By Connie Faber

While Blackburn’s immediate concern was for his family, his thoughts quickly turned to his congregation; Blackburn is pastor of Greensburg Mennonite Church. And that’s when he realized that his church didn’t have a disaster plan. The lessons that Blackburn learned the hard way thanks to the tornado have him preaching the value of having a congregational disaster response plan, including ways to check on every member following a disaster and what to do if a disaster strikes during a service.

So let me ask the question: Does your congregation have a disaster response plan? “If you can imagine (a disaster), it can happen,” says Kevin King, Mennonite Disaster Service executive director.

Thanks to the appearance in March of H1N1, then called swine flu, one emergency that is becoming easier to imagine is a flu pandemic. Today H1N1 dominates the news and is prompting U.S. colleges and universities, including Tabor College, to work out pandemic flu plans, as this highly contagious flue targets children and younger adults.

Preparing for a pandemic is new territory for many of us. In a recent news release, Mennonite Publishing Network quotes Tim Foggin, a Canadian public health physician from Willingdon (BC) MB Church, who says that the church will play an important role should a pandemic occur. The ill will likely be cared for at home by family and friends—by each other as fellow believers—since hospitals will be stretched thin and family doctors will be swamped.

Foggin encourages churches to answer questions like: What will you do if a third of the congregants are ill? What will you do if all the pastors get sick? How can you best prepare to maintain what you do well?

While caring for its members is one priority, the church is often among the first groups a community looks to for help in an emergency. As followers of Christ, our response to natural disasters should be rooted in heavy hearts that grieve with those who have lost so much and experienced such pain. And tears should lead to deeds. “God wants us to release our grip on our money, our resources and our selfishness,” writes pastor and author Erwin W. Lutzer in Where Was God? “When disasters come, we should be the first to respond with sacrifice and generosity.”

Responding to a flu pandemic raises unique questions about personal safety. When we fear for our health, we naturally want to protect ourselves. When confronted by a virulent flu, will Christians retreat in fear, or will we respond with healing and hope? Pam Driedger, author of Beyond Our Fears, a new resource published by Mennonite Publishing Network, says government and municipalities are creating disaster response plans. “Shouldn’t we, as ordinary people of faith, be spiritually prepared?” she asks. “Why not know before the crisis what kinds of actions and attitudes are most consistent with our faith?”

Christians should also be ready to help other believers—and doubters—cope with what Lutzer calls the “religious aftershocks” that follow a natural disaster, challenging the faith of those who believe in God and reinforcing the cynicism of skeptics. How do we confidently trust God even when natural disasters bring seemingly unnecessary suffering? Can we trust a God who allows a disaster he could have kept from happening?

Whether it’s an H1N1 outbreak at the local university or a neighborhood devastated by a flood, we are best equipped to offer material, spiritual and emotional care when we’ve prepared ourselves in advance of the crisis. Preparation is practical and hands-on: offering basic first aid training, including CPR, at your church, connecting with your city’s emergency management office or making sure church leaders are aware of congregants with specific medical needs. It also means anticipating that we will need to curb the sometimes natural desire to offer answers when the best thing to do is to sit with neighbors and friends, sharing the pain that comes with loss. It’s preparing to do and to be.

Mennonite Church Canada has a pandemic Web site that offers a variety of resources.

Thank You Times 20

In addition to her work as bookkeeper and secretary, Donna’s “to do” list includes two Christian Leader tasks that I would say are critical to the smooth operation of our magazine. She is our business manager, which puts her in frequent contact with advertisers, and the CL circulation secretary, which puts her in touch with you, our readers, and the church offices that regularly update our mailing list. Donna’s years of experience make her a wonderful and invaluable resource to the magazine as well as to our denomination.— CF

By Connie Faber

Reflecting on these experiences, I realize that there are some bad experiences that I feel good about—times when the memories of my discomfort are diminished—because the people of the congregation were genuinely interested in me, excited about their faith and at ease with any differences there were between us. I think of my first visit to a Greek Orthodox church and being tempted to join their newcomer’s book club—even though it meant driving an hour to do so—because of the leader’s warm invitation.

Our Sunday school discussion took place in the context of a three-part series presented by a local educator who has focused her professional work and personal ministry efforts toward serving those who live in poverty. Her presentations were based on research done by Ruby K. Payne, a Goshen (Ind.) College graduate who helps educators and other professionals work effectively with children and adults who live in poverty. I recommend Payne’s book, What Every Church Member Should Know About Poverty co-authored with Bill Ehlig, to anyone interested in the topic.

Payne’s material looks at the hidden rules followed by people in three economic groups—poverty, middle class and wealthy—and how church experiences reflect these rules. Most churches play by the hidden rules of the middle class and because America tends to be economically segregated, most of us don’t know the rules of other economic classes. Hidden rules in church relate to things like giving, church finances, prayer, mission work, social events and facilities. So if a congregation is going to successfully minister to the poor, members must understand the hidden rules of generational poverty and middle class.

Payne highlights the differences that exist among Christians of different economic classes, and I find her conclusion to be wonderfully unexpected: When all is said and done, regardless of whether one lives in poverty, middle class or wealth, one thing we all go to church looking for is emotional and spiritual rejuvenation. We gather with other believers because we want to fill that God-shaped void in our lives and have an inner life that is vigorous and effective.

Despite the hidden rules by which we live and the differences these rules make in how we think about our possessions, time, education, family structures, resolving conflicts and church, we’re all looking for opportunities to make genuine and profound connections with God and others. The idea that church is one place where we all are truly equal is exciting, but equality before God does not automatically level the playing field here on earth. Differences do exist and they often result in uncomfortable situations. But we can’t let that stop us from developing the deep connections we long for.

Nikki White, in an essay in the July issue of the MB Herald, says it well: “Too often we are content with relational ‘snacks,’ happy to tick church off our to-do list each Sunday without having had one meaningful, uncomfortable encounter with another person, much less with Jesus. Perhaps our Menno-nice approach has become an end in itself, rather than a means to a far more relational end.”

It seems to me that even if we alter our programs, worship format and dress code, a person who is totally unfamiliar with church will still feel out of place. That no matter what we do, there will be clumsy moments when a newcomer worships with us. It’s people, not programs, that help someone feel less awkward about being clueless in church, whether this individual is lost because church is a foreign experience or because she is new to this particular church and its set of rules. Our willingness to be involved in revitalizing one another emotionally and spiritually balances out the inevitable feelings of being lost and out of place.

The church is meant to be a community where we experience an intimate relationship with our Creator, fellowship with other believers and opportunities to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. To forge these kinds of relationships we must move beyond just being polite to one another at church committee meetings and potlucks. We must look for opportunities to develop intentional relationships with one another and to let our humanity peek out.

It doesn’t matter what circumstances prompt a change, one thing that is a constant about change is that change offers new opportunities. And so assistant editor Myra Holmes and I are doing our best to take the lemons we were handed in May and to make lemonade, to paraphrase an old adage. For at least the next 12 months, you will receive the Christian Leader every other month rather than monthly. Since it was first published in 1937 as a monthly magazine targeted at young people of the Mennonite Brethren Church, the CL has been published either monthly (the first nine and the past 15 years) or biweekly (for 48 years, from 1946 to 1994).

The current change in the magazine’s publishing schedule is prompted not by vision but by economics. As reported elsewhere in this issue, the CL is experiencing a 49 percent reduction in our publishing budget and Mission USA is looking at a 60 percent cut. U.S. Conference ministries, including the CL and Mission USA, are funded by contributions from U.S. Mennonite Brethren churches and individuals. Unfortunately church giving, which has been steadily increasing from 2002 to 2007, is expected to drop again this fiscal year as it did last year thanks to the current recession.

While the timing of this change in frequency is related more to money than to vision, our goal is that vision rather than dollars will guide the next set of decisions we make about communication in our family of churches. Publishing six not 12 times this fiscal year was a we-don’t-have-a choice decision, which means that at some point we will need to decide if we return to a monthly schedule. A second issue that we and most everyone involved in communication is exploring is how best to incorporate new electronic media options into the existing communication strategy.

U.S. Mennonite Brethren are often described as a family—a family of churches spread across 17 states and comprised of at least a dozen cultural groups. Given this diversity, staying connected is both a challenge and a priority. So what guides our strategy for family connectedness?

Thinking about how I remain close to members of my own extended family helps me think about how the Mennonite Brethren family can stay connected. There are two areas in which this comparison is helpful.

In our extended families we don’t rely on one method of communicating with each other. We keep in touch with e-mails, phone calls, Skype, text messages, MySpace, cards, visits and reunions. Variety should also characterize the way U.S. Mennonite Brethren communicate.

There are numerous electronic options available to us today that Peter H. Berg, the first CL editor, could not even imagined. We have some ideas about how to intertwine electronic and print communication but we want our approach to reflect the way you use media. Do you want to follow the denomination on Twitter or see us on FaceBook or MySpace? In what new directions should the U.S. Conference Web site be developed? Would you appreciate receiving an electronic newsletter? Do online discussion groups sound interesting?

My extended family relationships grow stronger the more we communicate with each other. So when it comes to a family of churches, what advice do you have for us about frequency?

Many readers value the CL because it connects them with the wider Mennonite Brethren community—individuals, other churches and denominational ministries, events and leaders. How many times a year should we connect with one another via the magazine? Is CL Online updated frequently enough? How about other sections of the Web site?

As we prepare to make changes to the CL and gather feedback on broader communication questions, we will be surveying readers, particularly those under the age of 40. If you are among the readers selected to participate in a written survey or focus group, please take advantage of this opportunity to influence the way in which U.S. Mennonite Brethren communicate in the future.

We will also periodically post brief surveys at www.usmb.org/christian-leader to gather feedback from anyone interested in discussion broader communication questions with us.

Where will all of these changes take us? I’m not certain—Myra and I have a lot of lemons yet to squeeze. But the lemonade will be refreshing and sweet if we work together to discover a vision for connectedness that best serves U.S. Mennonite Brethren.—Connie Faber

But when it comes right down to it, Mennonite Brethren congregations don’t financially support the denomination. The most recent Church Giving Report, released at the end of February and covering the first nine months of the current U.S. Conference fiscal year, shows that only 65 of the 200 U.S. Mennonite Brethren congregations have contributed something to the U.S. Conference. My guess is that church giving to our denominational agencies—MB Biblical Seminary, MBMS International, Tabor College and Fresno Pacific University—follows a similar pattern.

I’ve attended enough church business meetings to know why congregations struggle to contribute their fair share to the denomination and its ministries. The needs of the local congregation are right before us—paying the heating and cooling bills, replacing old or inadequate facilities, purchasing Sunday school curriculum and appropriately compensating pastors. The needs of our community are staring us in the face—unemployment, poverty, single-parent families and people who don’t yet have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

The needs of the denomination seem far away, so we first take care of our congregation’s needs and budget for local outreach projects. Then we divvy out the remaining money to conference ministries.

This giving pattern has dogged U.S. Mennonite Brethren ministries for a long time and conference leaders have addressed the situation in a variety of ways. But the trend continues—most of us don’t send money to fund denominational ministries and those congregations that do donate send less than we are asked to contribute.

This creates an annual funding problem that has been magnified this year by the current recession. In early March, U.S. Conference leaders determined that even if church contributions remain consistent for the last three months of the fiscal year (March, April and May) and other fundraising is successful, the conference will need to under spend its budget by about $100,000.

The two U.S. Conference ministries that account for a significant portion of the budget—almost 60 percent—are the Christian Leader, the monthly magazine you are reading right now that is sent to members and attendees of U.S. Mennonite Brethren churches, and Mission USA, the church planting and church renewal ministry of the conference. So it’s natural that cuts will be made in these two areas.

Don Morris, Mission USA director, says that savings will be realized as some partnership projects are concluding, and some new projects will not be funded at the level first anticipated and as others are delayed.

Next month you will not receive a Christian Leader. The May issue has been canceled as a cost-saving measure. This decision has a domino effect. It involves the printer and design firm with which we do business. It impacts ministries that highlight their work through advertisements. I appreciate the gracious understanding of these folks regarding this decision.

We look forward to publishing in a future issue the essays and articles commissioned for the May focus on the sanctity of human life. Although there will not be a print magazine, we do plan on posting new news stories and feature essays at CL Online.

Cutting budgets—at home, at work and at church—is never fun. The things we plan to do are good and worthy of our time, energy and dollars. In spite of the budget challenges congregations may be facing, I encourage churches to support the U.S. Conference and the ministries of our denomination. The motto that Kim West adopted when she raised funds to buy a car for her friend would serve local congregations well as we think about whether or not to contribute to the U.S. Conference: “Not many of us have a lot of money, but a lot of us have a little. Give what you can.” —Connie Faber

It’s been a great vehicle. Honest. It has hauled bricks, scorned blizzards, towed trailers, made grocery runs and carpooled kids without complaint for a decade. It hasn’t asked for anything more than an occasional oil change, so we haven’t given it any further attention.

Which may be the problem. Maybe somewhere along the way we should’ve invested time and money in a more extensive examination and tune-up.

Pastors are a bit like my SUV. Not because of the ugly hail damage, but because they work hard, pouring themselves out in service. They teach, lead, guide, administer and counsel, sometimes for decades, without asking for more than an occasional vacation—the human equivalent of an oil change.

Maybe we should invest more in them. We at the CL believe that our pastors need more than an occasional oil change; from time to time they need a real tune-up to keep running smoothly.

Garvie Schmidt, pastor of Enid (Okla.) MB Church, talked to us via e-mail about his recent sabbatical as we researched this article. He told us, “As I look at my life before the sabbatical I could best compare it to a car that had been running hard without regular times of scheduled maintenance. During this sabbatical I had a chance to pause, look under the hood and find that I needed to make some adjustments in my inner life. I needed a spiritual tune-up.”

The job of full-time pastor is notoriously challenging. Ed Boschman, executive director of the U.S. Conference, points out in his column this month that pastors face low wages, limited respect, opposition, family stress and loneliness. We’ve all heard stories of pastors who have burned out, failed morally or just plain given up.

Roger Ediger, moderator of the Enid congregation as they processed the decision to provide a sabbatical for Schmidt, points out that the stressful nature of ministry means pastors need extra maintenance. Ediger says, “We would all benefit from a break in our occupational activity, and from time to time we take vacation. But being in the limelight of the congregation and carrying the burdens of many people and their spiritual needs perhaps fits into a different category.” He calls a sabbatical “a good investment in the life of our pastor.”

As I gathered input from pastors for the article we published this month on pastoral sabbaticals, two things stood out: First, while all six pastors agree that their sabbatical helped to get the engine running smoothly again, each had a different plan for their sabbatical, tailored to their specific goals and needs. An educational seminar won’t help the pastor who truly needs a quiet retreat time, and vice versa. No two pastors have exactly the same needs, so we need to work with them to determine what kind of maintenance they need.

Second, all the pastors we talked to said this was their first sabbatical. Several had been in ministry for decades without a significant break. Dennis Fast, Gaylord Goertzen and Steve Toews each have over 30 years in ministry. Garvie Schmidt has just under that, with 27 years and Steve Ensz has been in pastoral ministry for 23 years. I’m not a pastor, but it seems to me that’s a lot of miles without a major tune-up.

So, here’s a question to ponder: Does your congregation have a sabbatical policy? When was the last time your pastor had a chance to check under the hood and make necessary tweaks? If your pastor is looking a little battered and weary, if his sermons rattle and clank a bit, maybe a sabbatical tune-up is overdue. Sabbaticals are an investment in our leaders that promises many miles in return.

I believe that anticipating what’s next is also central to the work of the Christian Leader. One of our tasks as editors is to put forward issues and direction the U.S. Mennonite Brethren Church should consider. Our priorities for this year are reflected in the topic list for 2009.

Evangelism: Interacting with our neighbors and coworkers as if we are missionaries who serve in foreign cultures is becoming a common approach to the Great Commission. Next month we will explore this idea that individual Christians should live “missionally.” The changes that occur in our lives when we encounter the resurrected Christ—and our longing to share the good news of our transformation with others—will be the focus of our Easter issue.

Core teachings: Evangelicals, says Christianity Today editor Mark Galli, have specialized in “Go and make disciples…” and have not been as strong at “… and teach them all that I have commanded you.” The church is called to evangelize and to teach. And so we want to feature articles that teach the core values of the Christian faith as understood in the Anabaptist tradition and expressed in our Confession of Faith.

This month’s focus on the Bible is an example of a historic Mennonite Brethren core value that is as central to our lives in the 21st century as it was to our founders. This year we will also look at how core teachings intersect with current events and contemporary culture. Affirmation of human life and stewardship of resources are two themes that evangelical Christians are discussing, and we want to reflect on these issues from our denomination’s perspective.

Throughout the year, we will also draw attention to the unique person and work of Jesus Christ, a core teaching of the Christian faith that is being discussed in our current culture.

Transformation: U.S. Conference leaders have called on us to be a denomination that partners together for the transformation of individuals, families and communities, and so this summer we will highlight the importance of healthy marriages. And in the news department we will continue to share stories of congregations that are making disciples in their congregation and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ in their communities.

Our approach to these topics will not be neutral. Our primary writers will be Mennonite Brethren with expertise in the area they are addressing. These men and women, many of whom volunteered to write on a specific subject, will help us think about these topics—some of them potentially contentious—from a Mennonite Brethren perspective.

Some readers may wonder why we publish articles on subjects about which Mennonite Brethren disagree. Issues of faith and life are very important to us—they have eternal implications—and so it’s only natural that we feel strongly and passionately about them. At the CL we choose to express our unity by acknowledging the diversity of opinion within our denomination and by listening to one another with respect and humility.

These are our publishing priorities for 2009, and we look forward to exploring these topics. This year the CL editorial staff is pursuing an additional priority: formulating a communication plan for 2010 that addresses three goals. We are researching publishing something on a regular basis for Mennonite Brethren who read Spanish, regularly publishing something in Russian and attracting a new generation of CL readers.

While the number of publications will increase, the amount of money the U.S. Conference spends on publications will not. The Christian Leader budget will be reduced to fund these new publications, with the hope that future partnerships with district conferences or local congregations can provide some financial assistance. This means the CL will change. We are looking at reducing the number of pages published each month and altering the magazine’s frequency to free up money for these new projects.

As I talk with printing specialists and other denominational magazine editors, a common piece of advice I get is to involve readers in decisions about changes in content, design, frequency and format. So I invite and encourage you, as the opportunity presents itself, to be involved in this process.—CF

I praise God for the resolve of our spiritual forbearers to be men and women who lived as Jesus taught, even when their commitment put them at odds with the established church and community structures of their day. As we anticipate celebrating in 2010 the 150th anniversary of the Mennonite Brethren Church, I pray that we will be bold in our faith and that we will see God move in new ways among our global Mennonite Brethren family because of it.

I imagine American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had a heavy heart Christmas Day 1863 when he wrote the poem, “Christmas Bells.” The U.S. was in the midst of the bloody Civil War, and 40,000 soldiers had lost their lives six months prior at the battle of Gettysburg. The poem reflects Longfellow’s anguish in the face of this ongoing war, as America was still months away from General Robert E. Lee's April 1865 surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant.

Longfellow’s poem reveals his deep antiwar convictions. He hears the Christmas Day bells playing the “old familiar carols,” promising peace on earth, as the angels did when Jesus Christ was born. But immediately, Longfellow despairs as he realizes there is no peace, and that hatred has again destroyed the dream of peace and brotherhood.

Longfellow clearly identifies the Union cause as synonymous with right and the Confederate cause as evil, which made his poem very unpopular in the South. When the poem was converted in 1872 to the Christmas carol, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, the offensive fourth and fifth stanzas were removed. The eliminated stanzas speak of thundering cannons drowning out the carols of peace and of households made forlorn by the violence of war.

“Christmas Bells” not only reflects Longfellow’s distress with the Civil War but also his own personal sorrows. Four years after their marriage, in 1835, his first wife died. He married his second wife, Fannie, in 1843 and the couple had five children. Eighteen years later, the same year the Civil War began, Fannie was sealing an envelope with wax when her dress caught fire. Despite her husband’s desperate attempts to save her, she died the next day. Too ill from his burns and grief, Longfellow did not attend her funeral. Profoundly sad, Longfellow published nothing for the next two years.

Longfellow’s sorrow was heightened when in November 1863 his oldest son Charles, a lieutenant in the Army of the Potomac, was severely wounded in the war. Charles knew his father disapproved, but he enlisted anyway. When Longfellow learned that his son was injured, he went to Washington, D.C., to care for him.

While Longfellow condemned the war and mourned the loss of his wife and his son’s life-threatening injuries, his trust in God’s ultimate sovereignty gave Longfellow hope. As Longfellow listened to the bells peal “loud and deep,” their constant and joyous ringing that Christmas Day expressed his belief in God and innate optimism that: “God is not dead, nor doth he sleep.” Longfellow affirmed God’s supreme authority and his own faith in the ultimate triumph of righteousness when he wrote, “The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men.”

There are times when I share Longfellow’s distress over the absence of peace and the abundance of hate in our world today. While war does not rage in my own country, other Mennonite Brethren are not so fortunate.

DR Congo is home to the second largest Mennonite Brethren national conference and so I grieve for the hundreds of thousands of Congolese who are fleeing eastern Congo to escape fighting and disease. I read with concern about the massive anti-Christian violence in India’s eastern states because this country is home to almost 94,000 Mennonite Brethren and is the largest of all national MB conferences.

The list of countries where Christians live daily with violence is much too long: In the Middle East the list includes Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. In Africa I think of Zimbabwe, Somalia and Sudan; in South America the list would include Colombia and El Salvador. I think of Asian countries like India, Afghanistan and Vietnam and European nations like Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.

What are we to think of a world so riddled with violence? Do we despair? No, we are to have faith in the angels’ message: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men in whom he is pleased” (Luke 2:14). We are to have a faith that sees with a different set of eyes.

These eyes see a baby born in a manger as the promised Messiah, an itinerate preacher executed on a Roman cross as the resurrected Son of God and a world torn with violence as a place that will someday be restored. As Longfellow wrote in his original seventh verse, also omitted from the Christmas carol: “Till, ringing, singing on its way, the world revolved from night to day, a voice, a chime, a chant sublime, of peace on earth, good will to men.” 

I commend MCC staff and board members for listening to their constituents and for sharing the reasons for their decisions. I believe MCC truly understands the concerns that are shared on this issue, and yet the agency feels compelled to continue talking with Ahmadinejad, should he initiate another meeting. Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that someone hasn’t listened to us because the discussion has not persuaded the other person to change her mind. In this case MCC has listened, and I encourage those readers who disagree with the decision to continue meeting with Ahmadinejad to support the agency in its efforts to obey Christ’s teachings.

Fear, it seems to me, is one reason we evangelicals are ill-at-ease with the emerging church. Emerging folks are asking questions about things that many of us hold close to our hearts as unchanging. Scot McNight, in a Christianity Today article on the emerging church, writes “…no language is capable of capturing the Absolute Truth who alone is God.Frankly, the emerging movement loves ideas and theology. It just doesn’t have an airtight system or statement of faith.”

As someone who likes certainty, this approach to theology makes me uneasy. Yet, a fear of questions should not prevent us from extending our spiritual limbs into the emerging conversation. When I am part of a conversation that challenges something I believe to be true, my first reaction is to end the discussion because of that niggle of fear swirling in my stomach.

One of the reasons I’m working to change this initial response is that my own children are among the people who are asking questions that make me uncomfortable. And years ago I promised myself that I would not parent out of fear but in hope. I had been home from the hospital less than an hour with our first child when I realized that fear would be my biggest challenge as a parent. It was overwhelming to realize that this baby was for now totally dependent on my husband and m. As our daughter grew, I found that the potential to fear grew along with her. So each time I bumped into a new set of fears, I reminded myself that hope rather than fear would be my guide.

If hope is our guide than we will view the surfacing discussions for how to do church in the 21st century as a strong signal that Christ’s church will be relevant to the next generation. We will admit that the young people in our congregations, including those who were raised in Christian homes, have grown up in a postmodern world and that this has impacted their understanding of faith and the church, just as previous generations were impacted by the Depression, two world wars, the civil rights movement, the hippie era and the war in Vietnam. Yes, the emerging church is asking questions that often make us uncomfortable. We may not agree with their conclusions, but refusing to think with them is not the answer.—Connie Faber