephen Kriss

In November 2022, our Mosaic delegate body met for the first time in person. And we had our first shared crisis of identity. Mennonite Church USA’s (MC USA) Kansas City summer 2022 special delegate session, which included repealing the denomination’s membership guidelines and passing a Repentance and Transformation resolution, created ripples of emotion for many persons across Mosaic.  

In response, at our first annual face-to-face, Mosaic delegates affirmed the Pathway Forward which includes strategic planning (needed at this point in our story together), an option for congregations to remove themselves from MC USA, and a promised discernment about our relationship with MC USA as a Conference community. This was a lot for the first annual face-to-face session.  

This is a lot for a new community to bear in its beginning. However, we are both deeply rooted and freshly new. By the grace and lovingkindness (chesed) of God, we have continued to flourish with surprising growth and provision in this two-year period. Our board has led with steadiness and our member congregations have engaged in mutuality and the agreed-upon work of our core missional, formational and intercultural priorities as we seek to embody the reconciling love of Jesus in our broken and beautiful world. 

In these two years, the Pathway Steering Team, which represents the diversity of gifts and perspectives of our Conference, has diligently worked on strategic planning and is moving closer to discernment on a recommended path for our Mosaic affiliations.  

In the meantime, Mosaic staff and board have made sure the work of the Conference continues. For me, as Executive Minister, this has meant understanding our relationship and responsibilities with MC USA and the implications of remaining within the denomination or finding alternative paths. 

Last month, I shared with the Pathway Steering Team three possible pathways I can identify for our future as Mosaic:  

A Pathway of Autonomy

As someone of Slavic descent, I recognize that autonomy can present new possibilities and challenges. Franconia Conference has been an autonomous conference in the past. Our community has capacity, in human and financial resources, to operate autonomously. We would still be Mennonites. We would find new ways to relate to other Anabaptists. We would seek membership in Mennonite World Conference. I have explored possible affiliations outside of MCUSA, and from my perspective, none would fit who we are or give us the support and space we need to live into our vision and mission.   

A Pathway of Continued Commitment

When Mosaic formed, we assumed continued membership in MC USA. We have deep connections broadly across the church and our continued engagement would offer our strength, diversity, and perspective to the largest Mennonite group in the U.S. Our membership in MC USA gives access to resources that are important in our credentialing process and in supporting some of our most vulnerable and newest communities with grants for ministry, educational opportunities, and financial backing for the purchase of new meetinghouses. Continued membership would maintain those programmatic connections and relationships across the country. The challenge for some of us is that this affiliation has become a liability rather than a strength that enables us to live more fully into our vision and mission. 

A Pathway of Collaboration or Partnership

At the last MC USA gathering, Mennonite Health Services and Everence altered their relationships with MC USA. We have had some initial conversations with leaders in MCUSA on what a different relationship might look like, in which we could collaborate on some areas of shared interest while holding our own polity and membership guidelines as Mosaic. This would require something new for MC USA (timely, given that we just discussed reinventing the church at our annual Constituency Leadership Council [CLC] gathering). This would also require something of us in Mosaic. Is it possible that Mosaic is a better MC USA partner rather than full member? Would this allow us to live into our vision and mission more fully? 

I have committed to a sense of holy indifference as the Executive Minister of Mosaic. I can see strengths and vulnerabilities in each of these paths. And it’s possible that the Pathway Steering Team will offer an alternative recommendation.  

What I do expect is that a year from now, Mosaic will be a different community in some way. This may be difficult, and it may also be invigorating. So far, the Spirit has continued to show up. I am committed to us living into our vision and mission of embodying the reconciling love of Christ even in difficult circumstances together. We won’t get it right all the time, but I want to keep us focused on living into who we have felt God has called us to be, both broken and beautiful. 

The Pathway Steering Team will likely have the strategic plan ready for board review at the May meeting at Bethany Birches Camp in Vermont. We hope there will be a recommendation for the board regarding affiliation at the August meeting. Conference delegates will have an opportunity to discuss this in our Assembly preparation gatherings, as we prepare for further discernment at the November 2, 2024, annual Assembly at Souderton (PA) Mennonite Church. 

As the pathway emerges, may we have the courage to do what is right and good, may we extend God’s great chesed to all, and may we walk humbly as individuals and as a Mosaic community. 

Stephen Kriss

Stephen Kriss is the Executive Minister of Mosaic Conference.

Three Things Shaping Mosaic Four Years Later 

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by Stephen Kriss, Executive Minister

It’s been four years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic; ¿Qué onda? (Spanish for “what’s the wave?” or “what’s up?”). 

Last Sunday, I sat in the living room of Josué and Nohemi Gonzalez’s home in Pembroke Pines, Florida for the worship gathering of Resplandece Mennonite Church. Resplandece is one of the half-dozen new congregations that have emerged with connections to Mosaic in the last year. And it is one of three Mosaic communities that meet mainly through Zoom This Sunday, the worship was moderated from Florida by Josué and the sermon and music-leading from Barranquilla, Colombia by church-planting pastor Manuel García Noriega and his family. 

Admittedly, I was skeptical of this model. I have been skeptical about Zoom worship since the first time I preached with Wellspring Church of Skippack (PA) from my front porch at the beginning of the pandemic. I was frustrated with the seemingly disembodied reality of Zoom worship and technological glitches. However, even that Sunday, while I focused on what was lacking, the worship moderator, Eloise Meneses, made sure that everyone was seen, heard, and acknowledged. In the isolation of the pandemic, that was the most important thing. The good news was less about my sermon and more about the community, gathered in the way that we could, in a time of confusion and disconnection. 

Four years later, we are using this technology differently, and it is changing us. Several of our worshipping communities offer hybrid worship and many more stream their services online. Bible studies and meetings are on Zoom. The work of the church continues with technology, and we are navigating how to be church differently.  

Resplandece highlights something else for us: Human migration is also transforming Mosaic. Those who gather online are scattered from Colombia to New York City, and most are from Colombia or Venezuela. We have added Spanish-speaking staff to keep up with the rapid growth of the Spanish-speaking community in our midst. New Russian-speaking and Haitian communities have also emerged.  

In Philadelphia, which is also a center for our growth, some immigrant communities have almost doubled in size since 2020. We have three Spanish-speaking communities in Philadelphia led by pastors from the Dominican Republic, Central America, and Mexico. Migration will continue to shape Mosaic as it has since our beginning as a Conference 300 years ago when the first families arrived in Pennsylvania from Europe. 

The third thing shaping Mosaic is the political landscape. We are in an election year, like we were in the onset of the pandemic. However, it is not only U.S. political realities that challenge us. The elections in Indonesia last week deeply affect the 10% of Mosaic with roots there. The sociopolitical collapses in Venezuela and Haiti also shape us as persons flee those countries under new U.S. visa policies. The war in Ukraine and the recent death of Russian opposition leader Alexander Navalny impact our communities too. We have always been shaped by political climates, and we must remain focused on our Jesus-centered faith despite political differences.  

Changes in technology, human migration, and global and local politics are not new. Our Anabaptist movement was spurred on by the printing press that made Bibles accessible, by migration in Europe and into the Western Hemisphere, and by the politics of the time. Though they may appear as threats, they are “waves” we have navigated in the past and will continue to experience. Ignoring them is not an option.  

We don’t always need to agree on the best responses to these challenges to live faithfully and vibrantly into the future. We have a history of learning to ride the waves. And Jesus, who demonstrated how it is possible to even walk on water, and who can calm the storms around us and within us, is always still with us. 

Stephen Kriss

Stephen Kriss is the Executive Minister of Mosaic Mennonite Conference.

Take Heart, It Is Almost the End of Advent Again

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by Stephen Kriss

It is Advent again. We call this time Advent because it reminds us of what comes from God for the creation of his kingdom on earth. We who are here have been led in a special way to keep what is coming on our hearts and to shape ourselves according to it. That which comes from God—that is what moves our hearts, not only in these days but at all times.

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt

Waiting is part of the human experience. We live in the in-between space, where the reign of God is upon us and not yet, where there is grieving and rejoicing, when things are both lost and found. However, as we see in the Gospel of Mark (this year’s primary lectionary text), there are moments when things are suddenly upon us.  

The Christmas season brings out a level of tenderness in many of us, a time when gift-giving and remembering those less privileged than ourselves is part of the US cultural practice rooted in a Christendom story. It is also a season where we are sometimes the most overtaxed or aware of our lack. The seasonal time of longer nights and less sunlight can make us more acutely aware of all that is not right or well, including ourselves. 

…we practice waiting for light and for Christ’s inbreaking in the midst of long darkness.

As a Mosaic of Christ-followers, a diverse people of God following Christ’s way of peace, we practice waiting for light and for Christ’s inbreaking in the midst of long darkness. We practice pensive waiting more than we might embrace overflowing joy. We know that all is not well in a world where wars wage, injustice dominates, and Herodian leaders call for violence against innocents even now. 

My opening passage excerpt from German theologian Christoph Blumhardt is an invitation to engage with our heart and to respond to the things of our hearts. It reminds me of the Emmaus Road story in Luke 24, the disciples’ post-resurrection encounter with Jesus. The disciples’ hearts warmed while they talked together about all of the difficult things they had experienced, even though they did not recognize Jesus with them. That conversation was not a glossing over the struggle, but a willingness to listen, to validate, to accompany, and eventually, to eat together. There is something within us beyond our head, feet, and hands, deep in our body, that knows the holy from the inside out. 

There is something within us beyond our head, feet, and hands, deep in our body, that knows the holy from the inside out. 

While we wait for Christmas, what does it means to acknowledge all that is fraught, all that we are waiting for, all that is “not yet the reign of God” and yet, still gather and celebrate? We know that wars and rumors of wars rage, we know the personal failures, theological, and political disagreements among us, and we seek to listen and be heard. Even so, we still gather around the table, or a Christmas tree, around a fire or in worship, knowing we are participating in the inbreaking of God–knowing it in our hearts, and enacting it in our bodies, in our communities, and in our relationships. We celebrate this not just now, but always, because we are always waiting, and the reign of God is always breaking through. “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:19, NRSV). 

Stephen Kriss

Stephen Kriss is the Executive Minister of Mosaic Conference.

From Artificial Harmony to Just Diversity 

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By: Stephen Kriss

This summer our Mosaic Board, along with some staff and committees, participated in training with Carlos Romero (long-time former Executive Director of Mennonite Education Agency) on the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). The IDI is an internationally recognized tool used to gauge individual and group intercultural levels. The gauge ranges from denial and minimization to acceptance and adaptation. It provides vocabulary and a framework for sometimes difficult conversations around intercultural transformation.  

As a core priority and reality of Mosaic, we continue to discern and discover what it means to be intercultural. We aim to stay rooted in the Biblical narrative of the Spirit’s work, evident in the Gospels and the early life of the church.  

In our training, Romero pointed out that Mosaic has spent a lot of time talking about what we have in common. We have yet to find ways to discover, unveil, and name our differences. This is part of the intercultural journey. 

Romero acknowledged that we are a community that officially formed in 2020 and is still developing a sense of shared identity. We have only met fully in-person with our delegates once. We are still learning what it means to include communities from Vermont to California and Florida with our Pennsylvania roots.  

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich

In her book, The Space Between Us, Betty Pries highlights Patrick Lencioni’s metaphor of “artificial harmony.” In this reality, differences remain under the surface and undiscussed. There are multiple reasons this happens. 

In Mennonite and Protestant church settings, I believe we hold “artificial harmony” not because we fear conflict as much as we fear the outcome of conflict, which has often meant that we split and sever relationships. If we had healthy models of how to acknowledge, embrace, and work through differences together, we might not be so conflict-averse. 

When we don’t regularly work through conflict, the outcomes are often separation, leaving the room, scapegoating, and demonization. In our context of cultural polarization, we walk away from each other rather than give the Spirit time and space to work. 

Our Pathways strategic planning process has uncovered that we need to spend time cultivating the practice of talking about our differences and navigating conflict without allowing only the loudest voices to be heard while others withdraw to avoid conflict.  

If we knew that our commitments to each other would keep us together even in disagreement, we would be better able to manage conflicts and interpersonal storminess. This will require both strategic and Spirit work, utilizing our hearts, heads, and guts.  

In contrast to artificial harmony, Safwat Marzouk, in his book Intercultural Church, calls for “just diversity.” We are not always aware of the ways the early church struggled and worked at this … from Jesus’ boundary-breaking, to the martyrdom of Stephen (who was named to a role to address an issue of equity based on his qualifications and ethnic identity), to the struggles of keeping kosher, the roles of women, the realities of slavery, and the ethnic divisions of Jews and Gentiles … it was constant negotiation as the Good News crossed boundaries into new communities. 

Conversation about our cultural, theological, ethnic, language, political, and personal differences will be part of seeking “just diversity” within Mosaic. This is God’s work with us, strategic and holy, hopeful and hard.

Stephen Kriss

Stephen Kriss is the Executive Minister of Mosaic Conference.

Seeking Peace in our Broken and Beautiful World:   A Mosaic Response to Recent Violence in Israel/Palestine

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by Stephen Kriss

This painting of ​Jerusalem was created by Heba Zakout, a Palestinian artist who was killed during the bombing of Gaza last week. Used by permission of Daniel Kovalik.

The first person who invited me to sit down next to her bed at Nazareth Hospital in Philadelphia during my unit of Clinical Pastoral Education this summer did so on a Friday during a tornado warning.  The woman was Jewish, from Odessa, Ukraine.  

She told me that, before the Berlin Wall fell, her Jewish community had been afraid to outwardly practice their faith under the Soviet regime. Toward sundown that day, I brought her a battery-operated candle for Shabbat.  

Not long after, a Muslim man in his 30s invited me to pray with him as he lay waiting in the Emergency Room. He followed my English prayer with a prayer in Arabic as he held the painful spot on his abdomen.  

I bring these tender, holy moments into my response to the rising tensions in the Holy Land over the last weeks.  A primary question I worked on this summer was “How do I provide spiritual care to Jewish and Muslim patients?” 

My friend David Landis recently shared a saying on Facebook: If you visit the Holy Land for a week, you write a book; if you visit for a month, you write an article; if you live there for a year or more, you find you can’t write anything at all—you are at a loss for words.  

David grew up in Franconia Conference communities and, over a decade ago, helped to establish the Jesus Trail in Galilee. He partnered there with Maoz Inon, a man whose parents were killed last Saturday (October 7) at their home just outside of Gaza. In an interview, Maoz shared that he weeps, not just at the loss of his parents, but at the war that is unfolding in his homeland.  

We have been slow to develop any formal statements from Mosaic to respond to the increasing violence in Israel/Palestine. Quick reactions can result in perpetuating stereotypes and projecting our own biases and trauma onto others.  At the same time, I hope to move us beyond “thoughts and prayers” and “I stand with Israel” or “I stand with Palestinians.”  What is a response that allows us to extend love and is rooted in Christ’s peace? 

This latest episode in Israel/Palestine is horrific in its scope and builds upon generations of injustice and trauma.  It is not an isolated event.  It is fueled by both antisemitism and Islamophobia, by colonialism, and by varied theological perspectives that seek to justify a series of systems and behaviors that can seem incomprehensible.  

Mennonite presence in Israel/Palestine has often worked to understand and amplify the perspectives of Palestinians. Because they are often marginalized, the voices of Palestinian Christians should be valued and centered (see the recommendations from the Mennonite Jewish Relations Working Group). The initial statement from the patriarchs in Jerusalem and the Holy Land was one of the most helpful responses I have read so far. On Sunday morning, while preparing my sermon for Homestead Mennonite Church, I listened to a haunting Arabic chant posted to social media by the Orthodox Christian community in Gaza, “God is with us.”  This community, which had been sheltering dozens of persons in its sanctuary, was bombed last night.  Latest reports show at least 40 have died there.

At the same time, Mennonites also need to acknowledge that our tradition has its own difficult history with antisemitism that requires humility and repentance. We share much in common with Jewish communities, including a large exodus from Europe and the former Soviet Union in the 20th Century. When speaking about actions in Israel/Palestine, we cannot forget our shared stories and experiences, both positive and negative, as religious communities.  

The complexity of the Holy Land cannot be minimized.  

Although we often perceive the conflict as having two sides, the situation is usually multi-faceted.  Last week, in an NPR interview, a Bedouin Palestinian doctor suggested that the “sides” of the conflict are actually those who believe in violence and those who do not.  Long-term Palestinian/Mennonite partner Friends of Sabeel Institute has argued that non-violence is a necessity if Israel and Palestine are to find a path toward mutual flourishing.  

As people who seek to represent the “reconciling love of Jesus in our broken and beautiful world,” we renounce violence in all of its forms, from terrorist attacks to governmental policy that doesn’t allow the fullness of human flourishing (shalom).  We lament the lives lost and we weep with those who are weeping.  We believe that killing, whether in the name of God or in the name of the state, is always sin.  

We remain committed to the Prince of Peace and invite people of conscience to the table for conversation and even heated negotiation, rather than seeking solutions on the bloodthirsty battlefield. We commit to extending God’s grace, justice, and peace to our neighbors and friends, near and far, even to those who might be thought of as enemies.     

Although challenging at times, my experience in providing spiritual care to people of both the Jewish and Muslim faiths this summer reminded me that what many of us most need and desire in difficult times is simply gracious acknowledgement. While we watch the horrors unfold in real time in front of us through social media, it’s easy to become paralyzed by fear and frustration.  In the meantime, there are ways to make small steps toward peace and neighborliness here and now. 

For our nearby neighbors and friends who feel deeply tied to the conflict, we offer our ears, our time, our sympathies, our centered faith, our prayers, our advocacy, and our ongoing work to embody and express God’s love for all people in this broken and beautiful world. 

For the ongoing reality in the Holy Land, we pray for restraint, we pray for peace. And yet, I also hear Maoz’s invitation, in the midst of his tears, “to do all that we can to stop the war.”