Building Ministry Alliances That Benefit Each Other
You are cordially invited to a conference at Frederick Mennonite Community on Thursday, February 11 entitled, “Building Ministry Alliances That Benefit Each Other.” The conference is designed to build more effective working relationships among congregations, conferences, and conference related ministries. The facilitators for the day will be Keith Stuckey, CEO of Anabaptist Provider Group, and John Hendrickson, CEO of Frederick Mennonite Community. The event is hosted by Eastern District Mennonite and Franconia Mennonite Conferences, and Frederick Mennonite Community. More details will be available soon. Questions may be directed to Brad Mellon at 610-754-7878, ext. 229. We hope you will plan to attend.
The Mennonite Conference Center (569 Yoder Road, Harleysville) will be closed for the holidays from Thursday, December 24 through Friday, January 1. The office will reopen on Monday, January 4.
The Mennonite Education Agency appreciates your continued prayer support of Mennonite education. The January Prayers for Faith and Learning document and daily prayer request may be found by visiting www.MennoniteEducation.org/PRAYERS. Thank you for your help in strengthening the church through education.
Karen’s Place the coffee shop ministry of Doylestown Mennonite Church will be open Saturday, January 2 featuring the alternative-rock band Only Human. Donations for hurricane victims in the Gulf Area are still being collected. Collected monies will be forwarded to Mennonite Disaster Service which is helping people rebuild their homes. Karen’s Place continues to donate a percentage of their proceeds to the New Britain Baptist Food Larder which assists more than 600 families each month with food and personal needs. Bring canned fruit, vegetables or soup {no baked beans or tomato soup please} for donation to the Food Larder and receive a free cup of coffee or hot tea. A great time of Christian fellowship, music, coffee, cappuccino, cold drinks and snacks, all in a laid-back coffee shop setting. Karen’s Place is located at Doylestown Mennonite Church. For information please call the church office at 215-345-6377 or visit www.karensplace.org.
Job and Service Opportunities
Serving and Learning Together (SALT) is a year-long 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, visit salt.mcc.org.
The Choice Books Pennsylvania ministry has a job opening for a full time service representative. This position includes a wage and benefit package. For inquiries please call Ray Brubaker 717-665-3933 ext 101.
Salford Mennonite Child Care Centers, is looking for part time teachers, at either campus, beginning in January. Early Childhood Education Degree or ECE credits within another degree are preferred. Contact Christina Lynch at 215-565-2402, lynchc@salfordmc.org or Traci Brunstetter at 215-256-6421 ext. 115, brunstettert@salfordmc.org.
A prayer gathering for equipping, encouragement, prayer and worship will be held on Saturday, January 9, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. at the Mennonite Conference Center’s new location, 569 Yoder Road, Harleysville. Noel Santiago, Franconia Conference Executive Minister, will be teaching. Pastors, intercessors, prayer team members and interested persons are invited to come and receive a blessing. For more information, visit www.franconiaconference.org/prayer.
Conference Center Holiday Hours
The Mennonite Conference Center (569 Yoder Road, Harleysville) will be closed for the holidays from Thursday, December 24 through Friday, January 1. The office will reopen on Monday, January 4.
Dock Woods Community will be holding a Longest Night Service Sunday, December 20, 6:30 p.m. in the chapel. Join us as we share together in prayer, Scripture and music, acknowledging God’s presence in the midst of our struggles and mourning. The service will be led by Chaplain Lorene Derstine, hospice nurse Patti Langton and other community members. Light refreshments and fellowship will follow the service. For more information, please call 215-368-4438.
Zion Mennonite Church’s Table of Plenty will host a community Christmas Day Meal on Friday, December 25 at 12:00 noon. The meal will be held in the Fellowship Hall of the church. Anyone in the area who does not have someone with whom to share the day, or who wishes to spend the afternoon in fellowship may join the group for appetizers at 11:30 a.m. and the full-course meal at 12:00 p.m. The meal is free to all attendees, however, reservations are requested. Call the church at 215-723-3592 or Hartzell at 215-723-7476. To arrange for take-out meals or transportation to the meal please call the church office.
A prayer gathering for equipping, encouragement, prayer and worship will be held on Saturday, January 9, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. at the Mennonite Conference Center’s new location, 569 Yoder Road, Harleysville. Noel Santiago, Franconia Conference Executive Minister, will be teaching. Pastors, intercessors, prayer team members and interested persons are invited to come and receive a blessing. For more information visit www.franconiaconference.org/prayer
Job Opportunites
Nueva Vida Norristown New Life Mennonite Church has an opening for a part-time bilingual
(Spanish/English) church secretary starting in January 2010. For more information, please contact Marta Castillo at 484-868-0642 or nnl3castillo@gmail.com.
It was a historic moment when the delegate body at Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada’s annual meeting held here in November endorsed seven foundational statements to guide the work of MCC, the final of the 12 MCC entities to do so.
Arli Klassen, executive director of MCC binational (Canada and the U.S.), said the statements represent the first time these 12 entities have expressed a shared vision. “It is a sense of coming together in unity and affirmation of what God calls us to do. The statements bring new clarity that will inspire MCC’s work in the name of Christ. That is powerful, very powerful,” said Klassen.
The statements, also referred to as the “new wine,” were developed through a re-visioning and restructuring process called New Wine/New Wineskins: Reshaping MCC for the 21st Century. They articulate MCC’s identity, purpose, vision, priorities, approaches, values and convictions. The recommendations for the “new wineskins” – a new structure for MCC – are still in the development stages.
New Wine/New Wineskins was a listening and consultation process that involved more than 2,000 people from 50 countries participating in 60 meetings.
One of the core statements is MCC’s purpose – “MCC endeavors to share God’s love and compassion for all in the name of Christ by responding to basic human needs and working for peace and justice.”
“This is the statement that people should memorize,” said Klassen. “This is what we believe God has called MCC to do in its history and in the future. Now we have found shared words to express it.”
Klassen points to two key elements of the purpose statement – that the motivation for MCC’s mission is to share God’s love and compassion for all in the name of Christ, and that MCC intentionally works both to meet basic needs and for peace and justice. She notes that for the first time the words “in the name of Christ,” which have expressed MCC’s Christian witness for decades, are incorporated in its foundational statements.
MCC priorities identified through the New Wine/New Wineskins process are justice and peace-building, disaster relief and sustainable community development. The new statements, explained Klassen, both reflect MCC’s historic commitment to relief, development and peace and clearly state that peace cannot be built without addressing injustice.
MCC does its work in partnership with churches and other partner agencies and builds bridges to connect people and ideas across cultural, political and economic divides. “We don’t do our work just by giving out financial grants – we work at building relationships,” Klassen said.
MCC’s identity as a worldwide ministry of Anabaptist churches is strengthened through including in the statements the “Shared Convictions” of global Anabaptists as adopted by the Mennonite World Conference General Council in March 2006.
This is the first time MCC has had a statement of faith, Klassen said, noting that it has always drawn theology from the churches to which it is accountable. Many churches, she said, expressed strong affirmation for MCC including these shared Christian faith convictions in its foundational statements.
The MCC statements were developed by an Inquiry Task Force of 34 people that was given the task of engaging, listening to and representing the various MCC constituencies through summits and regional meetings. The group synthesized what it heard and offered recommendations. The recommendations were endorsed by a group of 95 people, representing the 12 MCCs and the church denominations they are accountable to in June 2009. The next step in the process was endorsement by the 12 MCC boards, MCC Canada’s annual meeting being the last scheduled.
Klassen said the MCC system-wide endorsement of the “new wine” foundational statements is encouragement for the next step in the process – consensus on a revised structure. The “new wineskins” recommendations are expected to be endorsed in 2011 and fully implemented in 2012.
“There were points of despair or frustration in this re-visioning process, but there also was always a sense of commitment to listen to God through the voices of the faith community. I believe the Holy Spirit has been at work, leading MCC,” Klassen said.
Christmas Open House
You are cordially invited to a Christmas Open House at the Mennonite Conference Center’s new location, 569 Yoder Road, Harleysville, Monday, December 14, 6:00 – 8:30 p.m. The Mennonite Conference Center is home to the offices of Franconia and Eastern District Mennonite Conferences. Everyone is welcome to visit the new location and meet the staff at this joyous celebration of the season.
Sunday School Teacher Seminar
A seminar for Sunday School Teachers will be held on Saturday, January 16, 8:15 – 11:15 a.m. at Plains Mennonite Church. Come enjoy a morning of workshops addressing the needs of many Sunday School teachers. Seminars will be offered on the following topics: nurturing the faith of children, managing and engaging every student in the classroom, teaching tweens and teens, and creative ways to use the Gather ‘Round curriculum. All participants will be able to choose two of the four seminars offered. Registration is FREE. For more information on the event and how to register your Sunday School leaders contact Ruth Yoder at 215-249-3011 or rhy@verizon.net.
The words of Isaiah 6:8 didn’t impress 13-year-old Jim Schrag at the time. His pastor, Arnold Epp at First Mennonite Church in Newton, Kan., presented “Here am I, send me” to young Jim in 1958 along with similar verses to other baptismal candidates. Only later, when his dad called attention to their meaning, did the young man recognize the significance of the words.
During three decades of church leadership, the Isaiah verse has inspired Schrag, who retired Nov. 30 from his position as executive director of Mennonite Church USA. He has ministered a total of 36 years within Mennonite congregations and in denominational leadership. Beginning in 1996, he served three years as general secretary for the General Conference Mennonite Church, two years as project leader for the team which guided the former General Conference and Mennonite Church toward a merger and, since 2001, at the helm of the fledgling denomination.
Someday Schrag might put stickers on a map to show all the airports he’s been at, especially the last 13 years, while attending denominational and area conference meetings.
His most recent call from God, however, finds him not on the way to a meeting, but writing a book-length manuscript about the years leading up to and including the merger. Faith and culture stand together as his way to describe the coming together.
“God is in the future more than the past, but God is certainly in the past,” he said last month at his office in Newton, Kan. Favorite quotations and Bible verses, including the Isaiah words, hang on the walls. Boxes crammed with paper files cover a table. Three-ring binders fill the shelves. A laptop computer sits on his wooden desk.
He has picked Bethlehem (Pa.) 1983 to begin the retelling. At the time he’d pastored Tabor Mennonite Church near Goessel, Kan., for 10 years and was co-chairing the planning committee for the meetings. These were the first joint delegate sessions of the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church. A statement on inter-Mennonite cooperation was one item discussed in joint sessions—the first step toward a merger between the two denominations.
In 1995 delegates to sessions held in Wichita, Kan., granted approval to integration. By then Schrag had pastored the Oak Grove Mennonite Church congregation near Smithville, Ohio, for 10 years. The next year the General Conference called him to the position of general secretary, and his tenure in churchwide leadership began. Because he was relatively new to the work that had been done on the institutional level, with a smile he describes that time as feeling like he was “thrown into the water and asked to swim.”
The theme Schrag is pursuing in his book is change. Amid the changes the new denomination has experienced lie cultural differences.
“The culture brought us together, and the culture kept us apart,” he says, describing the peoples of both groups. “I used to think that the forces for integration and merger lay basically on an Elkhart and Newton axis. But then I realized that’s just a smattering of the historical pieces that have been trying to bring parts of the church together for decades.”
He’s learning that change within the church is best measured in decades or even centuries. And organizational questions “spiral along,” resurfacing regularly to be talked about again and again.
“Spiritual issues, too,” he says, “draw people together and keep them apart. The experience of being the church is not entirely a spiritual or cultural human experience. It’s both. We get confused when we emphasize one over the other.”
Where is the church headed? Referring to Phyllis Tickle’s book, “The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why,” Schrag believes the church is in another reformation. “About every 500 years since the time of Christ, something has been an important hinge point in the church,” he says.
Just like Protestantism was connected to the fall of feudalism and movement to the cities, the current reformation connects with modernization, science and other changes in society.
“Part of what Mennonite Church USA is, in my understanding, is a logical result of the 150 years preceding. The distinctions between us are blurring—not just between Mennonite groups but also between churches. The question for us today is: What direction is the church pointing from here? Can we be Anabaptist with a different suit of clothes?” Schrag asks.
He hopes Mennonites will seriously consider the call to be missional.
“We used to say, ‘We know who God is. We just need to know what God wants us to do.’ Now the missional understanding calls us to switch those around to say: ‘We want to know what God is doing so we can get an idea who God wants us to become.’ When you switch the two, you emphasize the becoming part and trust the doing part of it to God. That describes the church’s transformation,” Schrag says.
The missional calling of the church is “the best thing we have going for us,” he says. “It takes us from our history of separation for the sake of purity and preservation on a slow odyssey toward engagement with the world where God is active.”
“God has provided some new people, especially from other cultures, who have said to us, ‘We share your understanding of scripture; that’s us too,’ Schrag says.
To the person in the pew, Schrag counsels to “be attentive as we always have, to what God is doing now. Right now, it’s not what God wants us to do, but rather who God wants us to become.”
As Schrag continues writing the history of Mennonite Church USA and following his call, he offers his favorite Pauline benediction:
“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.” Ephesians 3:20-21 NRSV
Schrag’s writing project began in August. Since then Ron Byler of Elkhart, Ind., has served as acting executive director for Mennonite Church USA. Beginning in January, Ervin R. Stutzman of Harrisonburg, Va., will lead the church as the denomination’s next executive director.
The Perkasie Mennonite congregation invites all to a community Christmas Carol Sing, Sunday, December 20, 6:30 - 8:00 p.m. Refreshments will follow. A free-will offering for medical supplies in Mexico will be collected. For more information call 215-257-3117.
You are cordially invited to a Christmas Open House at the Mennonite Conference Center’s new location, 569 Yoder Road, Harleysville, Monday, December 14, 6:00 – 8:30 p.m. The Mennonite Conference Center is home to the offices of Franconia and Eastern District Mennonite Conferences. Everyone is welcome to visit the new location and meet the staff at this joyous celebration of the season.
Kairos: School of Spiritual Formation’s January retreat will be held January 8 – 10 at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville, PA. Retreat options are: 1) Letting Go: Cultivating a Pure Heart, 2) Contemporary Healing Prayer Retreat, 3) Visualizing Your Spiritual Journey and 4) A Silent Retreat. All are welcome to attend. Register by December 24. Registrations accepted after that date on a space-available basis. For more information or to register call 717-669-2957 or visit www.on-the-journey.org.
All are invited to Christopher Dock Mennonite High School’s upcoming Student Visitation Days Monday, December 14 and Friday, January 29. On visitation days, prospective students will be hosted by a Christopher Dock student. During the visit, you will accompany your host through a typical day, including classes, a morning chapel service and a noon-time meal. Please call Lois Boaman in the Admissions Office at 215-362-2675, ext. 106, to make an appointment.
Longest Night Service - All who experience pain and loneliness during the holiday season are welcome to a service of hope on Monday, December 21, 4 – 5 p.m. at Souderton Mennonite Church. Join us in the sharing of scripture, prayer, and music to acknowledge that God’s presence is for those who mourn and struggle. For more information visit www.soudertonmennonite.org or call 215-723-3088.
Everyone is invited to a Christmas Choral Concert on Sunday, December 13 at 6:30 p.m. at Souderton Mennonite Church. Come enjoy a Children’s Christmas pageant presented by our Adult Choir and children. Following the program, enjoy some light refreshments. For more information visit www.soudertonmennonite.org or call 215-723-3088.
Christopher Dock Mennonite High School will host its annual Christmas Arts Festival on Thursday, December 17 at 7:30 p.m. in the Clemens Center Auditorium. The Festival will feature Dock’s Jazz Band, Concert Band, String Orchestra, Chorale, and Concert Choir, and a range of works from “Deck the Halls” to Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols.” The program will be conducted by Rod Derstine and Kara Glick. A highlight of the Festival will be Handel’s Hallelujah chorus at the conclusion of the concert. Audience members will be invited to join the choir for this piece. The Arts Festival will also feature a display of student artwork.
The Winter Peace Retreat, sponsored by Eastern District and Franconia Conferences, will be held February 12 – 14 at Spruce Lake Retreat Center. The adult program, on “Compassionate Peacemaking; Extending Hope and Healing to Those with Soul Wounds”, will be led by Carolyn Heggen, a psycho-therapist specializing in trauma recovery. Learn how to be agents of compassion, hope and healing for those suffering from the trauma of nature-caused or human-inflicted violence and trauma of participation in war. There will be a dynamic program for children ages 6 – 12. For further information contact Becky Felton at 215-536-7935, bbfelton@verizon.net, or see the complete announcement at efpjc.ppjr.org/efp102.htm. Registration deadline is January 22.
Penn View Christian School is offering after school Discovery Camp opportunities for students in PreK through grade 8. The school is currently taking registrations for the next six week session which will run January 12 – February 18. If you would like additional information please visit www.pennview.org and click on the Discovery Camp link. Penn View Christian School is committed to Nurturing the God-given potential of each student in a Christ-centered community.
Job Opportunities
Quakertown Christian School is accepting applications for a Business Manager. An applicant needs a strong accounting background, relational and organizational skills, and to be ministry minded. Please forward resume to info@quakertownchristian.org.
Quakertown Christian School is accepting applications for an experienced Special Education Teacher for our unique program. Individual will have oversight of the program including direct learning support responsibilities. Please forward resume to info@quakertownchristian.org.
Are you looking for a few extra hours of work per week to supplement your income, or do you know someone who is? Salford Mennonite Church is seeking two individuals or a couple to fill two part time positions as Custodial Assistants. These positions involve four hours of work on Saturday morning helping with vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning offices and bathrooms throughout the church. Additional hours may be available in the spring/summer/fall with lawn maintenance as needed. Please contact Church Administrator Bradley W. Alderfer at 215-256-0778 or alderferb@salfordmc.org to indicate interest in these positions.
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The words of Isaiah 6:8 didn’t impress 13-year-old Jim Schrag at the time. His pastor, Arnold Epp at First Mennonite Church in Newton, Kan., presented “Here am I, send me” to young Jim in 1958 along with similar verses to other baptismal candidates. Only later, when his dad called attention to their meaning, did the young man recognize the significance of the words.
