Blog

Midweek Blog: MennoCon Reflection

The MCUSA Convention last week was full of lots of different experiences: worship services, keynote speakers, reunions, seminars, panels, group discussion and yes, some good barbecue and fellowship. There was too much to give a full account here, though we invite you to join us in worship on August 13 where multiple participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their experiences.

For this blog, I wanted to focus on one of the keynote speakers that most grabbed my attention. The final full day of the convention included a Youth and Young Adult Climate Summit, which aimed to...

Conference Season

It’s church conference season.

This past weekend six of us headed up to Goshen, Indiana to represent CMC at the Central District Conference Annual Meeting. This coming Monday five adults and five youth will head out to Kansas City for the biennial Mennonite Church USA Convention (during which delegates will be voting on whether to meet every three years rather than two).

One of the threads connecting denominational, conference, and congregational priorities these days has to do with accessibility. Last summer national delegates unanimously passed a resolution calling for...

Pastorhood and Congregationhood

Thank you for the amazing gifts on Sunday celebrating ten years. I was quite unsuspecting. The cards were greatly appreciated and that artwork…Beautiful. For those of you who weren’t present or didn’t get a close look, here’s a picture of the 12 canvases from eight CMC artists, stories pieced together like a comforter.

...

The Rainbow(s)

As far as I can tell, the origins of the rainbow pride flag have no connection to the biblical Noah story. Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office, felt the gay community needed a symbol to rally around and asked his friend Gilbert Baker to design it. Baker chose a flag because of its connection to pride, and the rainbow because it was naturally occurring and highly visible in the sky. The rainbow flag was originally eight colors with each stripe assigned a meaning: hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature,...

Pastorhood

This month marks ten years I’ve been at Columbus Mennonite. In a word, it’s been good, and I’m grateful to be thinking about more goodness ahead rather than looking for an exit ramp.

Pastoring is many things, and I may take some liberties this month or even summer to reflect on pastorhood in the blog. Here’s one story:

The summer after my first year of seminary I attended a conference that included a panel of seasoned pastors. One of the questions posed by the moderator went something like “When did you first realize you had become a pastor?” One pastor’s response stood...

Blog

Pages