For The Record

Submit birth, marriage and obituary records online.

Personal Ads

Meet new friends today!

Advertising

Put your message in front of 19,000 readers.

PDF documents on this site require the free Adobe Reader:

Get Adobe Reader

2009-06-16 issue:

Pastors' Day precedes Convention

Four hundred pastors gather for first-time event.

by Everett J. Thomas

Print Article

Although Mennonite Church USA 2009 Convention won't begin until this evening, convention planners provided a special welcome this morning for Mennonite Church USA pastors.















James Schrag addresses pastors at the Pastors' Day on June 30. Photo by Everett Thomas.

The first-ever Pastors' Day saw a crowd of more than 400 gather for worship led by Tom and Lois Harder, of Wichita, Kan., and a short reflection by Mennonite Church USA executive director James Schrag.

The focus of the gathering, however, was on pastoral ministry from a missional perspective. The plenary speaker, Craig van Gelder, has edited or authored eight books on the missional church. A professor of congregational mission at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., van Gelder's lectures at Pastors' Day began with a review of trends in congregational development over recent decades and delineated six new approaches to church: the mega church ("Did the Mennonites miss that meeting?" van Gelder asked); the emerging church; global immigration church; multi-congregation church; multi-cultural church; and the social network church.

His second lecture focused on leadership and different kinds of change. But van Gelder's primary theme was that change is happening and changes often come from the margins.

"A congregation should have a vibrant conersation about what God is doing," van Gelder said, "and how much we would have to change this week to live into God's reality."

As part of the opening worship, Lois Harder danced to a reading of James Weldon Johnson's "A Negro Sermon" while Tom Harder provided a guitar accompaniment.

James Schrag, in his opening comments, likened the role of pastor to a captain standing in the crow’s nest of an ancient sailing vessel searching for land.

"I chose this metaphor," Schrag said, "not because the [pastor's] eyes are better but because we have been called to a special place of vantage where the view really is longer, wider, broader and deeper … The position defines the calling, a very solitary place in the church."

Acknowledging an Anabaptist tradition that values the priesthood of all believers, Schrag said, "a crow's nest is not large enough for the entire crew."

Reader Comments

Add Comments

Current Stories

Articles

News stories, digests and Meno Acontecer

Columns

Readers Say

Subscribe