Holding Space for Transformation
Eric Frey Martin
It is good to be here with you all this morning. As I look around the room, I see many familiar faces and feel a sense of kinship here at Berkey Avenue Mennonite Fellowship. It is an honor to be here with you today on this day in which you mark the installation of Billy […]
Catching Glimpses
Billy Funk
I was told for this sermon to choose a scripture that means something to me. Perhaps one of the scriptures that I listed my MLI, the form you fill if your someone who is considering ministry in the Mennonite church and there you list some of your favorite scripture passages. And so, my immediate thought […]
Family Likeness
Richard A. Kauffman
When my oldest granddaughter was four-years-old, she made a bold pronouncement: “I’m a strong, independent woman.” That drew some chuckles, recognizing where that came from: she picked it up from her feminist mother. Often, in observing the conduct of children, we’re inclined to say: Doesn’t she just remind you of her mother/father. Or, You can […]
Gospel of Peace
Richard A. Kauffman
We are willful human beings. Our wills bump up against each other. This can lead to conflict, alienation, enmity. Sometimes our offences against each other are small and we can just move on. Other times they are large and need to be attended to. Otherwise, relationships can break down—there is no longer a sense of […]
War, Worship, and Sacrifice
Mark Schloneger
June 19. June 19, 1865. On that date, Union soldiers arrived in Texas, the remotest state in the former Confederacy and proclaimed to both enslaved people and slaveowners that the war had ended and that all slaves were free. That’s what Juneteenth commemorates. The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture calls this […]
Cross Purposes
Richard A. Kauffman
Where were you on the morning of 9/11—that is, if you were born and are old enough to remember? I was pastoring the Toledo Mennonite Church at the time. That morning I was in a pastors’ meeting at a restaurant on the edge of Pettisville, OH. One of the owners interrupted our meeting to tell […]
The Unfinished City
Mark Schloneger
It’s Pentecost. And here we are, all together in one place, praying and singing, and listening. But this, all of this, it didn’t happen by accident. Our worship today is not a spontaneous eruption, an extemporaneous production, an extraneous interruption. No, we have planned for this service, this particular service.
Best Practices
Richard A. Kauffman
Why do we go to church? Why did you come here this morning? You could have stayed at home to read a Sunday paper and have an extra cup of coffee, or ride bike on the Pumpkinvine. Instead, you came here. Why? I recently met with an old friend. Since we hadn’t been together in […]
In the Watershed
Mark Schloneger
In the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis, chapter 2 — we’re given the story of Creation, the beginning of time. We’re told that God created human beings, planted a garden, and then placed them in the garden. We’re told that the trees of Eden were beautiful, and that they produced fruit that was good […]
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