Todd Grotenhuis

Day 5, Day 4, Day 3, Day 2, Day 1

We started our final delegate session by discussing the Churchwide Statement on the Abuse of Child Migrants, including the changes that had been made to the draft. There was a short time for Q&A, in which several folks urged for stronger language in parts, or more details on next steps. MCC and others will continue to help with materials for going forward.

The vote for the resolution passed with only 2 dissenting (of 495). One of those two dissented because they wanted a stronger resolution.

We received reports from the Step Up program, and three amazing representatives from the program.

We also got an update on the Voices Together hymnal project, which is expected to be ready in fall 2020.

Our final discussion around our Renewed Commitments was for the third item: Experience Transformation.

“How have you experienced the transformation of the Holy Spirit in your life? How might that inform the transformation of our shared life as a church?”

At my table, we had a joyous moment of thanks and blessing from a retired (and now volunteer) pastor. I asked him a little bit about how he came to see such beauty and hope in change, even as some struggle with it.

He shared the following wisdom:

“My first rule is: you’re not in charge anymore.”

“Second rule: give only blessings. Let others do the critique.”

“It’s about letting go, letting God. Trust the Sprit of God.”

He commented on why some folks struggle with change:

“It has do with fear, and thus wanting to be in control. People who can’t let go are unhappy.”

We also had all-group Q&A, again, with many great comments. One person reminded us that sometimes the Spirit moves in spite of us.

Our final worship session had Executive Director Glen Guyton as speaker…

…and he kicked it off by singing his rendition of Nirvana’s Come as You Are with the worship band.

(Believe me, I’ll add video here, if they release it.)

Glen reminded us over and over that “God is Bigger”.

• God is bigger than our documents
• God is bigger than our issues
• God is even bigger than the Bible

He repeatedly gave us the call to #BRINGTHEPEACE, and even reminded us of his own background:

“I was an officer in the military & now I’m part of a historic peace church, so don’t tell me your message doesn’t work”

Glen’s charge for us is to “put some action to our words”

“What are you going to do to #bringthepeace after you leave?”

Day 5, Day 4, Day 3, Day 2, Day 1

We again had two delegate sessions today, with us now moving into more of the “business” for the week.

First, the resolution committee brought forward a new resolution that was generated this week: Churchwide Statement on the Abuse of Child Migrants. The drafters of the resolution received help from Iglesia Menonita Hispana, delegates, and the resolutions committee. It has the support of the Executive board and sufficient delegate signatures to be brought to the delegates.

As the resolution was read to the delegates, it ended with a standing ovation. You can read the text here.

We had another equipping study with Tom Yoder Neufeld. This time, we continued into chapters 4-6 of Ephesians, and how we live in God’s blessing.

Tom tells us:

• We do not walk alone
• God walks with us
• We walk with others
• The unity of the Spirit is the basis not the result of walking together well

And we exhibit the following characteristics:

• Humility
• Patience
• Suffering each other (forbearance)
• Forgiveness (gracing each other as God has graced us)
• Seeing the face of God in each other

Using the wording and imagery of the text, Tom imagines us as “chain gang of peace”, trying to run together, like in the poster for O Brother Where Art Thou?

We should be patient “seventy times seven”, but if bonds break, it should be with “grief” not “good riddance.”

Tom reminds us that “the unity of the Spirit is bigger, wider, and deeper than any of our organizational structures.”

In Q&A, we were reminded that the pain is often on the party in the margins or minority. But we need to put the greater burden on the side with power, not the other way around.

Next, we discussed the proposal to formally add youth delegates (aged 16-21). This would include 1 per congregation, 2 per conference, and 2 per racial-ethnic constituency group.

It was clarified that current delegates can come from this age group, but that this codifies adding some specifically of that age range.

The measure passed nearly-unanimously with only 6 of 495 delegates dissenting.

I interviewed one of those dissenting, later. They were not against youth being delegates, only the way it was being implemented (as additional count and bylaw changes). They were afraid it cemented that youth are separate and different, rather than integrating them more. They would have preferred we simply passed a resolution granting Step Up members voting status.

In the afternoon session, we discussed the leadership discernment slate. The Gifts Discernment team worked to fill roles at least 50% women, and at least 20% people of color. The slate had 48% women and 40% people of color.

After reviewing the slate, they were approved unanimously.

Glen Guyton presented the plan for a new communications strategy. It would focus on a unified identity-building communications approach for MCUSA. It would also include The Mennonite going independent from MCUSA and joining Mennonite World Review.

I personally expressed concerns about how The Mennonite needing to become financially self-sustainable could lead to commercialization and the related negative effects that commercialization has on news. From Glen’s response, it sounds like those factors are being considered.

In addition to the youth delegate changes to the bylaws, we also reviewed the other adjustments to the bylaws, which you can read here.

These changes (including removing a reference to telegram!) were passed unanimously.

Next, Michael Danner led a discussion on the membership guidelines, so that the executive board could get a sense of how our constituencies are feeling about handling membership guidelines.

We were asked to score both how important amending the guidelines is to our constituencies, and then how much energy we have to put into it over the next two years.

They also asked for our comments. Several comments from my table and others mentioned that the Brethren Mennonite Council for LGBT Interests and Pink Menno have people willing to advise on the process and wording for the guidelines. This would help limit some of the effort and pain that might otherwise have to be played out in local churches. As we discussed above, we want less of the burden to fall on those with less power.

Both worship services today focused on the movement of the Spirit, a topic that may have felt uncomfortable for some Mennonites. But the Energy, the Breath, the Wind blew through our worship space, surprising us with new things.

Day 5, Day 4, Day 3, Day 2, Day 1

Thursday’s Delegate Agenda:

Tom Yoder Neufeld continued to teach with us, today. He started by expressing thanks for the corrective and affirming feedback he received from yesterday’s session, reminding us that receiving such is a good sign of mutual discernment.

His theme was “Unity of the Spirit - body and temple” based on Ephesians 4:3

making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the chain of peace

Tom used the literal translation of “chain” for what might normally listed as “bond” because it’s an appropriate reminder that chains are for things that come apart. Peace must be maintained.

“Spirit” Tom said, is “one of the slipperiest terms in the English language.” With Spirit (whether “ruach” or “pneuma”), we have multiple genders or no gender. We have meanings of energy, breath, wind, and more. Tom encouraged us to read passages with “spirit” using the other words. He suggests it could be appropriate to call ourselves “people of the Wind.”

Tom reminded us that “the Spirit unsettles us because we’re not controlling it. The breath gives life to things we didn’t know should live.” It brings life, but “it also blows us around, and we look for places to hang on….The unity of the Spirit is a turbulent storm within God’s embrace….That’s what peace looks like until we all see God face to face.”

Tom also reminded us that “peace is constantly being unsettled by it’s generosity to strangers and enemies.”

The temple of God is not a single body, but the body of Christ, the Christian body. We are a poem, handiwork, or artwork of God. And unlike other art, “what makes the body of Christ most beautiful and perfect is its generosity to the least fitting parts of the body that are being grafted in.” God crafts “with those pieces that have been thrown away.” (Quilts, it seems, might be an appropriate metaphor!)

Tom says we can test whether we are being a peace church together by our:

• hospitality
• vision of hope
• openness
• prayer for each other

Tom reminds us that we must hold together both radical hospitality and radical transformation. Yes, the church is like a hospital, but if people don’t get better in a hospital, it should be shut down.

When it came to Q&A, Tom reminded us that Ephesians, Galatians, Matthew, and James are all in the New Testament, and they “all represent communities that were looking at one another with suspicion.” We need to live with that tension and use our creativity to mending “what’s been broken.”

Extending the metaphors further, one person expressed concern about when the temple being built has parts that are unsafe. Tom encouraged us to look for Jesus in the unsafe places, to address problems, and mentioned Matthew 18 as one of the biblical warnings.

When asked about traditions of exclusion, Tom returned to the translation of Wind, and reminded us that “Wind can create a lot of damage. Some things [traditions] can use some damage in the church.”

For our afternoon delegate session, we focused on the second item in our Renewed Commitments: Witness to God’s Peace.

We were asked to discuss the following:

Identify one part of our shared peace witness we should work together for the next biennium?

As with my report from day 1 and the peacemaking gathering, our delegate body made it clear that peacemaking goes well beyond resisting war. As our tables responded to the question, there were many incredible responses, but I’ll highlight the following ones that were recurring themes:

• Creation care, climate change, watershed discipleship, climate justice
• LQBTQ inclusion
• Conflict skills, difficult conversation skills, hospitality, and listening
• Grounding our peace witness in Jesus and the biblical texts
• Immigration and border crises

May the energy, breath, and wind of God carry us into creative acts of witnessing to God’s peace.

Day 5, Day 4, Day 3, Day 2, Day 1

We had two delegate sessions, today, as well as two worship sessions and an afternoon time for a seminar/panel.

Here was our agenda for the delegate sessions:

Note that there are no resolutions scheduled for today. In fact, there are none for the whole week. The focus this year is continued work on Journey Forward and our Renewed Commitments. That said, there is a Resolutions Committee table, because if resolutions are to be introduced, they want to make sure they are clearly stated and ready for discussion & vote.

The moderator expressed desire for us to work in “spiritual and mutual discernment” as much as possible, and to avoid parliamentary procedures except as needed for official business.

One of those pieces of business that we will be voting on are bylaw updates. The bylaw changes include adding youth delegates as full voting delegates. This is an extension of the great Step Up program that started last convention at #MennoCon17 and the Future Church Summit, and has continued for #MennoCon19.

Tom Yoder Neufeld led the delegates through study of how God gathers us, using the following verses:

• Deutoronomy 30:2-4
• Isaiah 40:11
• Jeremiah 29:10-14
• Zechariah 10:8
• Ephesians 1:10
• Ephesians 2:11-22

God “whistles” for us to gather into oneness with each other and with God. In looking at Ephesians 1:3-14, Tom reminds us that

“You’re meant to run out of breath rehearsing the blessings of God.”

Tom’s overall message focused on Ephesians 2:11-22, and started a process of investigating how we are both unified and diverse.

“What makes the body of Christ perfect is all the strangers and enemies that have been grafted in.”

At the request of the delegates, we had time to discuss in table groups before moving into Q&A with Tom. In answering questions about “good” versus “bad” diversity, he challenged diversity that is a result of “brokenness, hostility, fear, and sin” while also warning against trying to set a “horizon” or limit on how far God is going with “gathering all things.”

To another question about spiritual diversity, Tom again warned us against trivializing the radical provocation of confessing Jesus Christ as Lord by treating that Christian profession of faith simply as “one flower in a floral arrangement of religions” but at the same time recognizing that God is present in ways and places we aren’t yet imagining.

In our afternoon session, Executive Director Glen Guyton gave a state of the church report. He detailed some of our needs, including:

• We need more resources: volunteers, money, and tangible goods
• We need less structure, less mechanical authority, and more relational authority
• We need to assess where God is calling us today
• We need to embrace the generations
• We need better leaders
• We need to be willing to say “no”:
  • to doing too much
  • to worldly labels and practices that divide us
  • to things that don’t model who we are as Anabaptist peacemakers
  • to traditions and practices that discriminate or hide evil

We also started a series of table discussions regarding the on Journey Forward process and our Renewed Commitments. Todays question focused on the Follow Jesus commitment.

Table groups discussed where Jesus would show up in our town today, where Jesus would go, what Jesus would say, and what Jesus would do. We then shared some of the insights with the group.

We saw Jesus being born in or visiting the margins. We saw Jesus in the tent camps, immigrant detention centers, women’s shelters, and more. We wondered about where Jesus would proclaim hope, and what the “woes” and “blessed” statements might be.

We looked for where Jesus would have righteous fury with us or with systems. Perhaps Jesus would challenge us with why we haven’t been making disciples. Or how our rules, traditions, and barriers keep people from feeling welcome in our churches. Maybe Jesus would storm into hospitals and throw medical billing into the incinerators.

Maybe Jesus would ask us why we haven’t been loving each other?

May we continue to look for Jesus in our midst and in our margins.