Moving Toward Conflict
Greetings from Chicago! (Ok, I’m in Lombard, but that is close enough to me.) This week I am attending the Mediation Skills Training Institute for Church Leaders put on by the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center. That’s a really long title, but in a nutshell it is a full week of…
We Are Orlando
“You better be careful; we don’t want to get shot.” These are the words I said to Jeremy last Saturday evening when his hand reached for mine while walking into a restaurant in an unfamiliar town. These are the words that were uttered mostly as a joke, but which now…
Summer Brain Drain
My sister-in-law posted a picture the other day of my niece enjoying her first week of summer vacation from elementary school. In the picture, my niece was stretched out in the sun on a beach chair with her nose buried deep inside a book. In the caption and comments, my…
On Repeat
The other day I was upstairs digging through Columbus Mennonite’s archives, which I found to be delightfully fascinating and full of history that I have never heard. (Sometime I’d love to hear more about “Paul’s Porch” from someone.) I hope we can do some work in the next couple years…
Prophetic Ministry
On Monday, I had the opportunity to attend a one-day conference at The Methodist Theological Seminary in Ohio that was focused on how people of faith can engage in prophetic ministry through organizing and preaching for social justice. This broad topic was explored in many different and helpful ways throughout…
Doing Our Own Work
Here at Columbus Mennonite, we will be talking about and working on issues of race through the next year. This is a commitment we have made in an effort to be the Church in this particular moment in history. It is also worth considering, however, the ways in which we…
And a Child Shall Lead Them
On February 7th, there will be a Children and Youth led Sunday service. When the idea first got proposed, I was extremely curious as to how something like this would turn out. Truth be told, it has been awesome to work with the kids on this! When I brought the…
Constructing a New Masculinity
Last Monday I had the opportunity to attend the gathering of Central Ohioans for Peace where the topic for the evening was a documentary called The Mask You Live In. This documentary explores how young men and boys struggle to navigate a very narrow definition of masculinity that is forced…
Advent Devotionals
Below is the text of an Advent devotional I wrote for The Mennonite website blog. Each day during Advent, The Mennonite will be posting a reflection written by different members from across the MCUSA family. The reflection below was written for day two of Advent, but all the other daily…
“Voices Raised, Lives Changed”
This coming Sunday, we will be welcoming nearly 40 members of the Illuminati choir who will be sharing special music with us during the service. The choir is the sacred ensemble associated with the Columbus Gay Men’s Chorus. Approximately once a month, Illuminati shares music at various religious institutions and…
