Midweek Blog: MennoCon Reflection
The MCUSA Convention last week was full of lots of different experiences: worship services, keynote speakers, reunions, seminars, panels, group discussion and yes, some good barbecue and fellowship. There was too much to give a full account here, though we invite you to join us in worship on August 13…
Midweek Blog: Values Driven Living
A friend recently recommended the book Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price. This friend found the book to be helpful in understanding his own experiences as a “masked” Autistic person, so I decided to read it to help myself better understand and relate to him…
Pastoral Care and Counseling
In the most recent Lamplighter, Dan Lehman submitted an article on behalf of the Shepherding Commission that talked about all the different things that commission does. Before going to print, he ran it by the commission for any edits, and I offered one small change. In the section about how…
The Hardest Place to Be
I had been trying to wrack my brain to come up with another experience or trip that I’ve taken in my life that could count as worthy of being called a pilgrimage when the lyrics to the song “Arrow” by half.alive helped me remember and think about the importance of…
Riding With the Wind (Pilgrimage Reflection)
After I graduated from Bluffton University, I decided to sign up for Mennonite Voluntary Service with a placement in Hutchinson, Kansas. In many ways, this whole endeavor was a pilgrimage because part of the reason I went to the “wilderness” of Kansas was to try to figure out what life…
Times are A-Changin’ Us All
With the Coming of Age Celebration this Sunday, I’ve been thinking a lot about the topic of transitions and change. One of the things that has been bouncing around my brain is an NPR article that came out late last year about how the pandemic may have shifted our personalities…
Coming of Age, Sharing Our Wisdom
I recently read an article about what it means to seek wisdom and was reflecting on how one of my favorite ways to think about this thing we call Christianity is as a “wisdom tradition.” As the article suggests, wisdom can be hard to pin down or define, but it…
Midweek Blog: Honoring Ancestors
This past Sunday, the Christian Education Commission put together an Intergenerational Activity to help explore our Advent theme a bit more. Each of the four basement classrooms was themed after one of the four women named in Jesus’ genealogy to match our worship series. Participants had the opportunity to consider…
Midweek Blog: True Belonging
A couple months ago I wrote about how I had only recently jumped on the Brené Brown bandwagon, and I just now finished a second book by her, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone. I chose this second work by Brown because…
Midweek Blog: Listening, Mourning, Connecting
The September issue of The Christian Century magazine had a monthly theme exploring the topic of the “Earth’s agency,” with a number of articles looking at various aspects of ecotheology. This was a timely read to lead up into last weekend’s Fall Retreat and gave me plenty to reflect on…
