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 […]
From Scarcity to Abundance
Mark Schloneger
A number of years ago, I attended a church leadership retreat at Camp Amigo in Sturgis, Michigan. On our second day there, we were invited to an extended time of silence. There were different stations set up for us to pray and to reflect, but we were told to use that time as we wished. […]
Viva la Revolución
Mark Schloneger
Isaiah: I see you. I hear you. I am Isaiah, the prophet, and these are my words: I see a king who will reign in righteousness I see rulers who will rule with justice. Each will be like a shelter from the wind, like a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the […]
Seeking Wholeness
Steph Wieand
In August I attended a school board meeting for Goshen schools at the new Intermediate building, right down the street from here. I had assumed that a top priority of people attending the meeting would be to discuss our kids’ safety at school while the pandemic was raging and there was no mask mandate in […]
Cure or Healing?
Richard A. Kauffman
Duane Beck, a retired Mennonite pastor, says that when he started his first pastorate right out of seminary, he preached repeatedly on the theme of discipleship. He discovered that the members of his congregation were committed Christians who had every intention of deepening their life of discipleship, but they didn’t or couldn’t for some reason. […]
A Faith That’s Faithful
Joanne Gallardo
To start off here, I want to share our memory verse for this month, which is also the focal point of this sermon. It’s Isaiah 40, verse 8. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.” I encourage you to “write this verse on your heart,” […]
We Can’t Breathe
Joanne Gallardo
We can’t breathe. I realize the strangeness of me saying that. In our current context, many of us are free from the worry of having someone’s knee crushing our neck, of being shot in our own home, or having the police called on us for something as simple as birdwatching. In that sense, many of […]
The Call of the Midwife
Mark Schloneger
We are respectable people, right? We dress respectably. We act respectably. We speak respectably. We’re well-read, well-known, well-connected. well-adjusted, well-intentioned, well-informed, well-groomed, and, if we must say so ourselves, well-respected. We’re respectively respectably reputable.
Empathy, Vulnerability, and Immanuel
Joanne Gallardo
Back when I worked as a case manager, Brene Brown came into my consciousness with her work on empathy. Empathy was talked about so much in our social work circles, in fact, that we often made jokes about it. Empathy is a learned skill, we were told. Empathy is learning another’s world view. As Brene […]
Stars, Signs and Salvation
Joanne Gallardo
We and the church have both, collectively, made it another year. While technically the new decade starts in 2021 people are talking about this year, 2020, as a brand-new page in our history. One of the many big things about 2020 is that it’s an election year, a big one. In a few months, and […]
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