2026 State of the Conference address| Central District Conference Annual Meeting | June 26 | Harrisonburg, VA
Joel Miller, Pastor of Columbus Mennonite Church, CDC Board President
My introduction to CDC came 20 years ago this summer. I was fresh out of seminary, AMBS. That was when the A stood for Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, now Anabaptist. I was starting my first pastorate at Cincinnati Mennonite Fellowship, now called City Peace Church. As I got to know Central District Conference, as it was called back then, there was a metaphor for how the conference understood itself that caught my attention.
Someone up front mentioned conference being like “a family of adult siblings.” This was drawn from an official church document. It’s one of those buried deep within your program booklets with a triple digit page number. This year it’s page 103. You don’t need to turn there, but it’s there if you want to.
At the time, 2006, this document was just a few years old. It was written right before a new denomination, Mennonite Church USA, was forming out of two groups with different histories and polities. The document was an attempt to articulate how CDC wanted to do church together. The header for the first section of this four page statement was titled “Why we need to be and want to be a conference.” These are the opening sentences:
Conference for the congregations in Central District is something like a family of adult sisters and brothers. We love each other and are concerned about each other. We want to help each other but we do not feel a need to control each other.
Along with being fresh ecclesiological language for my young pastoral mind, there was another reason the family of adult siblings imagery stuck with me.
Not long before joining CDC my family of origin siblings, then young adults, initiated a gathering of our own. My brother Luke had recently come out to us and, for the first time, he was bringing his boyfriend, Christian, home for a holiday break. I am blessed to be part of a loving family, but we did grow up in small town Ohio in the 80s and 90s. This was new territory for us. We decided to have a family meeting to hear more from Luke and Christian and share how we were each processing this. It was us four siblings, four partners, and Mom and Dad.
That evening did not resolve all the questions. It did create a space we all recognized as so special that we have met this way every single Thanksgiving weekend since. It is now affectionately known as “The Talk.” We are well past focusing on whether queer love is legit. None of us can imagine our family without Christian. Instead we go around the circle and reflect, one at a time, on the highs and lows of the past year. This takes several hours. Over the last 20+ years we have talked about career decisions, births, miscarriages and a stillbirth, health scares, moves and house purchases and remodels, marriage struggles and joys, vacation highlights, retirement – for Mom and Dad – and currently, for the rest of us, that ever-perplexing experience known as middle age.
That CDC document describes my best hopes and experiences with my family of origin: We love each other and are concerned about each other. We want to help each other but we do not feel a need to control each other.
In short, CDC’s self-identification as a family of adult siblings has deep resonance for me. And as queer folks have helped teach us, chosen family can be just as, and sometimes more vital to our wellbeing, than biological family. We’re Anabaptists. Anabaptists are, by definition, chosen family. We’re each here because we’ve chosen to be part of this family of faith. We want to participate in gospel living of nonviolence, justice-doing, and reconciliation. And here we are in Harrisonburg, Virginia – of all places – for our annual chosen family reunion.
And I guess I’m taking my turn as the sibling who gives this state of the conference talk – but last year it was Jan Lugibihl, from Chicago. And in a couple years it will be Karla Minter, from Goshen. And after that, who knows, it could you. When you’re part of a family that has a gifts discernment committee, you better watch out.
So, dear siblings, how are we doing? What is the state of the conference? What are some of the gifts and challenges of this past year? Hopefully you’ll catch lots of stories throughout our gathering, from up front, at your round tables, in informal conversations. Hopefully you’ll tell some of your own stories. I’ll highlight just a couple things to get us started.
Every two years the Board, staff, and committee chairs set a new theme. Recent themes have been Listen! Wisdom is Calling and Tending Transformation. Remember? So we tended, and we listened. And by the grace of God, Transformation, and Wisdom have happened, are happening. Back in August of last year it was time to set the next theme. We felt the danger of rising authoritarianism. We remembered that Anabaptist communities, in various times and places, have risen to meet the moment with creativity and courage. We sensed we are in such a moment. The language that emerged was a call and a prayer for our congregations: “Rise Up! Take Courage!” It’s also an open question: How might we as individuals and households and congregations and a conference and beyond take courageous action in ways that reflect the kin-dom of God which Jesus taught and lived?
The state of the conference is our 44 member congregations living that question in own own settings. And it’s what we do collectively – like the mutual aid grants the Missional Church committee will talk about. Like the support and credentialling of ministry leaders the Ministerial Committee will talk about. It looks like creating a new part time staff position to elevate our commitment to Safe Church practices, prevention and accountability especially around child safety. This is the first annual meeting for our still-new Church Safety Coordinator, Kristin Sancken. Welcome Kristin!
Rising Up and Taking Courage also looks like deliberating on hard realities like Palestinian genocide and Christian Zionism, even as antisemitism and Islamophobia persist. It also looks like clarifying what we want to say collectively about the issues discussed in Article 19 of the Confession of Faith titled: “Family, Singleness, and Marriage.” In less than 90 minutes you will be asked to Rise Up, Take Courage, and tell your table mates what you think about healthy sexuality and intimate relationships.
And here’s a story for why we’re talking about this: Back in the fall the board and committees were meeting up at Camp Friedenswald, as we do twice a year. The Ministerial Committee report to the rest of us mentioned an interaction with a non-Mennonite congregation considering affiliation with CDC – Circle of Mercy, in Ashville, NC. That congregation was doing their due diligence. They read over the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective. And they had a concern. Article 19 didn’t jive with their inclusive ethics. They weren’t sure they could join a conference that affirmed this as written. Before moving on to the next report, as we usually do, we paused. We considered this thought: might this be a holy nudge to revisit Article 19? Might this be a time to create something we can point to and say, actually, this better represents where we are as a conference on these matters.
What I love about this is that this did not arise from a visioning meeting or a two or five year plan. It arose through a relationship with a congregation looking for a chosen family. It took some folks looking in from the outside to point out something we had stopped noticing. And it challenged us to a courageous conversation. I think this is indicative of the state of the conference right now.
Along with the 44 member congregations, we also now have seven provisional member communities. If that doesn’t sound like a familiar category it’s because it didn’t exist a couple years ago. That Tending Transformation theme wasn’t just an idea to consider, it was a project that involved fundraising and the hiring of a part time Associate Conference Minister, Matt Pritchard, who has been building relationships with Anabaptist-minded communities, new and established. Seven are now actively exploring membership with CDC: Moveable Feast, Chicago; Peace Mennonite Fellowship, Archbold Ohio; New Life Fellowship, Wayne County, Ohio; Flourish, Hendersonville, NC; Church by the Waters, Portland, Maine; and The Intention Church, everywhere there is an internet connection. And Knoxville Mennonite Church, about to become our 45th full member congregation. These communities, like Circle of Mercy, challenge and change us by their presence, and this is a good thing.
As that now somewhat old but still pertinent official document says: Conference for the congregations in Central District is something like a family of adult sisters and brothers. We love each other and are concerned about each other. We want to help each other but we do not feel a need to control each other.
We have another day and half together to learn about and shape the state of the conference. Have courage to speak your mind. Share your struggles – there are many. Offer your hopes – may they multiply. Join in this annual chosen family gathering where we listen for Wisdom and welcome the ongoing gift of transformation.