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Blog Post
As the featured speaker at Hope for the Future (HFF) in January 2016, Isaac Villegas offered these reflections on the theme of “Love is a verb” as a way into the Bible passage assigned to him for the gathering: Ephesians 4:15-16. This part three of his series of three talks. “But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building...
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Blog Post
As the featured speaker at Hope for the Future (HFF) in January 2016, Isaac Villegas offered these reflections on the theme of “Love is a verb” as a way into the Bible passage assigned to him for the gathering: Ephesians 4:15-16. This part two of his series of three talks. “But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building...
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Blog Post
As the featured speaker at Hope for the Future (HFF) in January 2016, Isaac Villegas offered these reflections on the theme of “Love is a Verb” as a way into the Bible passage assigned to him for the gathering: Ephesians 4:15-16. This is part one of his series of three talks. “But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in...
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Blog Post
Shannon Schaefer is a Master of Divinity candidate at Duke Divinity School and a member of Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Her interests lie at the intersection of theology of the body, the arts, and creation, and she is particularly intrigued by how these concerns might take shape in the context of congregational life. When not in the classroom or with her head in a book, she can be found drinking cheap coffee with friends, hiking trails near the Eno River, knitting or discussing the meaning of life with her 12-year-old son, Luke. Perhaps it is...
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By Kate Lichti (Mennonite Church USA) — As Mennonite Church USA lifts up “Love is a Verb” stories from around the church, Kenton Derstine, director and supervisor of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) and associate professor of Supervised Ministry at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Harrisonburg, Virginia, reminds us that transformational ministry is happening outside of the church walls, as well. Specifically, Mennonite chaplains are bringing Anabaptist faith to bear on their service in a variety of institutional settings. Since the 1930’s, Clinical Pastoral Education has been the foundational training program for spiritual care providers working in hospitals, prisons, hospices, nursing homes...
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Blog Post
Danielle Miller lives, works and plays in San Antonio, Texas. When not attempting to instill a love of reading and writing to middle school students, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends: swimming to beat the heat, reading together, enjoying the natural world inside and outside of the city, and learning new things together. I am a teacher. Not only am I a teacher, but I am a teacher of 7th graders (I know, right?). I headed back to school this fall to prepare for a new year with these students who I know are clearly not adults,...
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Jill Stemple gets to see the world of mental health from both sides as a grant manager for the Pennsylvania Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and a person living with mental illness. Her hands are rarely still between quilting, knitting, collaging and gardening. She is a member of Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster. She and her very spoiled cat, Liv, make their home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Not all that long ago I “came out” to my church about my long standing mental illness and even more recently I shared that story with the larger church in The...
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Blog Post
Sara Mwagura just moved back to her home state of North Dakota and is clinging to the last days of summer by taking her daughter out for lots of walks along the Red River. She works as a lead teacher at the Wellness Center Child Care at North Dakota State University. In true toddler fashion, my two-year-old daughter stood in the woods on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon engrossed for a good 20 minutes with the dullest-looking little thing in nature — a dried up bush full of burrs. At first we worked together to stack them on top of each...
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Blog Post
Jonathan Beachy and his family spent over 30 years in Paraguay working with different Mennonite organizations. Late in 2005 it seemed right to return to the states to prepare for retirement, but ties to Paraguay were too strong. And so he and his wife Ruth returned there to retire in March. San Antonio (Texas) Mennonite Church continues to be a spiritual base, although they are active participants in a Spanish-speaking Mennonite church near their home in Asunción. For the past 20 years I have had a variety of roles that put me in the path of people held within the...
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By Kate Lichti (Mennonite Church USA) — When you ask Duane and Elaine Maust, co-pastors at Jubilee Mennonite Church in Meridian, Mississippi, about outreach at their church, they don’t quite know where to begin. It’s easy to tick off a list of programs: two food pantries, a mentoring program, a “free store,” a moms’ group, and leadership at a youth summer camp, for starters. Located in a downtown neighborhood that bears the burdens of poverty, addiction and crime, Jubilee serves as a crucial support network. But to speak of “outreach” doesn’t quite capture Jubilee. “Outreach” could imply reaching out from...
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Blog Post
Sarah Jacoby is currently a Master of Divinity student at Duke Divinity School, where she recently finished a summer chaplaincy program at Duke Hospital. Originally from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, she hails most recently from western New York, where her experience attending Sojourners Mennonite Fellowship in Belfast, New York brought her into the Mennonite fold. She enjoys being in the woods, long conversations over deep cups of coffee and all things peanut butter and chocolate. I knock on the partially opened door and slip my head into the room. “Hello, Ms. _________? My name is Sarah, and I’m a chaplain here at...
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Meghan Florian is a writer from Durham, North Carolina, where she teaches at William Peace University and the Center for Theological Writing at Duke Divinity School. She is the Creative Writing Editor at The Other Journal, and blogs at www.femmonite.com. As I contemplate this phrase, “Love is a Verb,” I feel stuck. Stuck, because I wrote my master’s thesis on love. Stuck, because I grew up listening to DC Talk sing, “Words come easy but don't mean much / When the words they're sayin' we can't put trust in / We're talkin' 'bout love in a different light / And...
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Catherine Thiel Lee is a chaplain, preacher and writer, working at University of North Carolina Hospitals and serving her congregation at Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship. She has a Master of Divinity from Regent College and has worked with refugee claimants in Vancouver, British Columbia. Catherine lives, plays, reads and lovingly tends a scrappy garden in Chapel Hill with her husband, Michael, and two sons. Florence is a verb “God chose what is weak in the world.” 1 Corinthians 1:27 Florence knits hats for preemies. We sit in her sparse assisted living facility on the eve of...
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(Mennonite Church USA) — On Aug. 7, Reverend Al Taylor of Infinity Mennonite Church in Harlem, New York, will head west, on foot, towards Paterson, New Jersey. It’s a 20-mile trek from his starting point in Manhattan, but just the first leg of a 34-day prayer walk from New York City to Chicago. Taylor’s project, called “It’s a Love Thing,” will span seven states and 780 miles, aiming to offer a message of hope and unity and catalyze change in troubled times. “This...
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Blog Post
Alison Brookins is a seminarian at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary where she will soon earn the wildly inaccurate title Master of Divinity. Hailing from Madison, Wisconsin, Alison is spending the summer in the clammy valley of Harrisonburg, Virginia, interning with Ted & Co TheaterWorks. She loves words and science fiction and community organizing and laughing often as possible. Love is comic. It takes you deeper. It is honest. It delights. Love goes on tour and shares of itself. I am Ted Swartz’s intern at Ted & Co. TheaterWorks. It’s a bit hard to explain what this means. Sometimes it means...
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