I am incredibly privileged to be asked to be on our church’s committee to help guide our reparations initiatives. Each member of the Reparations Committee has been asked to share with the congregation about our ongoing conversations, and I get to go first. So I thought I’d start at the inevitable beginning, the first questions we asked ourselves in the committee, the first questions anyone asks when we talk about reparations. What are we seeking to repair? Why is it our responsibility to repair it? “My family never owned slaves”. I’m sure many of us can say that. My Anabaptist ancestors came to the US, to Pennsylvania, just after that state had passed the Gradual Emancipation Act. They couldn’t have owned slaves even if they’d had the desire or funds to subjugate other humans. But maybe my family isn’t so innocent? At the end of the 19th century a great

We now welcome back to the blog our occasional guest, the chicken.  (By the way, for those concerned, our backyard birds are just fine.  They don’t mind the cold.) I recently cracked open the book Why Did the Chicken Cross the World: The Epic Saga of the Bird That Powers Civilization, by Andrew Lawler.  I was especially drawn to the chapter about chickens in early America.  It turns out this is especially pertinent in this month of honoring Black history.  It also has connections with our ongoing conversation about reparations.  British settlers brought chickens to Jamestown, and chickens arrived in New England on the Mayflower, but the bird wasn’t a prominent part of the early American life or diet.  Until… In 1692, the Virginia General Assembly made it illegal for enslaved persons to own horses, cattle, or pigs.  This was a direct response to several individuals having bought their freedom

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.  Our worship theme for this season is Repent. Repair. Repentance is a perennial feature of Lent.  Like any word that’s been tossed around for centuries, it’s helpful to return to its root meaning to remember what we’re talking about. The Old Testament Hebrew word for repent means to turn or return.  The imagery is of someone, or an entire people, walking in a certain direction, then doing a 180 and walking in the other direction.  In light of Sunday’s wonderful children-centered worship service, this notion of repentance could also include adults’ openness to return to a more child-like state of playfulness. The New Testament Greek word for repent means to change one’s mind.  More loosely, and perhaps more inspiring, it could be translated to enter the higher mind.  As in, moving beyond a mindset and related actions that center the personal

Two weeks ago we had the annual gathering of the CMC Leadership Team and Ministry Council (board + commission chairs + pastoral and administrative staff).  It’s a time to step back from monthly duties, pose big picture questions, and think creative thoughts.  The purpose of this year’s meeting was to imagine together what church life might look like in the year ahead with re-gathering in person, ongoing Zoom possibilities, relationships across distance, and new ventures with church planting. For that last part we were joined by Carolyn May and Joel Call.  The possibility of planting a new worship community in Columbus started as a small seed of conversation with Carolyn as she headed off to Union Theological Seminary in New York three years ago.  Over the course of her studies Carolyn felt affirmed in this path, and drawn to remaining in the Mennonite church and retuning to Columbus.  Parenthetically, for