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2008-02-19 issue:

That they may be one

Editorial

by J. Lorne Peachey

Print Article

Ten years ago, after I was asked to merge Gospel Herald of the Mennonite Church with The Mennonite of the General Conference Mennonite Church into this new magazine, I found the assignment both exhilarating and frightening.



J. Lorne Peachey was founding editor of The Mennonite. We invited him to write a guest editorial to mark the magazine’s 10th anniversary.

The exhilaration came with the challenge to create one out of two. I have found few things I enjoy more than imagining something new.

The fright came because I was aware of how much change frightens us. Even the people of God, brought together by Jesus into a new kingdom, resist change. Admit it or not, most of us like most things as they are. We are scared of the unknown. We don’t give up easily what we like.

Similar feelings surrounded a church merger I became part of five years later. My congregation, Kingview Mennonite, and Mennonite Church of Scottdale (Pa.) agreed to become one as Scottdale Mennonite Church.

Today, incredibly, I find myself part of yet another attempt at unity. The organization for which I work, Mennonite Financial Federal Credit Union, is in conversation with Mennonite Mutual Aid about forming a new partnership to provide value-based financial services to the Anabaptist community, a partnership based on cooperation not competition (see News Digest, Feb. 5).

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised at the similarity of these three. While we joke about the words “We’ve never done it that way before,” I’ve heard them more in the last 10 years than I care to remember. Indeed, I’ve found that cliché within myself more than I want to admit.
It’s been 25 years since discussions began about the merger of the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church and 10 years since the new The Mennonite developed out of its two predecessors. Considering the hard work, the disagreements, the endless meetings, we ask: was it worth it? Worth the churches lost to the denomination? Worth the individuals lost to the church? Worth the bitterness of some who remain?

I doubt those are questions we can answer. Indeed, I believe they are the wrong questions.
Instead I am drawn to Jesus’ words as recorded in John 17. In one of his longest monologues in the Bible—certainly the longest on any one subject—Jesus vents his deepest feelings about unity in a prayer: “Holy Father,” he pleads, “protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:11).

Jesus had spent enough time on earth to be aware of what happens when humans face change. Not only did that resistance lead to his own death, but his chief concern before that death was that his followers would allow self-preservation and self-interest to destroy his church.

Thus he prays for something better for his disciples. You do not belong to the world, he says. Instead, you reflect the glory of God the Father when you are one, when you love one another.

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another,” Jesus had already told his disciples (John 13:35). Is there any more apt definition of what it means to be a missional church in a violent, competitive and increasingly mixed-up world?

On the 10th anniversary of the founding of this publication, the question is not whether The Mennonite has been a successful merger of its two predecessor publications? It is not even how well it measures up to other publications or meets journalistic standards.

The question is: Has it helped the people of God, as demonstrated in Mennonite Church USA, become one, to express the unity and love Jesus so desperately prayed for?

That The Mennonite has been able to work for 10 years at bringing us together is a gift from God  (there were predictions it wouldn’t last that long). The challenge for the next 10 years is to continue to point the way to unity as we become even more diverse. When that happens, we are an answer to Jesus’ prayer: that they may be one.—jlp

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