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2009-06-02 issue:

New structure brings new voices to EMM

Council to connect Eastern Mennonite Missions staff, board and constituency

by Jewel Showalter

Print Article

The “representative council,” a new group of mission counselors and advocates for Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM), gathered April 18 at Mellinger Mennonite Church, Lancaster, Pa.



Janelle Zook from Bethlehem (Pa.) Community Fellowship, takes an acorn used during the commission. Jonathan Charles is far left, and Howard Rice in the center.

“In every generation the Lord calls and anoints servants with new vision for the next steps in mission,” said EMM President Richard Showalter in his opening remarks. “This afternoon we stand on one of those thresholds. A baton is being passed. An old structure has gone, and a new one has come. This gathering is a new wineskin. Lord, pour in the new wine.”

Freeman Miller, vice chair of the EMM board and chair of the representative council, moderated the “new wineskin” assembly and introduced Mary Kolb, a member of the board planning group that birthed the representative council.

To illustrate the new role the representative council has of providing relational connection between EMM staff, board and constituency while promoting vision and mission, Kolb wrapped colored tape around a four-legged stool.

“EMM is like a stool,” Kolb said. “One leg represents the staff in sunny yellow, another the board in secure blue, another the constituency in green, and the fourth God through the Holy Spirit in royal purple.”

Then Kolb inserted the connecting rungs of the stool, outlining them in bright pink to illustrate the representative council, which ties together the four legs to create a strong, sturdy stool.

First-person reports and stories from four EMM missionaries serving in Central and South Asia were a highlight of the afternoon.

Orpha Gehman, who served for nine years as an English teacher in Vietnam, told how she used student’s questions about U.S. holidays and culture as a venue for sharing the gospel story.

Others, who serve in a sensitive Muslim context, spoke of the challenges of ministry in a setting where believers in Jesus face hardships for their faith, and the good news must be discussed discretely.

EMM staff shared answers to frequently asked questions, and there was an open mic time to clarify the role and job description of the new assembly.

The core of the first representative council is comprised of all of EMM’s former board members.

In addition, all partnering conferences—Lancaster Mennonite Conference, Franklin Mennonite Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference, New York Mennonite Conference and Good News Fellowship—are invited to send one representative council member per congregation. Larger congregations may send one for each 100 church members.

The EMM board is also working on a memo of understanding for other churches and networks that would like to have members on the representative council.

The next two meetings of the representative council are planned for Aug. 29 and Jan. 30, 2010. The council plans to meet several times each year. 

Following an open mic time, Miller blessed and commissioned the members of the new EMM representative council by passing out wooden acorns—a reminder of their new role in advocacy and “seed planting” where the church is not yet.

“There was quite a buzz as this group of nearly 100 people from partnering conferences and congregations assembled,” said Leon Miller, EMM’s director of church relations. “Some came from as far away as Alabama, but most were within a two-hour driving distance.”

“I’m excited about being part of the representative council,” said Tonya Powell, who represented Church of the Overcomer, a Lancaster Mennonite Conference congregation near Philadelphia. “This definitely is what we as a church want to be involved in.”

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