As I mentioned last month, I am participating in an online course called ““Exploring Anabaptist History and Theology.”  When I wrote the last blog, it was the first week of the course, and we were still looking at the very beginnings of the the Anabaptist movement.  Well, we are now in the fourth week, and we finally got to Menno Simons (our Mennonite namesake), which just goes to show how much more to the Anabaptist movement there was other than our particular stream. In learning about Menno and reading some of his writings, an interesting question came up.  For all the ways that our tradition finds its source and inspiration from him and his views on theology and discipleship, Menno held on to a particular belief that would have been considered heretical in his time and even today by “orthodox” standards of Christianity.  In short, he maintained a belief that

  There are a lot of thoughts and prayers happening these days.  Hurricanes, a mass shooting, and the re-awakened demon of nuclear war ought to cause a lot of thinking and praying. “Thoughts and prayers” has become a common phrase, shorthand for I care about this, something to say when you don’t know what else to say. Whether these words are too cheap and easy is a topic for a different blog.  I, for one, am glad to take them at face value unless there’s reason to be skeptical. I do wonder how these two actions relate to each other.  Are thoughts and prayers two distinct things?  Can there be prayer without thought?  Is thought a form of prayer?  Are we unsure what we mean by prayer, so we qualify it with what we’re more familiar with, something more down to earth – thinking compassionately about someone or a group

This Sunday we’ll begin a fall worship series focused on Sanctuary.  In the last month Sanctuary has become a major theme for our congregation.  We have practiced Sanctuary in our building and been a part of a mobile Sanctuary surrounding Edith at various times after she left our building.  It has been a very public commitment.  With Edith now at her Columbus home discerning next steps after being denied a stay of removal, we continue to be in a position of holding space.  Meanwhile, we are in the middle of a growing movement in the faith community.  Yesterday 30 people representing at least 10 congregations met at our building to discuss how we are all working on the sanctuary discussion in our own settings and how we might work together.  We have received invitations to speak at similar gatherings in northeast and southwest Ohio. In our worship we’ll continue to

  This morning I was part of a meeting that included Edith Espinal, her attorneys, and several key advocates.  This coming Monday is an important day for her.  She has a check in with ICE in which there will be one of three outcomes: 1) Her stay of removal will be accepted and she’ll be told the amount of time she can stay in the US, up to one year. 2) Her stay of removal will be rejected, she’ll be released, and given a date in the next three weeks when she’ll need to appear before ICE with a plane ticket back to Mexico that she has purchased.  3) Her stay of removal will be rejected and she’ll be detained on the spot, held in one of the cells in the ICE office on the third floor of the Leveque Tower downtown.  There are some slight variances within each of

I am currently participating in an online course through the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary called “Exploring Anabaptist History and Theology.”  Because I attended a Methodist seminary, this is a chance for me to gain more formal training in the history of the tradition in which I am now ministering.  Like many of you at Columbus Mennonite, I came to identify with the Mennonite tradition later in life; thus, much of the history of the Anabaptists movement that eventually brought forth the Mennonites is new to me.  (Those of you raised Mennonite just know this stuff, right?)  At the risk of making sophomoric declarations based on my limited understanding from one week worth of class assignments, I thought I’d take you all along with me in this journey of learning more about this tradition we share.  A few observations from the first week’s readings on the context and background of the