In its final chapter of Revelation, the Bible ends with imagery of the tree of life. I love that Scripture is bookended with creation, healing, and abundance.
Mennonite Men’s JoinTrees campaign is rooted in the biblical call to care for God’s creation. Our campaign is not only intended to reduce the harmful effects of climate change, but also to be life-giving to creatures, people, faith communities, and ecosystems. Tree planting efforts create jobs as well as hope. Together, the JoinTrees campaign enables you to participate in reconciliation and restoration as active agents in repair, rooted in love.
As our fiscal year comes to a close July 31 and a new budget cycle begins August 1, we hope for a strong finish and a strong beginning. Tree planting efforts in central Illinois, Elkhart County (Indiana), Kenya, and Indonesia are being funded and getting underway. Many of the trees being planted will help reduce pressures to cut down native forests.
Please pray for the JoinTrees ministry of tree planting and creation care, including our partners in North America and across the globe. Gifts from individuals, family estates, companies, congregations, and conferences towards the JoinTrees campaign are welcomed, and these gifts make a difference!
Mennonite Men is engaged in exciting work with the JoinHands ministry. In the past few months, we have received requests from congregations on the African continent who are without a place to worship. We are humbled to learn of the barriers that our sisters and brothers in Global South countries face which hinder their abilities to build or purchase a church structure and what it means to gather without a secure space. Partnering across continents and across cultures takes relational commitment, patience for all partners, becoming educated about that a project actually entails to get started, and almost always more time than is often desired by both partners. Our commitment to this work and ministry remains, and we are committed to remain rooted in the love and grace and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Being committed to learning, patience, relational care, and the ways of Jesus naturally means that we are constantly being confronted with needs to adapt and change. There are new opportunities to not just share money with congregations but to root ourselves more intentionally in longstanding relationship. We realize ministry involves more than financial transaction, and we long to deepen our commitments to congregations who receive JoinHands grants. This could involve collaborative partnerships with church agencies and other nonprofits, Zoom calls to build connection and understanding with congregations receiving grants, follow-up communication, in-person visits where both parties mutually bear witness, and perhaps modifying our grant application and grant policies. Who knows what the future might hold. But surely the future involves more capacity and engagement.
As Mennonite Men wraps up its fiscal year and begins a new fiscal year August 1, we ask you as our partners to continue praying for the projects in North America and across the world that are in process and for new grant applications we have yet to receive. We ask you to continue believing in our ministry by helping us grow the pool of available resources to new congregations and to spread the word to new congregations in your area, your province, your conference that we are open to receiving JoinHands grant applications. Let’s be creative! Contact us if you have ideas, dreams, and new energy for this longstanding ministry of Mennonite Men.
After a few years of waiting to adopt a child, my wife and I received an e-mail on a Sunday afternoon that changed our lives. Hours before folks at church asked me for updates about our adoption. I didn’t have much to say. After an afternoon nap, I awoke to hear my wife tell me we got an e-mail from our adoption agency titled “new adoption case—mother in labor.”
Before she had read the full e-mail aloud, we got a text from our adoption agency. This mom was choosing between us and just one other couple. We were e-mailed four questions to answer as soon as possible. After hitting send, we got a call minutes later.
“The mom read your answers, and she is choosing you two. Can you buy plane tickets and fly out here tomorrow?”
We said yes, and the rest is history still unfolding.
This wild adoption story is our lived reality. It’s far too fresh and too personal to share all details. However, there is witness to bear. Far from home, we’ve encountered the love of Christ and the gifts of the Spirit around every corner—in Uber rides to and from the hospital, in free meals from Ronald McDonald house, and in the holy and vulnerable conversations with nurses, doctors, hospital volunteers, and other new parents facing uncertainty. My wife and I have sudden situations where we are asked about our faith commitments, including with random strangers and a birth mother. I’m frequently in situations where I ponder gender and how masculinity gets expressed, experienced, and tested—in talking with other men (including total strangers) about fatherhood, being one of many fathers experiencing the stress of sudden and difficult births, and in being a new dad with a male baby boy spending many hours a day in a hospital wing filled with babies, young moms, and a female-majority nursing staff. I’m learning to be a man in new ways. And I’m learning to be a dad.
My wife and I joke that I’m in ‘Dad School’. I’m an enrolled student, living the lessons and drinking from a firehose while doggy paddling. Many males throughout the US and Canada, throughout MCUSA and MC Canada, and all over the world are also going through ‘Dad School’ too or will be in the future. But many of us don’t have male friends, don’t have a men’s group, don’t have a positive father figure or male family member, and don’t have faith for guidance and support during the testing experiences of Dad School. On the other side of that coin, there are many boys in need of love and support from a dad or father figure. The tiny baby boy in many hands is one of them. We all do.
Father’s Day may have been celebrated back in June, but being a father is an experience and an honor that many of us will practice daily for much of our lives. But being a father is not like a once-a-week Sunday worship service and not once-a-year holiday. Fatherhood is an ongoing commitment. In trying to practice Anabaptist faith, being a father will be shaped by trying to follow in the ways of Jesus, being rooted in community, and actively participating in reconciliation. My journey as a father is just beginning, yet I am confident that I will need help from male peers, role models, family members, and my faith community along the way. Being in a men’s group, having male friendships where I can be honest about what’s hard and what’s beautiful, and being in spaces where I am accountable to respecting women and supporting mothers suddenly feels more important than ever before.
I look at this new baby boy and hope I will try my best to be a good father. I hope we can navigate this crazy life together as a team. I hope I can continue learning from him what it means to come to Jesus as a child. And I hope I can model for him my attempts at serving God and being a co-creator in the peaceable kin-dom where all of God’s people and all of creation is cared for and respected.
To all the fathers, grandfathers, uncles, male mentors, and stand-in male father figures out there, thank you for taking part in the life of a child. It will be hard, we will mess up, and there is much joy and reward to experience regardless. It’s holy work. Let’s join together to walk the Good Road with each other. Visit www.mennonitemen.org/joinmen and reach out to Mennonite Men for resources and ideas of how to join with other men on this journey.
In the fall of 2021 the small and new Greencroft tree committee started to correspond with Steve Thomas in response to concerns about a high, piercing chirp (think one chirp from an very angry crow every 8 seconds, 24/7 except on Sunday mornings) from a foundry behind the Greencroft Oak and Maple courts. Steve was then the US director of Mennonite Men. Also included in those conversations was the supervisor in the forestry operations at NIPSCO (our local source for electricity), the wildlife biologist for Indiana’s Department of Natural Resources, a persistent and frustrated resident in one of the courts who had been in conversations with the foundry manager regarding noise abatement, the Goshen city forester and Greencroft’s director of Resident Life Services.
Steve submitted a grant proposal that fall of 2021 to Mennonite Men JoinTrees, it was approved and the money was set aside. It appeared to those of us living here that there was no substantial progress for a sound & visual barrier made of trees. Our dreams and hopes for managing the foundry’s noise faded. Residents had been complaining about the noise for at least 50 years. An untended, wild hedgerow had grown up; it muted the noise a little bit but not enough for a legal limit in a residential setting.
After 2021, things changed: the director of Resident Life Services retired, the supervisor of forestry operations at NIPSCO took another job, the Greencroft tree committee disbanded, mostly due to health issues and a new tree committee formed. The chirping from the foundry continued, day in and day out. Fortunately for us, Steve, the city forester and Greencroft’s director of facilities and plant operations really, really wanted this project to come to pass. They kept our dream alive!
Steve revisited the proposal again in 2025 to plant 400 Norway Spruce and 215 Eastern Red Cedar trees on land north of the foundry and in the bean field just south of the Greencroft boundary. Steve established a good relationship with the plant manager and within 10 minutes, he helped Steve obtain official permission from the landowner in New York to plant on the land. Steve arranged for a tree company to plant the trees with their tractor; they planted over 600 trees on 2 1/2 acres in 2 1/2 —3 hours. It was impressive and fun to watch the planting!
About 15 of us gathered to bless the trees about 9 days after they were planted. A former Greencroft CEO (now a resident) was there; Steve Thomas came; the city forester attended. Most of the members of the first tree committee were there and quite a few of the watering volunteers came too. Some grateful residents from the courts who listen to the constant chirping attended.
Steve reminded us that the ancestors of these trees are our elders; they have been on this earth longer than we have. He asked us to consider what we can learn from them.
The city forester thanked us—his elders— for planting & caring for these trees. He told us he’s 52 and when he retires here in 20 years, these trees will be just great!
BLESSING THE TREES
Norway Spruce and Eastern Red Cedar trees, we give you our blessings.
May you grow well—roots down, leaves up. May you care well for each other and for Greencroft residents.
We give you thanks for doing what trees do: stay in one place, grow, provide a place for the birds to build nests, inspire us, show us how to wait, (pause while others offer specific thanks). We thank you, trees, for your wisdom of photosynthesis. We thank you too for your shelter for us. Especially right now we thank you for the sound barrier you will eventually provide from the noisy factory nearby.
May we water in anticipation of our children, our grandchildren and others who will come to live at Greencroft.
We give you thanks, Creator of our universe, for our planet which is our home. We are grateful for our little corner of the world.
We give thanks to you, Sacred Mystery, for light, for the sun, water, oxygen, for your breath of life, (pause while others offer specific thanks).
We give thanks, Creator God, for these trees and we give thanks for our energy to prepare this land for the people who will come here after us.
JoinHands: A Story from Windsor Mennonite Fellowship
Mennonite Men has given out dozens of JoinHands grants to new congregations throughout Canada, the United States, and in countries all over the world who wish to acquire a building where they can worship. Many people have been blessed by owning a church building with help from JoinHands grants. Church buildings can make it possible not only for folks to gather for worship and study, but also as spaces to share meals, host community conversations, build relationships, and bear witness to God’s Kin’dom and wide welcome. And we celebrate the many ways that congregations gather. This doesn’t always involve use of or owning a building.
I recently followed up with Windsor Mennonite Fellowship (WMF), a congregation in Windsor, Ontario who received a JoinHands grant from Mennonite Men back in 1993. Though pastor Riley was away at the time, I was thrilled to get an e-mail response from an elder named Nate Hope to share updates about the congregation more recently. Nate came from a Pentecostal background and had worked in construction but now is a church elder at WMF and a full-time social work student working for the Downtown Windsor Community Collaborative. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Nate and catching a glimpse of Windsor Mennonite Fellowship, a Mennonite Church Canada congregation just miles from Detroit in the US.
“Our church building was once a laundromat in the neighborhood,” Nate explained. “The congregation was able to purchase and renovate this structure. We created a sanctuary, a nursery, and a kitchen and dining area in the back. It’s a small space, but we’ve made it work. Space is even becoming tight now.”
Nate shared that WMF shares the space with an Eritrean congregation called Shalom Worship and Healing Centre. This sister congregation worships on Sunday afternoons, also utilizing the building for a prayer service and choir during the week. Both congregations take turns with the space, requiring scheduling. There have even been times when WMF held their elders meeting at another congregation’s building because their sister congregation was using the space.
Windsor Mennonite Fellowship has experienced a good deal of change in recent years, especially around the time the COVID-19 pandemic set in. A new pastor came. The congregation developed a statement to become an inclusive and welcoming congregation. Also before the pandemic, many congregants came from Mennonite backgrounds. Many families who moved back to smaller communities where they’d grown up decided to stay in those smaller communities when the pandemic subsided. Meanwhile, many newer folks in Windsor began attending WMF.
“When our current pastor Riley came, he was well-known in town, and a number of new folks began attending who were new to a Mennonite faith. But they felt comfortable coming here, and Riley and others made them feel welcome. Like many churches during the pandemic, we began offering online services and changed our worship format to include 15-20 min sermons and the same amount of time devoted to sharing dialogue afterwards. We have keep that format, which folks appreciate,” Nate shared.
Thank you to all supporters of Mennonite Men’s ministry of helping new congregations purchase a worship space. Pray for Windsor Mennonite Fellowship, for its collaborative sharing of space with another congregation, and the future relationships being deepened throughout Windsor, Ontario and throughout the wider church. If you know of a new congregation looking to purchase a building, inform them about our JoinHands grant program. We continue inviting your support for future grants to new congregations.
The Christian Bible gives us four accounts of Jesus. We see different angles of Jesus—Jesus as a baby, as an adolescent, and as an adult man. Jesus appears to his disciples after his death. Stories describe his birth and his brutal execution, his adult experiences of escaping to wilderness for prayer, walking long distances, healing sick people and casting out demons, crossing boundaries and facing taboo head-on, feeding others, riding on donkeys unarmed. As a male Jesus had a life full of experiences that involved risk.
Here in 2026 living on the North American continent, displays of masculinity constantly confront us in the media, online, at sporting events, and in politics. Boys and men daily see images of men who dominate on the field, in the bedroom, and in the workplace. Often the images in ads are of men alone, solo heroes. We see men who refuse to admit wrong-doing, men who abuse and steal without consequences, men driving big trucks through rivers and over huge boulders, men worshipped for their chiseled bodies. Men are portrayed as above reproach, measured by their financial worth, have things under control and are in control.
These images are vastly different than what we hear in the stories of Jesus. The Jesus I witness was a man who forgave others, a man who left behind a normal way of life in order to share good news and help others who suffer, a man who wept openly and cried out to God, centered love and service, could express joy and took time to celebrate with friends, and regularly depended on a group of men. The Jesus I read about was not married with children, did not own a house or many possessions, was bullied and taunted and threatened, and didn’t retaliate towards enemies. He was obedient to that which was beyond him, to his Creator. He believed in the power of prayer. He was willing to publicly die in a humiliating way. I can only imagine the kind of bullying, name-calling, and taunting Jesus would experience if living in 2026.
Are we—am I—ready to follow Jesus?
Following Jesus as a male in 2026 in North America is feeling pretty radical. Let’s be real. We—myself included—are continually tempted to believe that we don’t need help from others, that work and making money are more important than offering love and service, that “our” time is better spent working out than in prayer and fellowship. Porn, fierce competition, displays of unfiltered anger and violence, and celebrations of war and military service abound. This can all feel overwhelming. I believe we men need support, a healthy sense of self, a commitment to prayer, and vulnerable brotherly community to follow Jesus’ alternative path.
If you identify as male and you’re reading this right now, I hope you know that you are not alone if you are struggling to resist the forces that bombard us as men. I hope you know that your life, your story, your gifts, your body, the person that you are really matters in this life and beyond. I hope you can hear God’s voice that calls your name, that you feel permission to lean into the messages of Jesus, rejecting false idols of empire and domination.
I hope you’ll join other men who want to try to follow Jesus. If you (or another male in your life) do not have community, consider attending a men’s retreat or to join or start a men’s group, which could be an online group. Identify a friend, family member, co-worker, therapist, pastor, or another mature person you trust who might help you connect or might even join you in your search for fellowship. Reach out to us at Mennonite Men by e-mail for ideas. Explore our resources, books, and videos found at https://mennonitemen.org/joinmen/. Brothers, you are in our prayers.
On the first full weekend of March, twenty-eight men gathered at Camp Friedenswald in southern Michigan for a Mennonite Men retreat. The COVID-19 pandemic and other reasons had led to a pause in this annual retreat for several years, and many celebrated its return. Rarely, if ever, had this retreat been offered in the spring during the Lenten season. One never knows if early March in the Midwest could bring snowstorms, thunderstorms, or heavy rain, all capable of canceling a retreat. But despite a nearby tornado on Friday afternoon, weather did not cancel this long-anticipated gathering. Praise God!
The theme, Becoming Malleable Men: Practicing Faith and Being Formed, was shaped largely by Mike Martin, Executive Director of RAWtools. Unfortunately, Mike came down with the flu days before and was unable to travel from Colorado. Nonetheless, gifted camp staff and his already-prepared content allowed the retreat to proceed, one where we truly practiced malleability together. All arrived safely, even those coming from as far as Wisconsin and Colorado.
Throughout the weekend, God’s creation provided rich symbolism for unpredictability, beauty, and adaptability. Heavy rain and thunder on Friday night moved our campfire indoors, where the fireplace and acoustics drew us together beautifully for prayer and singing. Several men jumped into icy Shavehead Lake on both Saturday and Sunday morning, a real bonding experience. Saturday’s mild weather allowed a hike to see thousands of young native trees planted through a Mennonite Men JoinTrees grant, and camp staff Amy Huser and Jonathan Fridley shared about land management and creation care.
Saturday afternoon was a highlight for many. Optional activities included disc golf, cutting invasives, archery, forging metal, and chopping wood as service to camp. The evening closed with popcorn and fireside singing at Mosquito Hollow, a long and beloved camp tradition.
A focal point of the weekend was forging metal pieces brought from home alongside decommissioned weapon parts from RAWtools’ peacemaking programs. Volunteers Jerry Martin and Abenezer Dejene guided us as we worked in pairs, each altering their partner’s forged piece in some way. Letting others shape our work physically teaches us to learn from one another rather than compete for control.
On Saturday night, we forged in the dark by headlamp, then reflected in small groups. Mike Martin’s words have stayed with me: “The transformation I see at the anvil has so much carry-over into our transformation throughout life. It connects to conflict and harm and repair and reconciliation. We have plenty of good things that have shaped us as well.”
Sunday morning brought bird watching led by college student Peter Moser, then outdoor worship in glorious sunshine. We sang hymns as we attached our forged pieces to a tree-like sculpture, left at camp as a lasting memory of our gathering. We ended in a prayer circle, new bonds formed.
Abenezer put it well: “At the Mennonite Men’s retreat, I had an opportunity to fellowship with other men from diverse walks of life. We shared stories about the individuals who have influenced our lives, and took part in forging a piece of gun into something beautiful. The retreat provided a chance to test whether I had forgotten my blacksmithing skills and to reflect on my malleability as one shaped in the likeness of Christ. The fellowship and experience at the Mennonite Men’s retreat were a time of learning and reflection on how we can be shaped to serve others.”
A question many often ask: do men really need to gather?
My answer: yes! As brothers and participants in God’s kin-dom, we need each other. Our stories matter. This was echoed by male retreat participants in their evaluation forms. They noted that the vulnerable sharing, small group time, singing, and sharing aloud “I Am From” poems we wrote were the highlights of the weekend.
Frankly, it’s rare to find sacred spaces where male sharing is deep and personal, where there is trust and respect even when our male experiences and realities differ. Building trust, becoming malleable, and listening well to one another takes practice. We can look to biblical stories of Jesus and the disciples for examples.
These are challenging times for men in the US, in Canada, and all over the world. I hope you find other men to connect with, be it one-on-one for coffee, in a small group, or at a retreat. Stay tuned for the next Mennonite Men retreat, or reach out if you want to organize a retreat in your neck of the woods.
On Sunday March 15, Eastside Church in Harrisonburg, VA celebrated its 16th anniversary as a congregation. While on a Mennonite Men visit to Virginia, I had the pleasure to see the building firsthand and later had a conversation with one of the pastors about Eastside past and present.
For many years the congregation rented worship space, and as many can attest, renting worship space can present some challenges and constraints. “I don’t know what we would have done during COVID if we were still worshipping in a school,” said pastor Peter Eberly.
In November 2021 Eastside Church moved into its current building, having raised enough money to purchase the building and secure a loan. Among several sources of funding, Mennonite Men’s JoinHands program awarded the congregation a $40,000 grant, representing about 10% of the funds Eastside needed to make the purchase possible. Skipping ahead to 2026, the congregation just paid off one of its loans this week, perfect timing for a celebration.
I asked pastor Peter Eberly what impacts the new building has had on the life and mission of the congregation.
“First of all, our current church building’s location is near a busy intersection. I estimate that 25% of our current congregation has started attending since we moved into this space. People see our sign when driving by and decide to check us out,” said Eberly.
Current attendance at Eastside is approximately 200 people on a given Sunday. Pastor Eberly noted the remarkable variety of groups and activities now filling the building.
“Upstairs we have two tenants who pay rent to use space. On Friday nights, we have over 100 college students come to use our space through Young Life. On Saturday we have a training for Isaiah1:17 House, an organization providing physical and emotional support for children awaiting foster placement. On Sunday mornings we have Haitian folks who come for worship, and after the service many of them stick around for prayer. All of this is possible because we have space,” says Eberly.
I could tell from our conversation that Eastside is a unique congregation and has taken deliberate action to meet people on their faith journey and articulate an Anabaptist commitment. I could also sense this when reading about them on their website, which states:
We are firmly in the Anabaptist tradition, but do not find our value or identity within denominationalism. We strive to translate Anabaptist faith to this generation by lowering cultural hurdles, speaking God’s truth to political powers and setting our sights on the Kingdom of God.
Join us in praying for Eastside Church and for congregations throughout the U.S., Canada, and around the world who are trying to build their ministry, live out their faith as followers of Jesus, and secure a safe place for worship.
Mennonite Men’s JoinHands grant program continues to accept applications for new Anabaptist congregations pursuing the purchase of their first worship space. We hope to receive applications from congregations in 2026, and also want to raise additional funds to bolster this ministry program. Access to funding for purchasing a building can be challenging for new congregations, and we want to help, continuing Mennonite Men’s long tradition of helping grow the church. To learn more or to donate to this ministry, visit https://mennonitemen.org/joinhands/ today.
Our joint peace and tree-planting delegation of 25 people, representing Mennonite Men and the Mennonite Palestine-Israel Network, recently returned from Palestine. We heard firsthand reports of the brutal reality of Israel’s occupation: a history of ethnic cleansing, concentration of families into refugee camps, random acts of violence to terrorize Palestinians, the demolition of homes and schools, the seizure of farmland, the choking restriction of movement. All of this is designed to make life miserable, to push Palestinians off their land or to provoke resistance so Israeli military can unleash greater violence against them.
Illegal Israeli settlements and outposts are spreading like a cancer across Palestinian land. While we could not enter Gaza, we are acutely aware of the horrific genocide occurring there since October 7, 2023. Despite this suffering, we were deeply moved by the resilient spirit of the Palestinians we met and the creative, nonviolent ways Christian and Muslim peace organizations continue to resist.
Why This is Our Concern
Our delegation’s mission aligns directly with the aims of Mennonite Men: “standing with marginalized people for diversity and inclusion” and “transforming oppressive systems for freedom and justice” as we seek to “live into God’s shalom.”
As Americans and Mennonites, we cannot remain silent for several reasons:
Complicity: Our tax dollars enable the occupation through billions in military aid.
Connection: Many Israeli settlers and soldiers are U.S. citizens who were recruited by Israel.
Theology: “Christian Zionism” in U.S. churches endorses Israel’s occupation in God’s name.
Greater actions of political witness, accompaniment, boycott, and divestment could influence the United States government to withdraw its military support for Israel. This would drastically limit Israel’s ability to continue its oppression and expansion in Palestine.
The Expanding Occupation and “Greater Israel”
Maps of the region illustrate a devastating loss of Palestinian land. Since 2012, settlement expansion has accelerated; today, over 350 illegal settlements and outposts house more than 700,000 Israelis on stolen land according to international law.
Source: Palestine Portal
There is a growing fear that this expansion will not stop at Palestine’s borders. During our return flight, an Arab Christian shared with me the widespread fear among Jordanians that Israel intends to invade Jordan, citing Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon and the “Greater Israel” plan. This vision, originally mapped by Theodor Herzl, encompasses not only Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, but also Jordan, Lebanon, and parts of Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.
This “Greater Israel” ideology relies on a literal interpretation of biblical covenants (such as Genesis 15:18–21) for a Jewish state stretching from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq. This is no longer a fringe idea:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed strong support for this vision last August.
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee recently suggested it would be “fine if they [Israel] took it all.”
Confronting the Roots: Zionism as Colonialism
To achieve peace, we must confront the underlying Zionist ideology. Dr. Mazin B. Qumsiyeh explained to our group that Zionism drives displacement-based settler colonialism like the colonization of the Americas. This confronts us with our history and also calls us to act in solidarity with with Indigenous peoples in pursuit of justice.
We also met with Dr. Munther Isaac, a Palestinian pastor and theologian known for his “Christ in the Rubble” message. Isaac defines Jewish Zionism and Christian Zionism as ideologies of supremacy and racism that dehumanize Palestinians. His research highlights several critical points:
Tribal Deity: Zionism makes God a “racist tribal deity” favoring one ethnic group over others.
Bad Theology: It falsely equates the modern secular State of Israel with biblical Israel.
Tool of Empire: Zionism serves as a colonial project and a tool of Western empire, using “divine mandate” to sanctify ethnic cleansing, political crimes, and apartheid.
Call to Repentance: Isaac calls for Christians to repent for their complicity in the “genocidal project” in Gaza and proposes an alternate theology where the Holy Land is “God’s Land”—intended to be shared by all, not possessed exclusively by one (illustrated in photo below).
On February 15, worshipping in a church in Bethlehem, we sang God of Grace and God of Glory. Let these words be our prayer and our call to action against the “warring madness” of our time:
“…Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, lest we miss thy kingdom’s goal, lest we miss thy kingdom’s goal.”
Postscript
The day after I completed this report in February, the United States, together with Israel, bombed Iran. This, like Israel’s war in Gaza, violates international law and has unleashed violence against countless innocent lives. With world attention focused on the larger region, Israeli settlers and soldiers have escalated violent aggression against innocent Palestinian communities.
A few weeks ago, I was in downtown Goshen for a midday meeting and encountered high school students marching to the Goshen courthouse square. I was moved to see so many young people taking prophetic public action. Many of them were youth I recognized from nearby Mennonite congregations.
One of the youth was Isaya Magatti, a high school junior I know from church who is part of the Mennonite Youth Fellowship (MYF) group. The next day I saw him and several other MYF members in photos from the march included in our congregation’s weekly prayer and sharing email. On a number of occasions, I’ve had a chance to hear Isaya read Scripture aloud and make announcements in Sunday morning worship. His maturity, sincerity, prophetic voice, and heart for justice are noteworthy. It being Black History Month, I felt it could be a good opportunity to hear from a teenager who identifies as a Black male and possibly write an article for our Mennonite Men newsletter. I reached out to Isaya’s father, Tobias, to see about interviewing Isaya, and I was grateful that he and Isaya agreed.
Meeting up with Isaya for a conversation was both a good opportunity to hear about his experiences and to share about Mennonite Men. First, we talked about the MCUSA convention back in July that we both attended and its theme, “Follow Jesus”. I asked how that theme and phrase lands for him.
“’Follow Jesus’ encompasses faith, following Jesus’ example and his radical approach to making good in the world. It makes me want to do good in the world, too.”
When I shared our Mennonite Men mission statement—engaging men to grow, give, and serve as followers of Jesus for God’s shalom—with Isaya, I was moved to hear his reflections.
“The last part of Mennonite Men’s mission statement, “…for God’s shalom,” is a good reminder of the end goal, of why we give, grow, and serve, and why we try to follow Jesus”, says Isaya. “It’s for God’s shalom.”
I asked Isaya what feels significant to him about Black History Month and why it is important to him personally. Sharing that his mom is from the U.S. and his dad is from Tanzania, he expressed there is a difference for him in relating to Black History as a first-generation American and as someone with an African father. At times he feels more connection to the words “African” and “American” separately.
“I don’t feel all that connected to the history of Black culture in the U.S. That said, the reason I even exist is due to the Civil Rights movement and the legalization of interracial marriages, which is only about 60 years old. That’s not that long ago. So, I do feel a really direct connection to the Civil Rights movement.”
Our conversation wove between topics of what it’s like having brothers, service trips for youth and young people, and how masculinity shows up in everyday life. Isaya had important points to make and questions pertaining to how Mennonite males can show up online.
“How do we follow Jesus in online spaces? How do we cultivate community in our online age?” he asked.
“Part of being people of faith is being in right relationship with other people. This includes how we interact with others online. Masculinity portrayed online is usually communicated as taking control, not being weak, and making sure you can dominate situations. I wonder how we as Mennonites can discuss masculinity online with other men, including with those who fully believe in a masculinity of domination.”
“There is relationship happening online, both good and bad. It’s also important to build community outside the online world,” he concluded.
Men having authentic and respectful conversation with other men of differing life experiences, ages, and racial identities can be a powerful and transformative experience. I believe that Christ can show up in our midst as we relate in this way. Though not always the case, we men might also experience greater trust, curiosity, solidarity, joy, and friendship with each other as well. These are gifts of the Spirit.
Join me in praying for Isaya and other young Black male Mennonites who strive to follow Jesus and usher in the kin-dom of God by building relationships. I look forward to ways Mennonite Men can encourage, deeply listen to, and act on the questions, ideas, and leadership gifts of our Black brothers in the Mennonite Church and beyond.
