Mission Statement In 2019 LMC leadership worked to update the prior mission statement from 2001. The new statement appears inside the front cover of the Shalom News Magazine in October-December 2020. The fall Leadership Assembly in 2019 worked on this revision process, and the Leadership Assembly this past September further processed this statement. A Spirit-led movement: to make disciples of Jesus. to mobilize every member as a… Read More
Learning from Leader Survey We identified the following themes in the responses from the leader survey taken in the Spring in response to changes from Covid-19. Congregations moved from expressions of “Sunday-centered church” to “life-centered church” (centralization to decentralization). Congregations responded with nimbleness and the ability to adapt as we need to do so. Some congregations were wrestling with core changes before the pandemic and are seeing this as… Read More
Great Lakes East and West District of LMC By Jim Sutton In the spring of 2016, pastors from at least a dozen congregations who left Mennonite Church USA began meeting and praying together. They were all without a denominational home and had no desire to function as “independent congregations.” Several options were available and were being explored. In response to invitations, Keith Weaver and Dale Stoltzfus visited several congregations, invited a few joint… Read More
The Hard Part is the Journey By Ashley Litwiller I have spent a solid portion of my life in or beside the water. I have some bad memories related to it. I had a cousin named Jonah who almost drowned. One of my first relationships ended beside the water. And I feel the frustration of never learning the art of slalom skiing. On the positive side and perhaps more importantly, water… Read More
Celebration of Church Life 2020 By Brinton Rutherford. Despite months of planning and an incredible team, COVID 19 required the cancelation of Celebration of Church life in April of 2020. In these pages, you receive a brief introduction to what would have happened with website links to handout materials and summaries of the speaker content, which also can be watched in their entirety online at the LMC website or… Read More
Caregivers Are you caring, compassionate & dependable? We’re looking for Caregivers, and we are hiring! Landis at Home is a growing home care service of Landis Communities providing individualized support by caregivers with servant hearts for adults who live in their homes, a senior community, or elsewhere. We: Provide on the job training and supervision by Registered Nurses Offer flexible hours, competitive wages, and a positive… Read More
On Being a Watchman by Raquel Rivera “As each night watch begins, get up and cry out in prayer. Pour your heart out face-to-face with the Master.” —Lamentations 2:19 Our second son, Judah, was born at the start of a global pandemic. As for many living in the United States, our daily way of living was put on pause and our calendar plans were stomped on. The quarantine bummed… Read More
Birthing Something New Growing closer to Jesus during quarantine by Joshua Rivera On Monday, March 9th, 2020, at 9:37 in the morning, Raquel gave birth to our second son, Judah, in the peace and comfort of our own home. Raquel and I serve in a co-pastor role at Bethlehem Community Fellowship. As the due date approached, we spoke with church leadership about taking four weeks away from ministry… Read More
God’s Purpose in letting us be shaken by: William Higgins (LMC Staff) A number of weeks ago I saw an article entitled, “The coronavirus pandemic is making earth vibrate less.” (CNN April 2013, by Harmeet Kaur). It talked about how since people were staying home and not using cars, trains, and buses, that seismologists were noticing that the earth’s upper crust was actually moving less. I thought that it was very interesting that… Read More
NYC District Starts Eight New Churches NYC District Starts 8 New Churches: The New York City district reported eight new church starts during 2019. The new starts as as follows: a new Garifuna plant in Tampa, led by Pastor Selvin Peppersburg a new Garifuna plant in Atlanta, led by Pastor Deo Arauz a new plant at 344 Brook Ave, Bronx, started by Linda Rodriguez a new group meeting at King of… Read More