Kingdom Builders Anabaptist Network of Greater Philadelphia, in partnership with Mennonite Central Committee’s (MCC) Philadelphia office, has launched Kingdom Builders Construction a new renovation and construction project for the various Anabaptist churches and ministries in Philadelphia.

Dan Umstead, a Spring City, Pa., resident and recent Eastern University graduate, will serve the Kingdom Builders and MCC Philadelphia office for the next two years as project coordinator of Kingdom Builders Construction. Dan is an experienced volunteer construction team leader and jobsite foreman. He has worked in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina and in the Dominican Republic.

J. Fred Kauffman, MCC Philadelphia Program Coordinator, explained that this building project started very quickly beginning with a discussion of the needs of many churches and ministries in Philadelphia and an inquiry on available positions with MCC from Dan. “In a period of about a month we went from nothing to enough work to say let’s go,” said Fred.

Along with immediately taking on the role of building caretaker at Franconia Conference Related Ministry Philadelphia Mennonite High School (PMHS), Dan will also work on renovating Philadelphia Praise Center’s basement to add a kitchen, renovating Oxford Circle Mennonite Church’s new building, renovating Vietnamese Mennonite Church’s fourth floor, helping a newly developing Ethiopian church purchase and renovate a building for their congregation and working with several city-based Anabaptist community ministries to assist in renovating the homes of community members in need.

“Kingdom Builders Construction (KBC) is now in full swing aiding the Philly churches in their rehab projects,” says Dan, who is now a few months into the project. “KBC is actively working with Oxford Circle Mennonite Church doing a large scale remodel and has a full schedule for the next few months, between jobs with Philadelphia Praise Center, Cross Roads Community Center, and the Vietnamese Mennonite church - we will be very busy.”

In addition Dan will solicit and coordinate volunteer groups to assist him in the renovation and construction projects.

“All the work done by KBC is facilitated through volunteers and they are the heartbeat of this project,” notes Dan. He is making a wide appeal to all local church groups, including youth groups on up to older groups, to come and spend a week or so with him in Philadelphia building and renovating in these projects.

“Through pulling volunteers from within the city as well as the outlying areas KBC has been already been a catalyst for forming relationships.”

In the future Dan will also be holding construction and home improvement workshops open to all interested and a Friday Elective Service Learning class for PMHS.

The congregations employing Dan have already committed funds toward the project and Fred was very excited to note that Kingdom Builders and MCC Philadelphia has already received more than half of the money needed to fund this initiative. The project’s biggest needs now are tools, funding for operating expenses and volunteers.

For more information on Kingdom Builders Construction and on volunteering contact Dan Umstead at 610-574-2959.

We still eat Mrs. Benner’s funny cake* from Landis Supermarkets at the Mennonite Conference Center, though some days Claude Good or other staff banter in Spanish and someone could be caught decked out in Indonesian batik. In these pages, you’ll see not only the stories of who we are becoming, but who we are—an increasingly polyglot people ministering and witnessing through the strengths of a historic community. Diversity is more and more not a message we preach, but a reality that we live. We find ourselves both invigorated and challenged with the pushes and pulls that diverse communities encounter. For those of us who are legacy Mennonites with deep biological roots sometimes this is disorienting. For those of us who find our lives newly woven into the Anabaptist fabric, the navigation can be confusing as well.

These are exciting days to be a part of Franconia Conference, I think. Though it’s not an easy time, it is a time of re-imagining and re-discovery. In the pages of this issue of Intersections, we see how some of those possibilities are incarnated with gifted leaders who are responding to God’s call toward credentialed pastoral ministry. We see how Conference Related Ministries extend the mission of the church through ongoing work and new partnership. We can read about how the Ambler congregation responds to the pain and possibility in their community and about new opportunities to engage with our British partners through the Anabaptist Network.

It’s a different time in Franconia Conference. We haven’t any bishops and our newly credentialed ministers are as likely to be Asian as they are to be a Derstine. We’re invited to negotiate together differently, understanding differing priorities of time and money, ways of leading and following, of saving and giving away. And these differences don’t just exist on the conference-wide level, it’s the reality in the life of our congregations as well. Our leaders have a unique challenge to listen well and lead with clarity in the midst of changing dynamics.

As I read these stories and as I have traveled among diverse Franconia Conference congregations over the last few months, I wonder what it is that we need to learn. I’ve just started an Italian language class. It’s a few hours a week that pushes me to say things in new ways, to watch for patterns, to listen carefully. I know that these days, my Italian is about as fluent as a toddler’s. I need to keep focused on my work as I struggle to learn, following up on assignments and listening to Italian when I can during the week. This educational venture requires both my careful attention and a bit of vulnerability.

One of the things this issue of Intersections suggests is the hopeful possibilities that are out there when we keep learning, responding to our communities, to God and to the faithfulness of the past, the potential of the present and the mystery of the future. Slovene thinker Slavoj Zizek says that when everything seems to be askew we need to learn, learn, learn. In the midst of a time when diverse experience, background and perspective is our everyday encounter, we find ourselves pulled closer and closer to the realization that to glimpse the reign of God requires childlike openness as Jesus suggested in the Gospels.

Openness to learn—whether it’s learning to like new foods, speak new languages or respond to unfamiliar situations—requires both humility and boldness. It’s an opem admission that we don’t exactly know what we are doing and the boldness to be able to learn even in the midst of possible failure. In my Italian class, the more I speak the familiar words of Spanish, the less Italian I actually learn. It’s easier to fall back on the more familiar than to press into the struggle of learning something new. Learning requires us to confront what we don’t know and to move away from assumptions of our own omniscience, which we say belongs to God alone anyway.

Intersections continues to highlight how and what we’re learning and who we’re becoming. We tell these stories to offer hope for the journey, to equip us for the path we’re on and to strengthen our faith for the road ahead. May we continue to learn as we live the stories of fruitfulness from humble beginnings and illuminate the lessons that emerge in the midst of striving toward boldly embracing God’s mission in these days when some of us are learning to like funny cake and others are finding ways to sing God’s praise in languages we have never imagined.

*A vanilla cake and chocolate syrup breakfast pie distinct to the suburbs just north of Philadelphia.

The Atlantic Ocean is getting smaller. No, I’m not referring to the impact of global warming but to Franconia Conference’s partnership with the Anabaptist Network in the United Kingdom. As this partnership grows deeper and wider, the Atlantic Ocean feels like it is shrinking.

Ten Franconia Conference congregations are participating in the partnership which includes connecting with and supporting Franconia Conference’s intern, Krista Ehst (Perkasie), who is serving in East London until April of this year. But the goal of this partnership is more than supporting one intern—it is intended to develop relationships with Anabaptists in the U.K. that are meaningful, life giving and provide opportunities for mutual learning.

Krista’s internship embeds her in a place that may represent the cultural future of the United States. Moving from a time when the church and state were inseparable (known as Christendom), it is increasingly common in the U.K. to find people who think that “Jesus Christ” is merely a curse word or who are surprised to find that churches are open on Sunday because churches are more commonly locations for other weekday activities. How do you “do ministry” in a context where you cannot take any biblical knowledge for granted? In many ways the Anabaptist Network in the U.K. is like a test laboratory, doing “missional experiments” from which we can benefit.

Congregations included in this partnership cover a wide geographic swath of Franconia Conference, including Bally, Nueva Vida Norristown New Life, Perkasie, Plains, Ripple Effects, Spring Mount and Swamp in the conference “heartland” along with Bethany and Taftsville in Vermont and Lakeview in northern Pennsylvania.

In addition to following Krista’s blog, folks from several of these congregations have experienced the opportunity to “hop across the Atlantic” through recent computer technology and converse in real time with Krista and other leaders of the Anabaptist Network to hear directly about their ministry in the Post-Christendom environment of the U.K.

In March Dr. Stuart Murray Williams, chair of the Anabaptist Network and one of the foremost thinkers, practitioners and authors on the subjects of Post-Christendom and church planting, will visit Franconia Conference. He will be sharing his expertise at several forums for congregations who are directly involved in the partnership and in two public meetings open to all interested.

Opportunities to Connect

• March 19
  All are invited to attend the March Pastors’ and Leaders’ Breakfast which will be led by Dr. Stuart Murray Wiliams.The breakfast, held at the Conference Center, begins at 8 am and ends at 10. If you’d like to register for this event please call Jessica Walter at 215-723-5513, xt. 114. Watch your bulletin announcements for more details.
• March 29
  Dr. Murray Williams will preach at Spring Mount Mennonite Church. All are welcome to attend the 9:45 am service and to stay for an interactive adult Sunday School class.

Like many travelers today, I have gotten into the habit of depending on what is popularly known as a Global Positioning System (GPS). This simple technology is helpful and still amazes me, when I put it to use. I can choose the shortest distance, fastest route, open road or city route; I can avoid construction or traffic jams, locate gas stations, restaurants, points of interest and countless other destinations anywhere in the country. It can show me where I’ve been, where I am and where I’m going and, more often than not, it takes me to my desired destination.

While my GPS is not without some periodic problems and is indeed far from perfect, in most cases it guides me well to my various destinations.

However, sometimes it will guide me into unfamiliar areas or even take me the long way around (so to speak). As I give thought to the suggested route and after working through my own calculated risk process (what happens if…?), I will more often than not submit to its direction.

Like my GPS, Conrad Kanagy’s 2006 study, Road Signs for the Journey, is loaded with facts and figures/data based on past, present and projected future realities. It is full of information that will help to guide me on my ministry journey. However, it is important that I choose to not only learn from but to also submit to what it offers.

In the past two years since the Kanagy report there has been much thought and conversation related to his findings. I have attended several church-wide meetings where the findings have been reviewed and studied again.

There’s been public affirmation that there is much to learn and do, as well as to be thankful for, and we express how impressed we are and want to gather with our brothers and sisters to hear more about what is going on in the places where ministries are growing and thriving.

However, more often than not, these gatherings feel somewhat like having a GPS programmed to take us to a destination, but instead of following its directions, we stay in our parked car enchanted by the travel possibilities, colors and symbols on the screen. We sit and look at the very resource that (though not perfect) can get us closer to both the desired and needed destination. All we need to do is make a choice to submit and commit ourselves to follow the part of the journey that has been made clear and is most helpful.

While I believe there is sincere excitement and interest related to all that is taking place among the churches on the margins and/or urban or racial/ethnic ministries, in most of our churches and leadership systems, I have yet to see little more than “window shopping.” In others words, we look with great interest, but for some reason are not willing to buy and make it our own. We won’t cloth ourselves with that which, to a significant degree, will help move us into more relevant and effective ministry now and in the future.

The findings in Road Signs for the Journey must do more than make for interesting conversation. It is my belief that we should allow this picture of our church, in cooperation with the spirit of God, to transform not only our thinking but our systems, culture and approach to ministry. While no congregation, culture or ministry is perfect, Road Signs calls for more than just sitting in a parked car, fascinated by all the options and possibilities.

Having said all this, I am encouraged. As the church of the Living God, we are not guided by road signs or GPS’s but by God’s Promise of the Spirit which will guide us into all Truth.

In Linford Stutzman’s opening article he states, “While considerable effort by denominational leaders may be directed towards managing the resources from the institutional center of the denomination, it is the edges that are the most exciting, that have the most potential for either authentic renewal or colossal failure, just like all faith movements in Scripture and history demonstrate.”

These “edges”, or margins, have been identified as urban and racial/ethnic congregations as well as non-cradle Mennonites (or new Anabaptists) and young adults. In seeking to give a voice to some of these marginal perspectives I interviewed two new Anabaptist women from West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship (WPMF). I asked them what drew them to WPMF and the Mennonite church, where they saw hope in WPMF and what lessons they thought the broader Mennonite church could learn from WPMF.

Julie Prey Harbaugh, who was raised in the United Church of Christ, connected with Frazer Mennonite Church while attending Eastern University. “During college, my awareness was being raised about peace and justice issues of many kinds, but particularly in urban environments and with regard to feminist issues. I found myself at home with the Anabaptist theology embraced at Frazer, as well as the sense of community the congregation fostered. I have stayed Mennonite because I continue to appreciate how Mennonites act on our faith, particularly when it comes to caring for those in need in our communities, but also as we promote justice beyond our immediate sphere.”

Lynn Wetherbee grew up attending a megachurch she describes as rooting its identity in “Broadway-style drama performances and Billy Graham-style evangelistic emphasis.” Recently, after spending more than ten years as a lay leader of a small urban Presbyterian (PCUSA) congregation, she began to “feel awkward” as her theology began to develop and change while she was in seminary. “About eight months ago, my husband, our four children and I began attending WPMF. I was drawn to WPMF because I knew it to be a congregation that cares actively about peace and social justice. I wanted to participate in a faith community in my neighborhood, so that my life can naturally overlap with the lives of others from my faith community on a routine basis. I continue to be inspired by the ways I see members of WPMF living out their vision and values, and the way they seek to incorporate their Mennonite identities into their work, relationships and lives. I also continue to experience WPMF as a safe, caring community for my own ever-developing spirituality, and that of my family. ”

Julie is also inspired by the vision and values of WPMF, “I am excited about the direction of our church. I sense a deepening of the grace we are able to show to one another and accept from one another. I am always struck by the beauty of how we care for each other in times of need, and I am encouraged by how we affirm one another in the various ways we work for the ‘shalom of our city.’”

Julie sees WPMF’s deep grace and beautiful care for those in need as lessons the larger Mennonite church could learn from WPMF. She also marks the congregation’s openness to those with questions (sometimes controversial) and willingness to give leadership to people, even if they are new, as lessons the broader church could learn. The ability of WPMF to give opportunities for leadership to its congregation was a great attraction for Lynn and her family, “There are many faces and voices each Sunday morning that lead the congregation through our time together, and these faces and voices are often different from week to week.”

Lynn sees this shared leadership of Sunday morning as well as WPMF’s practice of inclusiveness and belonging, in language, worship and community involvement, as lessons WPMF has to share with the broader Mennonite church.

Julie and Lynn both noted faulty power dynamics as issues they struggle with in the broader Mennonite church. Julie noted that churches, in general, would do well to be a place where “challenging issues people ordinarily hide” could be shared and addressed and where leadership was held accountable to “our ideals of servant leadership and ‘power-with’ instead of ‘power-over.’”

“More than any other religious community in which I’ve been active, family heritage appears to be a factor in the Mennonite world,” notes Lynn. “So I fear that to some degree I might always be an outsider here, although I haven’t experienced exclusion at WPMF. But as a seminary graduate who is beginning to think about professional church leadership in this denomination, I wonder how much my lack of Mennonite cultural or family roots will impact my full inclusion into the larger denomination.”

As a young woman who grew up in the Mennonite church I share both the inspiration and frustration of these “new Anabaptists.” It is my prayer that as we begin to hear these voices from “the edges” that we not only listen but that we also act on their words of wise observation.

This is the last issue of Franconia Conference’s Growing Leaders. It’s a tough time for print publications, from the weeklies in my neighborhood of Northwest Philadelphia to the national papers like the Los Angeles Times. Today’s economic turbulence is accelerating the move from paper to web-based communication. With changes in our cooperative arrangement with Virginia and Lancaster conferences, we’ve decided to accelerate our changes as well.

Growing Leaders grew out of a desire for increased collaboration among the conferences of the Northeast corridor of Mennonite Church USA. After nearly a decade of publication, those relationships have changed and grown. We began by working together around expectations for credentialing and leadership development, now we’re moving toward more coordination of efforts around church-planting and mission. With this move, along with financial belt-tightening across MC USA, it’s time to change our approach toward how we equip and share ideas.

This change comes at the same time as the implementation of the LEAD (Leading, Equipping and Discipling) model of conference ministry being introduced into Franconia Conference congregations. Growing Leaders provided a meaningful communication and formational venue for leaders. It’s a venue we’ll miss, but will seek to supplement in new ways as the LEAD model for ministry emerges.

We’ll continue to move toward clear and more consistent communication efforts by increasing web-based supplements of blogs and information—nearly all conference communication will move into a virtual sphere, except for Intersections, which is becoming our bimonthly conference flagship publication. Conference staff may well be tapping more of you to help write and contribute as our conversation moves into more responsive and fluid virtual space. While the signs of the journey suggest that we’re picking up speed in a more interconnected world, we’re looking for ways to provide more timely and contextual resources.

Though it’s hard for me to imagine (or desire, really) a world without paper-based publications, we’ll likely need to continue to find new ways to share information and offer formation resources that extend our shared goals of healthy and growing leaders, disciples, congregations and connections that are both near and far. This could mean increased use of technology, but will likely need to be balanced with intentional relationship-building and sharing in face-to-face settings as well. Both the virtual and “real” will be increasingly important in this age to come.

May God who can move us into the future—with more creativity and imagination than we can muster—be illuminated in our work and our connections, now and forevermore.

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11

What was the best Christmas present you ever received?

“Oh wow!” I cried, when I saw the foot long tractor trailer toy truck, complete with realistic turning radius. It had a red cab and green trailer with doors that opened and a little ramp for cattle to climb up on.

I was at my cousins’ house in New Holland, Pa. They had just arrived from Puerto Rico almost a year earlier – all nine of them – and had lived in the attic of our house for three months before finding their own home. I was nine years old and loved playing with my cousin Jose.

I was not expecting to get a gift for Christmas this year because my family wanted to give my cousins the experience of Christmas, complete with the meal, the gifts and the singing. So imagine my surprise when as the names on the gifts where being read and given to each person, that my name was called out.

“Is this right?” I thought. But sure enough there was a long rectangular box, wrapped in beautiful Christmas paper with a bow on top and my name on it. What an unexpected surprise!

I wonder if this might have been something like what those shepherds in the fields might have felt (in addition to overwhelming fear). It was an ordinary night–watching sheep, talking around a campfire and trying to keep warm in the cool night. Suddenly, a voice calls out–and it’s addressing them. What a surprise! Unexpected! Is this real?

The news comes to them that a gift has been given – a savior in the form of a baby; in a manger, wrapped, not with beautiful, ornate Christmas paper, but lowly, humble, swaddling clothes. It’s hardly what they would have expected. Yet as if to confirm that they were not dreaming a multitude of angels appeared, all bearing a word of great joy, the tidings of this grand, good news! Unbelievable!

What about you today? How have you been unexpectedly surprised by a gift given? A gift not earned; not worked for by you; not expected. Just given.

There’s a second part to this wonderful gift given to humanity – and that is the need to receive that gift. Many of us have received the gift of Christ given long ago and continue to do so everyday. Yet, many people haven’t yet received this wonderful, glorious gift. Who around us this year needs a gift? What gift does the One given want to give? How can you and I be the messengers of this wonderful gift of good news for all people?

I’m grateful to my Mennonite/Anabaptist sisters and brothers. I received a gift long ago, unexpectedly, because of these sisters and brothers in the faith. They pulled together a collection of gifts to ensure that everyone in the house that day could hold wide their hands and receive a gift.

May all of us in this Christmas season hold wide the hands of our hearts in receiving, first the gift of the life of God’s son and to be a messenger of the good news that “Unto you a gift is given.”

There is only one Mennonite church here in the United Kingdom, which I have yet to attend. Not surprisingly, then, I’ve recently been trying to explain my Mennonite faith identity to some very curious and sometimes very confused Brits. Somewhere near the beginning of those conversations, I often mention the strong emphasis that Mennonites place on community. It’s this sense of community that I miss here in London. I miss gathered congregations singing deeply rooted convictions of discipleship and peacemaking in effortless four-part harmony, familiar pie and bread recipes handed from one generational table to the next, rich farmland evoking memories of a strong agrarian history, and long lines of families and neighbors who quietly seek to serve God and one another. I do try to offer the general disclaimer that Mennonite communities are rapidly changing and diversifying, and that these rather cliche descriptions would fail to describe many contemporary Mennonite churches. But as a young Mennonite woman growing up in southeastern Pennsylvania, they are traditions and associations that are undeniably embedded in my experience of Mennonite community.

Community is a word that is also frequently used in the neighborhood where I’m now living in East London, but it takes a much different shape than I’m accustomed to experience. I’m currently part of a tiny church called E1 Community Church, a church that was planted here 10 years ago by a group of people who had the neighborhood community at the heart of their mission. Knowing that this area tends to be comparatively poor, under-churched, diverse and transient, they slowly sought to find ways of forming a church community that would be relevant and would meet the needs of this context. Several people in the church also take part in a local group called the Geoff Ashcroft Community, where I’ve been spending a few days a week. True to its name, this group is also centered around community, seeking to provide a sense of community and support for those in the area who are isolated and who struggle with mental health issues.

Given this common emphasis on community, then, it seems almost ironic that many of the people I now interact with on a daily basis have no way of comprehending the form of community that I grew up with and often take for granted. Although I perhaps would not have always said this, I am realizing that much of my sense of community is linked with sharing things in common with a tightly knit group of people: a shared history, shared traditions, shared political views, shared core values, a shared understanding of faith and belief in God. Yes, Mennonites of course struggle with disagreements and divisions over theological and political differences, but it seems that there are many places of commonality and shared faith at our core.

There is something beautiful about our strong communal identities, and I think it is one of the gifts that Mennonites can bring to a far too individualized and fragmented world. But it does beg the question of how and whether we can create communities without the presence of shared worldviews and core values. At E1 Community Church and at the Geoff Ashcroft Community, small groups of people come together from radically different worldviews and backgrounds. There is a man who spent most of his adult life in the military, and whose identity is still largely defined by those military experiences; a man who spent 17 years in prison and who is estranged from his family; a woman who has such intense social anxiety that she only ventures outside her home for a few hours each week; another woman who struggles with drug and alcohol addiction while trying raise three kids and to get herself a decent education. Relationships are downright tough in this context, not only because I am interacting with people who have quite traumatic pasts, but also because our lives have simply been so different. I cannot assume anything, let alone assume that people will share my pacifist stance or the approach I take to studying scripture.

There are, however, also incredible blessings that come from this struggle to form community in the midst of diversity. A few days ago, a group of us gathered at Geoff Ashcroft for a Christmas celebration lunch. As we sat together, laughing and sharing food and genuinely enjoying each others’ company, I was moved by what felt like a true sense of gathered community; by what I imagined as being a bit like the meals that Jesus shared throughout his ministry. In such moments, I am consistently amazed by how vulnerable people are with one another, and with the honest transparency with which they enter those spaces. Out of that transparency and vulnerability comes the opportunity to serve and support one another, and to become stronger as a community of faith.

There are blessings in both the shared community and the more radically diverse community, just as there are ways that both need to be challenged. I am just beginning to realize the extent of the difficulties that face the church community here in London, in its quest to form an authentic, common Christian identity while still embracing those with such varied personal identities and experiences. And back home in Pennsylvania, I have a feeling that many churches are struggling to reach beyond narrowly defined identities, to find ways of sharing the blessings of their communities with wider circles of people. I keep wondering how we might find ways to learn from one another. And how we might discover ways to authentically express our Christ-centered, communal identities, while remaining ever attuned to how the Spirit might be stirring new paths in our midst.

Krista Ehst is spending several months learning, serving and visiting among communities connected with the Anabaptist Network in the United Kingdom. She’s a recent graduate of Goshen College and a 2004 graduate of Christopher Dock Mennonite High School. She’s supported by a network of Franconia Conference congregations and individuals while on site across the pond.

About a decade ago, the scales of Anabaptism tipped to what we’ve taken to calling the Global South. This means that there are more Mennonites outside of Canada, Europe and the United States than within the boundaries of European tradition. While we’ve noted this as the relative success of 20th century missionary efforts, we’ve not anticipated a secondary outcome in the midst of global migration—the rapid reshaping of Anabaptism in the European, US and Canadian contexts by persons from the Global South.

Across the Mennonite Church USA, conferences are feeling the pull of this change as migration brings Christians from different cultural backgrounds into our formerly Eurocentric context. In California, what it means to be Mennonite is defined by Indonesian, Latino and African voices more often than EuroAmerican tradition. In Florida, the balance wavers between Florida’s Southwest Gulf Coast (Sarasota) which is predominantly EuroAmerican and Flordia’s Southeast Atlantic Coast (Miami) which is mostly Haitian and Latino. The balance in Mennonite Church USA’s midsection (Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas) continues to shift from the Russian and German immigrant communities of Kansas to rapidly growing Mexican American communities in Texas. Fuller Seminary professor and Mennonite leader Juan Martinez suggests that this pattern might be part of God’s intention to invigorate communities through a renewed encounter with the Good News.

For Franconia Conference, our 300 year history has deep roots in Euro-instigated tradition. It’s only been in the last 100 hears of our history that we’ve moved toward figuring a way toward multi-ethnicity. However, within the last generation that reality has accelerated. At times for those of us from EuroAmerican tradition, this change is disorienting, inviting us to move into unfamiliar spaces of having to explain our position as one among an array of expression.

The challenge in the midst of this shift–which includes Spanish-speakers at Franconia congregation, a significant population of persons from South Asia at Plains, growth in urban congregations like Norristown and a growing network of communities rooted in the recent immigrant experience–is that the shift in the global Christian community is increasingly in our conference meetings, in our Sunday morning worship. While it may be invigorating in theory–in practice it requires a change of mind and heart. The stranger no longer is only someone to be encountered far away but the stranger (those with different surnames, different food preferences, different ways of experiencing God and encounhtering the world) is increasingly a part of us.

This requires much from the EuroAmerican community—a willingness to listen, to learn, to embrace, to empower, to share and to reimagine ourselves as not only part of a globally diverse family, but part of a locally incarnated family of faith with differing traditions and ethnicities that honor God and the Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition. It requires all of us to reimagine our ways of leading and being to be one way of doing things—not the only way. This emerging reality invites us to admit that Christ alone is the Way—and that we’ve been called together to represent the possibilities of inbreaking Shalom in which God’s love is made real in the world, through flesh and blood, in the midst of hope and fear.

“Would you mind straightening your grandmother’s painting before you sit down?” my grandfather asked. “Not at all,” I replied, “so long as you give me a guided tour.” Every morning my grandfather begins his day by staring at my grandmother’s painting of her childhood home in Perkasie, vividly remembering stories, furniture and food that was part of the “Yoder House.”

After he had finished describing what he remembered about my grandmother’s home, I asked if we could “walk” through my grandparents’ former residence in Allentown.

I often think of this house in Allentown—grilling with my grandfather in the backyard, eating Christmas and Easter dinners around the picnic table in the basement, and walking to J. Birney Crum Stadium to watch high school football games. Many of my favorite childhood memories took place in and around that house.

As my grandfather and I “walked” through the living room, the kitchen, the bedrooms, his office, and the basement, I became aware, not only of special memories that were made in those rooms, but of how that house was significant to my spiritual formation.

My grandparents moved to Allentown in 1946 to help with the Allentown Mission, and although Souderton and Allentown were not separated far by geography, Allentown was a world away from where they were raised. By choosing to live in a community where neighbors didn’t speak Pennsylvania Dutch or understand the significance of head coverings, my grandparents were forced to become self-reflective. “What does it mean to maintain a Mennonite identity in a neighborhood that doesn’t have other Mennonites?” and “How do we effectively communicate who we are?” were questions that challenged their spiritual formation in ways they did not experience in Souderton. Life in the city ensured the continual presence of these questions in their lives, and the ways they attempted to answer these questions made spiritual formation a dynamic, on-going process for their children and grandchildren.

One place I observed my grandparents communicate their faith was on their front porch. Many summer evenings my parents, along with my grandparents, aunts and uncles would sit and talk on the porch while my cousins and I would play “run-down” in the front yard. When folks from the neighborhood would pass by on walks with their dogs or families, one thing was certain: they didn’t pass by without receiving a greeting from my grandfather. Sometimes conversations took place at a distance with simple greetings and pleasantries exchanged, while other times neighbors joined us on the porch for conversation and Diet Coke or iced tea.

The front porch was used as safe place for my grandparents and their neighbors to exchange snapshots of their lives. But more than a place to practice cordiality, the front porch was a place to practice the spiritual discipline of hospitality. Neighbors knew they was always a seat for them on the porch—it was a place where they would feel welcome, and a place where they could be heard. In the same way that my grandparents’ intentional choice to live in Allentown provided important questions that impacted my spiritual formation, their demonstration of hospitality on the front porch was also significant to my faith development. It was here where I witnessed clear examples of how to practice hospitality and how to do outreach.

When the weather changed and the porch furniture was brought in for the season, spiritual formation took place inside. Many winter evenings my siblings and I were picked up at school by my grandparents and spent a few hours doing our homework at their home while my parents were at work.

Homework always seemed easier, or at least more fun, at my grandparents’ house. My brother usually worked from a small table in the kitchen, while my sister and I studied from the dining room table where many helpful resources were at our disposal. For example, my grandmother allowed us to use her prized electronic spell-checker that she used to write her weekly newspaper column. Whenever we came across an unfamiliar country in Social Studies homework, or an unusual organ in Biology homework, we followed the example of my grandmother and researched it extensively in the Encyclopedia Britanica. And finally, if my grandfather was home during our homework sessions, he would play the role of archivist, and search in his office through magazines, books, or personal records that might help with our line of inquiry.

The way my grandparents valued questions I posed in their house was spiritually formational. The way in which they helped me search for fifth grade homework questions displayed a quiet confidence that big questions should be raised. As I grew older and my big questions were not easily found in encyclopedias, I never doubted the inherent value in raising big questions. My grandparents taught me that raising big questions doesn’t lead us away from faith, but draws us closer to God’s reality.

I doubt my grandparents are aware of how their Allentown home shaped me, and I’ve never heard either of them use the term “spiritual formation.” Although they moved away from Allentown almost five years ago, I’m grateful for times like last Saturday, when we get to “walk” through their home again. Their house in Allentown will forever be part of my spirituality. Because of its location, the front porch, and evenings spent doing homework, I will always be challenged to ask how I am making use of my current living space for the spiritual formation of my family and community.