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Daily Connector | Part IV: Repent. Repair. Real Estate (?!?) | Brent Miller

I often hear comments along these lines, “I bet you meet all kinds in your line of business.” Here is the story of the only time that I have ever “fired” a client.

In 2016 someone called the CMC office and asked if there happened to be a Mennonite REALTOR® in the congregation. Gwen or Mim gave them my number. When I got the phone call, the voice on the other end told me that they were looking to build a house, “on ten acres, in a Mennonite community, and preferably in Bexley.” They were not Mennonite, but knew that we were “good people.”...

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Daily Connector | In Dr. Suess’s Company | Dan Halterman

What is one story from your family lineage that impacts how you think about repair for future generations?

I rummaged through my stock of family stories to find something fitting this prompt.  I climbed through my dad’s family tree, testing several thin branches, then shinnied into my mom’s where some colorful characters perched, before returning to the first tree and remembering that my dad’s sister Virginia worked in an insurance agency where Theodore S. Geisel was a client.   Yes, my aunt knew Dr. Seuss – maybe when he was writing...

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Daily Connector | Part III Repent. Repair. Real Estate (?!?)| Brent Miller

Imagine that you are black and living in a small, tight-knit neighborhood near an old coal mine where about 4 or 5 families have inhabited a group of 25-30 houses for the better part of the last 75 years. Imagine that the city surrounding you was growing and expanding its municipal services. For the last 50 of those 75 years, clean running water has been extended to all of the neighbors surrounding you. While you asked – BEGGED – to be hooked into the new lines, you were denied. Meanwhile, the more expensive, more white, developments get annexed into the city with water...

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Church and experiment

There’s quite a bit coming out now regarding the one year mark of the pandemic.  This week marks one year since we’ve worshiped together in person on a Sunday morning – or, as our daughter Lily is now calling face-face interactions – “non-virtual.”  Interesting how the reference point for normal can shift…

Going from non-virtual to virtual church has been one big experiment.  It’s been wonderful to see how worship and meaningful connections can take place from our homes, not to mention an added efficiency with no-commute meetings.  It’s been a time for tech savvy folks to shine and...

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Daily Connector | Reparations Committee Part III | JoAnn Knapke

I am a watcher: a stand-at-the-side onlooker. Definitely NOT a do-er. All my life I have been more comfortable being a wallflower—someone who is out of the spotlight. Ever since our church started focusing on racial justice issues, I have felt more compelled to start doing SOMETHING. So besides being the Mission Coordinator at CMC, I am the chair of the Reparation Group. I am out of my comfort zone.

The need for white people to experience being uncomfortable, as it relates to issues of race, is one of the messages I’ve...

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