If you were unable to attend worship on Sunday you missed a wonderful celebration of Mark’s credentialing, including a powerful sermon reflecting on Jesus’ parable of the banquet in Luke 14. We were honored to have numerous out of town guests (32 to be precise), many from Central District Conference, and there were various times of spontaneous applause and Amen-ing. The sermon can be read or heard on our website HERE, and a few pictures are posted on our church’s Facebook page...
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Our family arrived back from vacation last Thursday night. We had all driven out to Kansas City, Eve and me staying for the Convention, Abbie taking Lily and Ila on to her hometown of Quinter in Western Kansas. After Convention we joined up in Quinter and spent a week in the mountains near Gunnison, Colorado, in a cabin that Abbie’s grandpa built several decades ago.
It was a significant transition going from the hyperconnectivity of Convention – with face-to-face and facebook-to-facebook conversations happening all day every day – to a setting in which phone and internet...
Dear queer Mennonites at the Kansas City Convention, and those watching from home,
This week your church failed you. Your people, your denomination, your faith community opted to build unity for itself at your expense. Officially, we reaffirmed that pastors may not perform same sex covenant ceremonies and that doing so is grounds for a review of their credentials. Unofficially, implicitly, we declared that you are not worthy of the same degree of blessing and respect as are we, your straight sisters and brothers. You just aren’t. We did so not in conversation with you, but in...
“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.” Psalm 118:22-23
My dear, dear, Mennonite brothers and sisters, my people, my tribe. All week long at this Convention we’ve been hearing about the Emmaus road story. How the risen Jesus appeared to two distraught travelers, and “...
Last Thursday I was rather thrilled with the release of Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Si,” which speaks an eloquent and urgent pastoral word regarding climate change. Rather than addressing just his fellow Catholics, or even fellow Christians, the document opens by saying, “Now, faced as we are with global environmental deterioration, I wish to address every person living on this planet.” Early on the Pope cites his namesake, Francis of Assisi, who taught...