Harmony for the win
These last couple months our family has been tracking NBC’s show The Voice. I know quite a few of you have as well. The draw has been Girl Named Tom, a sibling trio in their 20s that grew up in Zion Mennonite Church in Northwest Ohio. Over the course of…
Implementing peace
The second candle on the Advent wreath we light this week is the candle of peace. One of the most hopeful peace endeavors I’m involved with these days is called the Columbus Safety Collective. This group of folks is committed to the creation of a non-police crisis response unit in…
Advent essentials
The season of Advent begins this coming Sunday. Our theme for this year is Essentials: Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, Immanuel, Epiphany. The first four on that list are the traditional themes of the four Sundays of Advent. We and other Mennonite churches often add the Sunday after Christmas (Immanuel) and…
On mental health
Last week I came across two articles on mental health that caught my attention. One was from Axios Columbus which reported the most recent numbers from the nonprofit Mental Health America: Nearly 25% of adults in Ohio experience mental health issues. The numbers are just coming out for 2019 so…
November Sundays
November is in the air and the leaves are realizing they can’t hold on much longer. As we begin a new month here is a preview of Sunday worship themes: November 7: All Saints/Souls Observance This Sunday is our annual time of remembrance for loved ones who have died. Whether…
Baptism and Wilderness
A week from this Saturday, November 6, CMC is hosting an in-person workshop called “Believe and Be Baptized: Conversations on a 500-year-old tradition.” The event will be led by John Roth, Professor of History at Goshen College in Indiana. It is part of a series of events anticipating the 500-year…
Ending executions in Ohio
We are one of 85 faith communities in Ohio participating in Death Penalty Abolition Week. Yesterday was the 40-year anniversary of Ohio’s reinstatement of executions. To mark this Ohioans To Stop Executions organized over 100 folks to meet with state lawmakers urging them to pass HB 183 and SB 103,…
VT 1042 = 1235
This Sunday we will begin a seven-week worship series called “Voices Together and the Worlds Worship Creates.” Here is an article I recently wrote for Anabaptist World magazine related to this: This fall our congregation plans to do a worship series in which we take a closer look at our…
Neighbors
Yesterday was our monthly all-staff meeting at the church. This includes the four of us who meet weekly (Gwen, Mark, Mim, and me), along with our building manager Jeff D, accountant Ellen K, and custodian Elizabeth C (her husband Kevin is also a custodian but works at a school during…
The extended in-between
There are two images I find most helpful when thinking about transitions. One is concentric circles. We grow and transition not along a line, but like trees, each new outer ring transcending but including every previous ring. We are everything we ever have been- every stage, every phase and fashion. …
