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2009-02-17 issue:

Showalter's assessment of the witness goal

by Richard Showalter

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Is the Mennonite Church USA farther along in its goal of witness than it was six years ago, is it about the same, or has it backslid?

My comments will focus especially on that part of the church which I know best, east of the Alleghenies, and particularly on Lancaster and neighboring conferences served by Eastern Mennonite Missions. They may or may not apply to other parts of the church, and they are not meant to apply to churchwide organizational structures.

We are farther along than we were six years ago in intent to be a missional church. The language of “missional church” is both understood and affirmed by many more of us. We have heard Patrick Keifert’s prophetic word that “the whole church is missional when it is as much ‘church sent’ as it is ‘church gathered’”. Though this has made us less comfortable with who we are, we believe in our bones that Keifert is right.

Furthermore, there are signs that we are beginning to change our behavior. For example, this past summer members of the West End Mennonite Fellowship of Lancaster under the leadership of Pastor Josef Berthold spent every Wednesday evening on the streets of the neighborhood, meeting, greeting, and interacting with neighbors on their turf where we, not they, are most vulnerable. We did everything from providing clothes hangers to tie up loose auto mufflers to praying for them.

Last year a whole district (Elizabethtown) of Lancaster Mennonite Conference mobilized to go to a neighboring town and distribute free hoagies. It was a transformative event, creating a new sense of connective joy. And this year the bishops and credentialed leaders of conference also took “plunges” into our surrounding communities, meeting and blessing those they met. Congregations such as Ephrata, Lititz, and Weaverland report exciting developments in outreach to local youth.

Such activities, of course, do not in themselves make us any more missional than operating day care centers, serving new immigrants, reaching out to prisoners, giving to AIDS victims, working for peace and justice, or going to Thailand to work in community development—more common ventures among us. However, they indicate a vector, intentionally moving beyond our church walls in new ways with kingdom purpose.

Thus, by both broad intent and some behavioral changes we are undoubtedly farther along than we were six years ago. When combined with some systemic changes such as the appointment of a full-time church planting resource person for Lancaster Conference (Joe Rosa) in partnership with Eastern Mennonite Missions, there is good reason for encouragement.

Yet the overarching challenges are not small. With membership standing now at about 16,000, Mennonite Church USA’s largest conference (Lancaster) has experienced a 20 percent decline in this decade, in contrast to steady increases in those preceding. Thank God that numbers are not the only measure of church health. Sometimes, indeed, they are positively misleading. I pray that in this case they may only partly conceal a deep, new turning to God, issuing in all kinds of practical steps in local and global witness.