Growing the LMC Family

By Mercedes Thomas with Contributions from Peter Eberly, Kurt Horst, Jim Ostlund, and Jason Rhodes-Showalter

If you’ve been around LMC for the past few years, you’ve likely heard that we are growing in size with more congregations joining us! And much of that growth can be attributed to two new districts that each made the decision to affiliate with LMC as a group: Blue Ridge and South Central.

The nine congregations in the Blue Ridge district are located in the Shenandoah Valley, VA. Their congregations and leaders are tight-knit; the pastors and leaders started meeting around ten years ago for monthly times of encouragement through worship, prayer for each other, and teaching from Scripture. Shifts in the broader church led to a process of discerning a new spiritual home, and in 2023 the group reached out to LMC leaders. Today, these leaders continue to have deep and meaningful relationships with one another, including with those who individually decided not to join LMC. 

South Central district’s twenty-four congregations span six states—Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas—making them the second largest district geographically (first being the Shalom Council, which spans six countries and four US states). Leaders of the then South Central Conference also took several years to discern next steps, and knew they desired to remain in fellowship with other Anabaptist congregations with a shared vision and purpose for the Church. They formally decided to affiliate with LMC in July of 2024. 

When asked why they chose to affiliate with LMC, bishops from both districts cited LMC’s commitment to Anabaptist theology and our desire to be an intercultural body of churches. Both districts are multiethnic and have congregations that are non-English speaking, making them right at home in LMC’s multicultural body that worships in seventeen languages. 

However, joining LMC has also come with its challenges. The distance between all of South Central’s congregations is vast. This makes it difficult for the four bishops to bring together their pastors and leaders. Also, South Central was previously in a congregational delegate model, so LMC’s leader-centered culture has been an adjustment. Finally, LMC is still learning and changing from being “Lancaster-centric.” Our office and staff, as well as much of our leadership, reside in or close to Lancaster, PA, making communication and connection with those further away more challenging. We are still on a journey of figuring out how to be a nimble network of districts and congregations across twenty-six states and six countries. LMC would appreciate prayer as we continue to discern how to meet this challenge.

Interestingly, both districts have a history of church planting. The Blue Ridge district contains two of the oldest churches in Virginia and seven churches that have been planted within the last twenty years. Bishop Peter Eberly planted and is the lead pastor of Eastside Church, and Bishop Jason Rhodes-Showalter was a part of the church-planting team for Mosaic of Grace. Meanwhile, the South Central district has a history of local churches partnering together to plant new churches, including congregations of African immigrants, Spanish-speaking churches that meet in homes and garages, and a multisite congregation.

Every time I’ve had the opportunity to talk to one of the bishops from South Central or Blue Ridge, I am struck by their excitement and clarity for the future of LMC. These districts became a part of LMC after moderator Keith Weaver retired, the Executive Bishop Team (Keith Blank, Rodney Martin, Marcia Mylin, and Tuyen Nguyen) was created, and we established our current mission statement: To be a Spirit-led movement to make disciples of Jesus, mobilize every member as a missionary, and to multiply faith communities locally and beyond! Who LMC is now is all they’ve ever known; they’re excited with this vision that they’ve chosen to be a part of it.

Jason Rhodes-Showalter said, “I’m excited to be part of what God will do. We’re due for another awakening. We’re due for another movement of sending people out into new neighborhoods and new communities.” These two districts are all-in on this mission and vision and are eager to see the fullness of Christ activated and released by the Spirit across LMC.

Bishop Jim Ostlund agreed succinctly, stating, “Jesus is on the move!”