Workshop #1, 12:00 p.m. & 2:00 p.m.
Embracing God’s Mission: Learning Together for Ministry Gilberto Flores, Director of Missional Church Advancement, Mennonite Church USAWalter Sawatzky, Associate Conference Minister, Franconia Conference
How can we together work at this? Learning communities are a good environment for an informal-formal communication. Informal relationships tend to have higher emotional content, generate trust and have more potential to change behavior than formal relationships. This approach can be described as relational, collaborative, and incarnational—an atmosphere for imagination and transformation.
Workshop #2, 12:00 p.m. & 2:00 p.m.
Equpping Congregations to Empower Youth to Embrace God’s Mission Jessica Walter, Associate for Communication and Leadership Cultivation, Franconia Conference Bobby Wibowo, Philadelphia Praise Center
Bob Helverson, Jr., Associate Pastor, Salem Mennonite Church
What do youth need to discover and embrace God’s mission? How can the church family support and equip their youth? This seminar will feature several leaders and youth discussing the equipping needs of the youth in our congregations.
Workshop #3, 1:00 p.m. & 2:00 p.m.
Embracing God’s Mission: Exploring Generational Shifts and a Missional Future James Nofziger, Director of Market Research, Mennonite Mutual Aid
Gay Brunt Miller, Director of Collaborative Ministries, Franconia Conference
Bob Dylan is well known for his song, “The times, they are a changing.” What changes might congregations encounter as demographics and leadership shift from generation to generation? Workshop participants will receive data from recent studies done in society and within Mennonite Church USA and imagine together a variety of outcomes for our congregations based on recent trends and uncertainties.
Workshop #4, 1:00 p.m. & 2:00 p.m.
Embracing God’s Mission: Lessons from the Book of Acts Linford Stutzman, Associate Professor-Culture and Mission, Eastern Mennonite University
What changed when the early church “got its feet wet” in the Mediterranean Sea? The church and the world. This workshop will combine a visual tour through the Roman Empire of the first century with a focus on the risk, innovation, and success of Antioch’s version of the gospel. Is it time to “go to sea” again with the gospel? The parallels, risks, and opportunities for the twenty-first century Mennonite Church in our global empire will be examined and discussed.
A Pedals for Progress Bike Collection will take place in the parking lot at Blooming Glen Mennonite Church on Sunday, November 4, from 1 – 4 p.m. Bikes are sent to economically disadvantaged countries, where bikes are used to get jobs, health care, and education. If you don’t have a bike to donate, please consider a monetary donation to help in shipping the bicycles we collect. It costs $28 per bike to ship. Check out www.p4p.org for more information.
Embracing God’s Mission is the theme of the Franconia Conference Assembly, which takes place this weekend, November 9 and 10, at Franconia Mennonite Church. All are welcome to attend the Friday evening and Saturday sessions. To view a complete schedule and descriptions of Saturday’s workshops, visit franconiaconference.org.
Are you drawn to serve in outreach in the local and global communities? Then come to the Evangelism Equipping Workshop set for Saturday, November 10, 7 p.m. at Souderton Mennonite Church. Bob Stevenson, Pastor of Monte Maria Church in Mexico City, will teach, and especially minister to those with a heart for outreach. For more information, visit www.soudertonmennonite.org or call 215-723-3088.
Graveyard Tour and History Talk – Join noted historian, John Ruth as he brings to life the history of one of the oldest churches and cemeteries in the region on Sunday, November 11 at Methacton Mennonite Church at 1:30 p.m. The church is located at 3081 Mill Road, Fairview Village, Worcester Twnp. For more information, visit www.methactonmennonite.org or call 215-859-7410.
All are welcome to Evening Song and Prayer in the Taizé tradition at Perkasie Mennonite Church on Sunday evening, November 11, from 7 – 8 p.m. Using music from the Taizé community in France, as well as hymns of the church, we gather in a candlelit atmosphere for scripture, song, silence, and prayers for our world, communities, and loved ones. For directions, visit www.perkmenno.org or call
215-257-3117.
Bally Mennonite Church will be serving a Pancake Breakfast, including pancakes, French toast, sausage, scrapple, orange juice, tea, and coffee on Saturday, November 17 from 7 – 11 a.m. Donations will be accepted for the breakfast and will provide funds for missionary work in Ethiopia by Jim Ralph and family.
On November 17, “Andes Manta” will perform folk music at the Perkasie Patchwork Coffeehouse in the Perkasie Mennonite Church hall. The four Lopez brothers of Andes Manta perform the vibrant music of the Andes on over 35 traditional instruments, including the Andean flute and six-foot long pan pipes. Doors open at 7 p.m. with performances at 7:30 p.m. Adults $9, Students 13 and up $4, 12 & under free. Tasty refreshments will be for sale. For directions or more information, visit the website at www.perkmenno.org or call 215-723-2010.
Singles Retreat at Spruce Lake, November 30 – December 2: Explore what it means to “Live a Legacy” as a single person…who do we leave things to? What impact can we have in our workplace, church, and culture? Come for challenge, inspiration, and fun! The speaker is Billy Dunn, professor at Philadelphia Biblical University and chapel leader for the Reading Phillies. Jim Cole, who wrote the hit single, “Light of the World,” will provide music. This event is geared for singles in their mid-twenties and older. Call for reservations: 800-822-7505. www.sprucelake.org.
Service and Job Opportunities
Serving and Learning Together (SALT) is an eleven-month program of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) for Canadian and U.S. Christians ages 18 to 27 interested in a cross-cultural service experience. Through participation in the daily lives and realities of communities in need, SALT participants will learn, reflect, absorb, and above all, change. For more information, check out www.mcc.org/salt.
Salford Mennonite Child Care Centers, have openings for both full and part-time teachers, available immediately. Early Childhood Education Degree or ECE credits within another degree are preferred. Contact Jennifer Lettero at 215-565-2402, jlettero@dockwoods.com or Traci Brunstetter at 215-256-6421 ext. 115, traci_brunstetter@salfordmc.org.
Franconia Mennonite Conference has added two new part-time staff, Tim Moyer of Perkasie, Pa. and Lora Steiner of Madison, N.J.Both will work with the communication team.
Tim Moyer continues on staff after serving as an intern during the summer and early fall through a grant from Eastern Mennonite Seminary. Tim, who is a student at the University of Arts in Philadelphia, is responsible for keeping the web site up-to-date, and also serves as a photographer.
Tim is a member of Blooming Glen Mennonite Church originally from Perkasie, Pa., although he’s come to appreciate the diversity and surprise of living in the city. He would like to encourage people from suburban churches connect more with churches in the city. “People view the city as a whole other world,” he says. “It’s really not.”
For Tim, the favorite part of his job is the people with whom he works. “I get excited to work with people who are so skilled and excited about life and enjoy exploring questions and not getting upset when they don’t have an answer for things, but enjoy the process.”
Lora Steiner began working with the conference in August. She is a student at Drew University Theological School, in the Masters of Divinity program. Lora will be responsible for writing news articles and editing press releases. She previously worked with Mennonite Central Committee’s Washington Office.
Lora was raised in the vicinity of Kidron, Ohio, but counts the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia as her second home. She is looking forward to learning about the work of churches that make up Franconia Mennonite Conference, and is excited about having a job that helps her stay meaningfully connected to the Mennonite church while studying in a United Methodist school.
“I’ve come to appreciate many things about the Mennonite church,” says Lora, who is a member of Community Mennonite Church of Harrisonburg, Va. “And I look forward to being involved in a way that will help to challenge me as well as allow me to continue challenging others in the church.”
“I continue to be amazed at God’s faithfulness in bringing to us young, creative and passionate leaders,” says Noel Santiago, Executive Minister of Franconia Mennonite Conference (FMC). “Tim brings a creative, artistic expression that reflects God’s creating nature. Lora brings a passionate gift to craft words that communicate with power. Franconia Conference will continue to grow as these young adults serve and lead in our midst.”
Top photo by: David Landis
Bottom Photo by: Timoyer
This summer I participated in the !Explore program with sixteen other youth from across the United States and Canada. !Explore, initiated by Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), is a program for high school juniors and seniors who are interested in how they could fit into the church. The program includes a 100 hour internship with a church and an 18 day group experience. There are two group experiences during the summer, and mine was in July. Both the internship and the July group were fun learning experiences and I am grateful for the opportunity I had to be involved.
My internship at Methacton Mennonite Church officially began on June 17. That first week I taught Bible school and planned worship for Sunday. It was an incredibly positive experience and it was a good way to begin. I have helped with Bible schools in the past, but this year I was in charge of the teaching part, which ended up being a lot of fun. I taught nine girls, grades 3 and 4. Each day was exciting and I was sad when the week was over.
The second Sunday I led worship, which was much harder than I thought. I enjoyed the planning aspect, but leading was hard because I didn’t feel as though I could worship while I was leading. That week taught me just how hard it is to be up front all the time and how much we should really appreciate our worship leaders and encourage them as they lead.
Then I was off to the Mennonite Youth Convention in San Jose for a week, and the day after I got home from that, I drove with two other !Explorers, Larissa Landis and Lauren Derstine, to AMBS in Elkhart, Indiana, for the group part of the program. Larissa, Lauren, and I spent, July 9-26, with a fun group from all over.
The first few days we spent at Mirror Valley and Amigo Centre retreats in Michigan, getting to know each other. Then we went back to AMBS and studied. We had lectures from professors about various ministry skills, like pastoral care, preaching, and worship leading.
While at AMBS, we were put into theological exploration groups, nicknamed “theolex,” where a group of five or six of us would meet with a professor almost daily and talk about our theological question, which we had to decide on during the application process. My theological question began with where the Bible came from and how we know that the right books were chosen for it. The leaders split us into groups depending on our questions. Other people in my group had questions regarding how wealth in the Mennonite church affects our ability to live simply, how we know the Bible is true, why God lets people suffer, how to talk with people about pacifism, and a study of the book of Revelation. At first, I didn’t see how all of our topics fit together, but by the end, I think we all realized that all the topics had a lot of overlap and were all important. While I began with only a few questions, the more I learned, the more questions I had, and each new question was equally important. It has been through this time of intense questioning that I have grown much closer to God. Theolex was a highlight for me.
After several days at AMBS, we went to Chicago and worked with the Mennonite Mission Network’s DOOR (Discovering Opportunities for Outreach and Reflection) program. I worked with kids at a preschool for two days, spent one day boxing up food for elderly and young children, and one day weeding and helping in a community garden. One night Brenda Matthews came and spoke to everyone who was participating that week. She talked about trust and accountability. Her message was challenging. After our week at DOOR, we went back to AMBS and continued our learning, then spent the last few days back at Mirror Valley.
After a wonderful experience with other !Explorers, it was exciting to come back and share what I learned. The last three weeks of my internship with Methacton Mennonite I preached twice, went on a 24 hour silent retreat, and attended an Alpha Conference about sharing faith in contemporary contexts.
!Explore was an amazingly positive experience. I learned a lot about the church, myself, and how I can fit into the church. In the internship I learned the incredible importance of encouraging the leaders. In the group experience I learned that it’s really okay to question, and it’s through questioning that sometimes the greatest growth can occur. I had an absolutely fabulous experience and I hope !Explore continues in the future.
Emily Graber graduated from Chrisptopher Dock High School in 2007. She is currently a student at Goshen (Ind.) College.
So we see that heeding God’s call can mean leaving home and all that is familiar. It can demand our accumulated wealth and security or dare us to place our blessings, even our lives, at risk. It can also mean simply living where we are but with an entirely new set of priorities. In every case, our particular vocation in God’s service arises from our response to the basic call to radical availability.–Gerritt Scott Dawson
The above quote illuminated the screen in the auditorium at Christopher Dock Mennonite High School on Thursday of Spiritual Life Week last month. I was attending mostly to support my friend, Lana Miller, who was leading the week. But as I read the quote and allowed its meaning to sink in, tears rose to my eyes.
It seemed to be the culmination of the stirrings that my recent experience as a chaperone with Eastern Mennonite Seminary’s LEAP program had ignited. While leading my group and experiencing Guatemala I learned to live in a way that valued relationship over task and inspired me to give God and the people of God the priority in my life. Finally, this re-prioritization I had been struggling to understand and manifest in my life made sense. I now understood that I was being inspired by God to learn to be “radically available” right where I am “but with an entirely new set of priorities.”
This issue of Intersections includes a series of stories with few common threads but all of them are inspiring stories of the people of Franconia Conference becoming “radically available” to wherever and whatever God calls them.
Emily Graber, Lauren Derstine, Brendon Derstine, and Larissa Landis all listened to the shoulder-tapping call to not only risk going away from home to ask tough questions about faith and find the answers, serve another community, and interact with new people but were also willing to serve and learn right where they were.
The congregations at Plains Mennonite Church, Oxford Circle Mennonite Church, and New Beginnings Community Church found ways to be radically available to God by making outreach in their communities a priority through creative summer programing.
West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship’s new pastor, Lorie Hershey, tells the story of continually saying “yes” to God’s call to dance with the Lord wherever he may lead. While Pastor Paulus of Plains Mennonite Church shares how his relationship with Christ has inspired a life of holy fear and faithful obedience.
Conference Related Ministries—Community Home Services,Penn View Christian School, and Camp Men-O-Lan—have all shared stories of staff, volunteers, and students who recognized Dawson’s assertion that, “In every case, our particular vocation in God’s service arises from our response to the basic call to radical availability.”
Community Home Services Executive Director Diane Tihansky highlights the radical service of CHS Nurse Aide, Lori Detweiler who has been working above and beyond her job to raise funds for low-income clients. Penn View Christian School’s 7th grade Science teacher, Harry Anselmo, found a fun way to not only provide a memorable lesson in science but also helped his students “deepen their appreciation for God’s creation while interacting with and engaging in discussions about the wonder of God’s unique design.” And Camp Men-O-Lan highlighted how Finland Mennonite Church’s youth were radically available to the camp this summer. They not only provided meaningful support to the camp and its campers but also grew in faith and confidence through their service.
Finally, this issue of Intersections provides the profile of this year’s Conference Assembly keynote speaker, Gilberto Flores, who never imagined that his work with the Mennonite church in Guatemala “would one day [lead him to] be called to work with churches in the United States.” I’d guess he never imagined that his radical availability would also help inspire my own radical availability to God when he volunteered to lead the LEAP Guatemala trip that I accompanied this past summer. Gilberto’s spirit and example while leading in our exploration of Guatemala–its churches, and its people inspired me to strive to see God and the world through his eyes.
These stories inspire us all to hear God’s invitation to radical availability, wherever we are.
During summer months, it sometimes feels like every other corner church has the same acronym posted boldly on their sign. “VBS,” otherwise known as Vacation Bible School, is an annual event many parents and kids look forward to once school lets out. Every Vacation Bible School has a different theme or approach, but most of them are valuable week-long programs that invite church and community children to spend five or so days learning about the Bible, playing, and fellowshipping with one another.
This past summer a few congregations held programs that took a different shape than the typical form of VBS. Oxford Circle Mennonite Church, a Partner in Mission in Philadelphia, PA, New Beginnings Community Church in Bristol, PA, and Plains Mennonite Church in Lansdale, PA, offered extensive summer programs in attempts to connect more deeply with their surrounding communities and neighborhoods.
OXFORD CIRCLE
The Summer Education Program at Oxford Circle has been up and running for the past four years, reaching its highest numbers this year with an enrollment of 36 children. From late June through August many children from the neighborhood walk over to the church every Tuesday through Thursday for a free afternoon of fun and learning. Each year has a particular theme, and summer ‘07 was focused on “Walking the Path of Peace.” The children explored what it means to be peacemakers through many creative mediums, discovering that peace is not just an abstract idea, but something they can live out in their everyday lives. Whether through an art project, an interactive drama, or an afternoon spent listening to local Christian rapper Cruz Cordero, the children found many exciting ways to engage with the theme of peacemaking and apply that theme to their daily experiences.
“I’ve been moved by how the kids have jumped in with many ideas of how to spread peace in the community,” says camp director Peter Koontz. Koontz, a Summer Ministry Inquiry Program participant from Goshen, Indiana, who had, had some hesitancies about heading up the program. But as he got to know the campers, he grew to deeply appreciate those relationships and found inspiration in their free-flowing and simple ideas for spreading peace in the community. As Koontz sang, read, and created with these children he listened to their suggestions to cook for the poor and sing and dance for sick people and realized he had “been blessed by seeing God’s face in a place [he] didn’t necessarily expect to.”
NEW BEGINNINGS
God’s face has been evident in the Bristol area this summer as well. There, in the Venice Ashby neighborhood, New Beginnings Community Church offered its third year of summer camp. During the months of July and August, local children met from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. every Thursday and Friday to play games, have Bible study, memorize Bible verses, make crafts, and spend time with the other children and volunteers.
Felicia Moore is a college-age member at New Beginnings and has devoted her past few summers to making this program happen. She sees it as an invaluable resource not only for children, but for the parents and broader community.
“The children [of Venice Ashby] cry out for activities and camp all year around,” Moore says, “They love the counselors and volunteers that give up their time and energy to help out. Most of them just want attention and a safe place to hang out and have fun. The community center in this area has been closed for a few years and so our members are trying to fill in that gap. The program helps parents by providing affordable camps and other resources. The children receive breakfast, lunch, and take home any arts and crafts projects they do. Having Bible lessons and reading programs reach the educational side that most events don’t offer. Above all we give parents a chance to go to work without worrying about leaving their children at home.”
There were ups and downs as Moore worked hard to pull off another summer of camp using fairly limited resources. Some days seemed to stretch on forever as she faced the kids’ exuberant energy and tried to answer their endless questions about God and life. But like Koontz, she felt blessed by her experiences and the many things she gained from her campers’ “examples of love and curiosity [as they] live out an everyday child-like faith.”
PLAINS
As Plains Mennonite Church reviewed their busy summer on a late August Sunday morning they joined in thanks proclaiming, “Let all the peoples praise you, God!” With unquenchable energy for celebration, outreach, and peacemaking Plains fully utilized their adjoining park facilities, Plains Park, this summer with outdoor movies, community events, and programming for children and youth.
For five Wednesday nights in mid-summer Plains hosted an evening program entitled “Peace in the Park” where children enjoyed music, games, crafts, and Bible studies focused on issues of day to day peacemaking. Plains also welcomed junior and senior high youth, for four mid-summer Sunday evenings, to their “Get Psyched” program. During their recent Sunday morning review one 7th grade youth, Taylor Mirarchi, commented on how fun her first summer with the program was. She enjoyed the games and Bible studies as well as being able to invite her friend Amber to join the group.
Plains was able to not only provide meaningful summer programming for youth but also provided times of fun and outreach to their surrounding community. Their community celebration “Party in the Park” drew over 600 people from the surrounding community where neighbors played games, ate food, and enjoyed fellowship with each other. They also held several family movie nights. As the warm weather persisted Plains continued to host events in their park.
When next summer rolls around, there will undoubtedly be many exciting options and opportunities for Vacation Bible School. Keep an eye out, though, for those programs that may not have the flashiest themes or the most resources, but are quietly and diligently working to reach out and offer something to their communities.
Peter Koontz (standing) helps a Summer Education Program participant with a craft project at Oxford Circle; Summer camp. Participants play a game at Plains’ Get Psyched program.
I enjoyed dancing in my youth and now with my children, but it is not something I do in the presence of many. And yet the image of dancing intersects my relationship with God and experience of call; the harmonizing of movements with an overarching melody and rhythm. The draw of music connects deeply, awakening God’s spirit within. The desire to express the motion stirred by a song; the give and take required for partner dancing. There is something about the image and act of dancing that describes our relationships, both divine and human.
I’ve heard professional ballet dancers describe dance as always being a part of them. They were always twirling, skipping, moving to music that others could not hear. Similarly, I too have felt like God has always been a part of life even when I did not recognize the Spirit’s presence.
There was music stirring inside me moving me to twirl, skip: to dance. Many times that music got distorted, muted, or misplaced as the events of life overpowered it. There were times that I tuned out the music, but it remained. I now realize the music was God’s Spirit, inviting me to dance, calling me to ministry.
I felt an affinity for the church early in life as I witnessed my mother’s volunteer leadership work within my home congregation. I began active involvement in the church and found energy for church leadership and outward confirmation of my gifts. I felt the inner nudging of God. Yet it took me until my early thirties to recognize this as a call to ministry, let alone pastoral ministry. I accepted God’s invitation without fully knowing where the dance would lead. I tentatively stepped out and went to Eastern Mennonite Seminary.
In seminary, I began to find God’s deep grace and healing through spiritual direction and the writing of music. My husband, Brent, and I began providing music for liturgical dances during worship times and I found another step in my faith journey. While not being the one upfront dancing, I found that I was dancing through the music and it became a life-changing experience for me.
I found my relationship with God becoming more free and life-giving; while my call to pastoral ministry deepened and was affirmed. I was beginning to truly dance. Sure, there are still times of hesitancy and clumsiness–I’m sure I’ve stepped on God’s toes many a time–but I experience grace, courage, and coordination that could only come from God.
As I discerned my call to West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship, I clearly heard God say: “Dance, Lorie, just dance.” And so again, I step out in faith not knowing exactly what the dance will look like; although one that will include some hip-hop for sure.
I continue to be energized by God’s calling to find our song, recognize Christ throughout our days, and be transformed by the Holy Spirit. It is exciting as we work together to create a life-giving dance, rooted in Christ, welcoming toward our neighbors, and working towards the Shalom of the city.
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Tim Moyer continues on staff after serving as an intern during the summer and early fall through a grant from 
Lora Steiner began working with the conference in August. She is a student at 
Prayer Vision Retreat
Installation Service of Firman Gingerich
This summer I participated in the !Explore program with sixteen other youth from across the United States and Canada. 
So we see that heeding God’s call can mean leaving home and all that is familiar. It can demand our accumulated wealth and security or dare us to place our blessings, even our lives, at risk. It can also mean simply living where we are but with an entirely new set of priorities. In every case, our particular vocation in God’s service arises from our response to the basic call to radical availability.–Gerritt Scott Dawson
As I discerned my call to 