GREENSBORO, North Carolina (Mennonite Church USA) — The Mennonite Church USA Executive Board and staff responded with disappointment and significant questions about Mosaic Mennonite Conference’s announcement recommending withdrawal from the denomination. Mosaic’s August 22 news release coincided with the first day of the MC USA Executive Board meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina.
“We affirm Mosaic engaging in holy discernment, as this is the work of the local church,” said MC USA Moderator Jon Carlson. “Mosaic’s Pathway recommendation seeks to distance the conference from the denomination, but we continue to believe that all parts of MC USA are better together. We welcome Mosaic to remain as full members and partners in God’s mission together.”
The recommendation from Mosaic’s Pathways Steering Committee said, “We believe that partnership, rather than membership, allows our diverse conference to focus on our vision, mission, and priorities as we engage with each other and the broader body of Christ in each member’s unique context.” The recommendation received strong support from the Mosaic Conference Board at their meeting on August 19, according to the news release.
MC USA leaders were not a part of Mosaic’s Pathway’s discernment process; they were informed of the recommendation by the Pathway’s steering committee in a series of separate Zoom calls with Mosaic leaders. Mosaic delegates will vote on the recommendation at Mosaic’s annual assembly on Nov. 2, in Souderton, Pennsylvania.
In a letter to MC USA conference ministers on Aug. 22, MC USA Executive Director Glen Guyton wrote, “We are disappointed with Mosaic Conference’s decision to potentially withdraw from the current partnership with our other area conferences. Our primary understanding of the relationship between [MC USA] area conferences is that of partnership through voluntary association.”
According to MC USA’s polity, area conferences have wide latitude to manage their own personnel, business affairs, programming, leadership development, and credentialing and membership processes.
“That also means Mosaic is free to make decisions in the best interests of its conference,” Guyton wrote, “but our desire would be to have a clear understanding of what a new partnership agreement would look like before Mosaic withdraws from MC USA.”
While MC USA has ministry partnerships with former agencies, Everence and MHS Association, there is no precedent for conferences and no provision in the MC USA bylaws for such an arrangement outside of voluntary membership that already exists.
“Such a major change would require involvement from all member conferences, a process that would involve the Constituency Leaders Council and likely not come to the MC USA Delegate Assembly until 2027,” said Marty Lehman, MC USA moderator-elect. The next in-person CLC meeting is scheduled for Spring 2025.
“I hope we can be clear in our communication,” said Carlson. “If Mosaic delegates vote to leave, we honor that vote, and we’re happy to have a conversation after the fact. However, it will be a different conversation than if they stay a part of us and work at collaboration together as partners.”
“Membership in MC USA is more than just an organizational arrangement,” said MC USA Associate Executive Director Danner. “It is rooted in our Anabaptist faith values – the same values that we reaffirmed in the 2017 Future Church Summit. The relationships that bind us are rooted in the centrality of Jesus, the experience of God’s spirit in community and the call to peace through service and justice. We are a priesthood of all believers that actively participates in discernment together and mutually shares our gifts. These values will continue to be the standard for relationships for conferences that desire to be part of MC USA,” he added.
Mosaic represents approximately 15% of MC USA’s 47,840 constituents. Mosaic initiated the Pathways discernment process in November 2022 when the newly formed conference experienced what Conference Minister Steve Kriss described as its “first shared crisis of identity” over delegate actions at MC USA’s Special Session of the Delegate Assembly. At the assembly, delegates voted to retire the Membership Guidelines (82.8% affirmed – 404 yes, 84 no, 3 abstentions), which prohibited pastors from performing same-sex covenant ceremonies, Delegates also approved (55.7% affirmed – 267 yes, 212 no, 9 abstentions) “A Resolution for Repentance and Transformation,” a nonbinding church statement which calls the church to repent for harm done to LGBTQ people and to broadly include LGBTQ people.
For more information on how to remain in MC USA if your conference leaves, please see MC USA’s Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) here: mennoniteusa.org/remain-mcusa
For more information about what happens when a conference votes to leave, read MC USA’s FAQ (see below).
By Camille Dager
Mennonite Church USA is an Anabaptist Christian denomination, founded in 2002 by the merger of the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church. Members of this historic peace church seek to follow Jesus by rejecting violence and resisting injustice. MC USA’s Renewed Commitments state the following shared commitments among its diverse body of believers: to follow Jesus, witness to God’s peace and experience the transformation of the Holy Spirit. Mennoniteusa.org
FAQ: What happens when a conference withdraws?
MC USA Associate Executive Director Michael Danner clarified the following points for congregations in conferences that vote to disaffiliate.
- Effective as of the date of the vote to withdraw or other mutually agreed upon date, all congregations will no longer be part of MC USA. According to MC USA bylaws, congregational membership in MC USA is derived through membership in the area conference. Congregations that want to stay in MC USA can do so by affiliating with a different area conference.
- Likewise, pastors credentialed through MC USA will be marked as “withdrawn” in MennoData, the denomination’s ministerial leadership database. This is more of a formality, as pastors’ credentials are held at the conference level.
- As membership in Mennonite World Conference is derived through the national denomination (MC USA), the exiting conference will no longer be a member of the worldwide communion.
- Congregations will no longer have access to the Ministerial Leadership Inquiry system and database, which provides access to and vets pastoral candidates and also provides cost-efficient criminal background checks.
- MC USA Executive Board members, appointees and representatives who are members of a congregation that chooses to disaffiliate will no longer be able to serve in those roles. (Two MC USA-appointees from Mosaic currently serve on the board of directors of Mennonite Education Agency.)
- Conferences that are covered by MC USA’s Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3), group exemption nonprofit status will maintain that coverage until MC USA files its updated documentation with the Internal Revenue Service annually in April. (Mosaic has its own 501(c) (3) designation.)
- Congregations will still have access to The Corinthian Plan, MC USA’s health care plan for pastors and church workers, as existing congregations are “grandfathered” into the plan.
- Constituents will have access to the publicly available services of its agencies (MennoMedia, Mennonite Education Agency and Mennonite Mission Network) and its ministry partners (Everence and MHS Association). However, members of disaffiliated conferences will no longer be eligible for grants and scholarships provided by the denomination and its agencies, such as the Justice Fund and the MEA Scholarship for BIPOC Students.
For questions regarding MC USA affiliation, please contact Michael Danner here.