Category: JoinHands

​In March, 2021, a Brazilian congregation, Igreja Evangélica Vida Nova (New Life) was awarded a JoinHands grant from Mennonite Men to aid construction of a new church building. Since acquiring the property, the congregation has been making improvements to the space, first meeting on the sidewalk bordering the property and then purchasing a spacious tent to house their services and other activities.

A storm in early 2021 destroyed their tent but the setback only sped up the building process. They constructed a much simpler tent as a temporary meeting space and decided it was time to begin building the permanent church structure. In June, the congregation held its first service on the pad of their new building.

Mennonite Men worked with Mennonite Mission Network (MMN) to identify Vida Nova along with Samogohiri Mennonite Church in Burkina Faso and Igreja Evangélica Menonita em Lago Azul in Brazil, as congregations that were working to construct a church building.

In addition to the international grants, Mennonite Men also granted funds to Eastside Church, a congregation of Virginia Mennonite Conference in Harrisonburg, Virginia. They are currently raising funds for a grant to assist Hmong Mennonite Church, a congregation of Mountain State Mennonite Conference in Westminster, Colorado that is made up of Hmong people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group.

JoinHands grants are dispersed when awarded grants are fully funded. We rely on the support of the Mennonite Men community to fill these grants and assist congregations with the building of their first meeting space. Since JoinHands began as Tenth Man in 1985, the program has distributed over $2 million helping churches in the United States, Canada, and in other countries to build or purchase their first building.

Applications for a JoinHands grant, along with details about supporting these projects, can be found at mennonitemen.org/joinhands.

Mennonite Men are assisting five new congregations across three continents with over $107,400 through JoinHands, Mennonite Men’s program to provide grants to help new congregations acquire their first church building. The board of directors of Mennonite Men approved grants at their board meeting on March 27 that will benefit Mennonite churches in Colorado, Virginia, Brazil, and Burkina Faso.

“We’re excited to help provide these new, growing congregations with the space they need to worship and carry out vital ministries,” said Steve Thomas, U.S. coordinator for Mennonite Men.

Mennonite Men worked with Mennonite Mission Network (MMN) to identify Samogohiri Mennonite Church in Burkina Faso and two congregations in Brazil, Igreja Evangélica Vida Nova and Igreja Evangélica Menonita em Lago Azul, as congregations that were working to construct a church building.

“In Brazil, the people of Lago Azul and Vida Nova are excited to receive the JoinHand grant. These funds will help a lot as they are working hard on their church buildings,” said Linda Shelly, MMN’s Regional Director for Latin America.

“The members of Samogohiri Mennonite Church dug the foundation for their building,” said Sharon Norton, co-director for Africa and Europe for MMN. “In order to keep their costs low, they’ve provided a lot of sweat equity, and got members of all ages involved.”

In addition to granting funds internationally, Mennonite Men is also assisting Eastside Church, a congregation of Virginia Mennonite Conference in Harrisonburg, Virginia, as well as Hmong Mennonite Church, a congregation of Mountain State Mennonite Conference in Westminster, Colorado made up of Hmong people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group.

JoinHands, which began in 1985 as Tenth Man, has distributed over $2 million helping churches in the United States, Canada, and in other countries to build or purchase their first building. Learn more at mennonitemen.org/joinhands.

On Sunday, March 14, 2021, Calgary Chin Christian Church celebrated the grand opening of their new church building, as well as marking their 10 year anniversary as a congregation.

Because of the pandemic, the church held a celebratory worship service with a hybrid format, in which some members were present at the new building, while other members and special guests participated via Zoom.

The congregation, a Mennonite Church Alberta congregation, was able to purchase and renovate the building with assistance from a $40,000 grant from JoinHands, Mennonite Men’s program to provide grants to help new congregations acquire their first church building.

Don Neufeld, Coordinator for Mennonite Men in Canada, shared at the event.

“My presence today is about connection. At a basic level it is about connecting our donors and their funds and the needs of your congregation,” said Neufeld. “But this is more than just about money. It is about connection in God’s family and in our joint ministry to see God’s will abound in our world.”

Neufeld expressed appreciation for the opportunity to work with church leadership to make a new church building possible for the congregation.

Calgary Chin Christian Church is made up of Chin people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group from Chin State, Myanmar (Burma).

The church began in June 2010 in the basement of one of the church members, with volunteers teaching songs and Bible verses to children. In January 2011, the congregation was founded, and then joined Mennonite Church Alberta in March 2013. After renting space from another church, with limited space and available time for their activities, church members are looking forward to growing their ministries, including Bible studies, women’s groups, and youth activities.

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This past fall, Mennonite Men presented a grant of $40,000 to African Community Church of Lancaster (ACCL) for their new church building in Manheim, Pennsylvania through JoinHands, Mennonite Men’s program to provide grants to help new congregations acquire their first church building. After renting space from other churches for several years, the congregation recognized the need for their own space so that they could hold longer worship services, prayer meetings, and have increased space for children and youth activities.

The grant from Mennonite Men enables ACCL, an MC USA congregation in Atlantic Coast Conference, to make necessary improvements to the property and furnish some of the rooms in the church building.

While members of the church are taking precautions due to the pandemic, having their own space allows them to expand not only their congregational ministries, but outreach to the community as well.

The congregation, which is made up mostly of members with roots in Eastern and Southern Africa, including Kenya, Nigerian, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, holds an annual summer event inviting neighbors to share African food with them, and they are exploring ways to do a safe, socially-distanced version of the event this summer. They also hold a yearly conference to evangelize and make disciples, which they are looking forward to hosting at their new building in the future.

2020 was Mennonite Men’s biggest year ever for JoinHands, with a total of $170,000 granted to five congregations. Mennonite churches Mennonite Men assisted this year were all ethnic-racial congregations serving African, Chin, Haitian and Hispanic communities of faith.

If your congregation is a Mennonite congregation that is 10 years old or less and is looking to acquire its first building, you can find out more about the JoinHands program at mennonitemen.org/joinhands or by contacting Mennonite Men at mm@mennonitemen.org.

​When the Mennonite Church Manitoba congregation, Riverton Fellowship Circle, decided to close this summer, they decided to ‘pay it forward’ in a number of unique ways. 1. They gave their building to the Riverton Friendship Centre, the drop-in organization they were born out of. 2. They gave $30,000 back to JoinHands (formerly Tenth Man), a program of Mennonite Men that provides grants to help new congregations acquire their first church building. Riverton Fellowship Circle had received a grant from Tenth Man to build their building, and they wanted to enable another congregation to build. 3. They established bursaries for indigenous young people to participate at Camps with Meaning and study at Canadian Mennonite University.

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At the beginning of this year our director, Steve Thomas, was able to present in person a grant of $40,000 to Centro de Alabanza de Filadelfia congregation in Philadelphia, PA.

It began 12 years ago in a living room as a growth group and later started doing services in public with the Philadelphia Praise Center community. The congregation is located in a strategic place that allows them to develop several ministries with the community, such as collecting clothes and giving them to the most needy people. Centro has been developing an environment of community and brotherhood.

The congregation is unusually active in its life and work together—with worship services on Sundays and Tuesdays, Bible studies on Thursdays and Saturdays, women’s service groups, weekly youth meetings, and focused outreach in their community. Their youth meet weekly for fellowship and study and frequently help lead worship and distribute food in the community. The church is also active with Instituto Bíblico Anabautista (Anabaptist Biblical Institute). A significant part of their ministry is providing a safe place amid drugs, gangs, violence, racism and anti-immigrant attitudes in their community and meeting the needs of immigrants in their neighborhoods.

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At the beginning of this year our director, Steve Thomas, was able to present in person a grant of $40,000 to Centro de Alabanza de Filadelfia congregation in Philadelphia, PA.

It began 12 years ago in a living room as a growth group and later started doing services in public with the Philadelphia Praise Center community. The congregation is located in a strategic place that allows them to develop several ministries with the community, such as collecting clothes and giving them to the most needy people. Centro has been developing an environment of community and brotherhood.

The congregation is unusually active in its life and work together—with worship services on Sundays and Tuesdays, Bible studies on Thursdays and Saturdays, women’s service groups, weekly youth meetings, and focused outreach in their community. Their youth meet weekly for fellowship and study and frequently help lead worship and distribute food in the community. The church is also active with Instituto Bíblico Anabautista (Anabaptist Biblical Institute). A significant part of their ministry is providing a safe place amid drugs, gangs, violence, racism and anti-immigrant attitudes in their community and meeting the needs of immigrants in their neighborhoods.

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At the beginning of this year our board chair, Lonnie Bartel, presented in person a grant to Unity God of Church in Homestead, Florida.

Our last grant for $40,000 went to a Haitian Mennonite church in Homestead, Florida. Unity church is an active congregation of 45 members, many of whom are newcomers from Haiti. They have two services each Sunday – morning and evening – and have services on Monday and Friday evenings. In their outreach ministry, they seek to serve needs in their community, especially those of immigrants in their part of south Florida.

This grant will go toward their ability to purchase a larger building. They hope that having the additional space will expand their outreach in the community.

Growth at Assembly Mennonite Church in Goshen, Indiana, is benefiting a congregation 650 miles away.

When Assembly Mennonite enlarged its facilities, it tithed a portion of the project expenses to aid others.

A program called JoinHands, operated by Mennonite Men, helps churches that have the resources for major capital improvements share money with churches in need of help buying or building a place to worship.

And that’s what happened in this case. JoinHands was the conduit to channel the Assembly Mennonite tithe to Mara Christian Church, near Charlotte, North Carolina.

‘We feel it’s the right thing to do, for more established congregations to help the newer ones,’ said Steve Thomas, U.S. Coordinator for Mennonite Men. He describes the essence of the program as ‘congregations thinking beyond themselves.’

The global reach of JoinHands

JoinHands has delivered grants to churches throughout the world and all over the United States and Canada.

Thomas figured Assembly Mennonite would want to help other building/facilities programs as it launched its own. ‘I knew they think carefully about their resources and the needs of other churches.’

As Lora Nafziger said, ‘It’s part of the DNA of the congregation’ to tithe when starting an improvement project. Nafziger is Pastor of Christian Formation at Assembly Mennonite.

Mara Christian Church, a growing congregation composed mostly of people who moved to the U.S. from Myanmar (formerly Burma), now owns the church building it had rented. The JoinHands grant the church received made that transformation possible.

Members of the North Carolina congregation are ‘thinking about their lives as people of God. The spiritual vitality there is good for others to see,’ Thomas said.

Thomas added that Mara Christian Church members invested a good deal of ‘sweat equity’ in renovating the church building it purchased.

Those who receive JoinHands grants ‘often are people without a history of power and privilege,’ Thomas said. ‘Often, they’re people coming from a situation of real need.’

JoinHands is patterned after 2 Corinthians 8, in which Paul wrote about abundance and reciprocity, Thomas said. ‘That’s our key text.’

He added, ‘It’s an Anabaptist perspective – not just a Mennonite perspective.’

One church helping another ‘is an issue of stewardship, so it linked naturally to Everence,’ Thomas said.

Everence^® church loans have helped several established churches (including Assembly Mennonite) that shared some of the money associated with major projects to aid younger churches.

Bursting at the seams

Why did Assembly Mennonite need to expand? Sunday morning attendance has grown by about 20% in the last 10 years, and the once-adequate facilities weren’t so adequate.

Attendance now averages about 230, and has climbed above 300 several times.

Nafziger said church members were talking about the need for an expansion when she arrived at Assembly Mennonite in 2013.

The room used for worship also was the only room large enough for after-worship activities, so chairs were shifted around and tables set up, if needed.

In other words, the sanctuary and fellowship hall were one and the same. An overflow seating area was filled to the most distant corners for most services.

That room now is more of a true fellowship hall, as the more than 5,000-square-foot addition includes the new worship space, which features a similar, barn-like beam structure as the older room.

Diamond shapes are scattered throughout the building in the tile, stone and steel as a physical embodiment of a familiar quilting pattern, Nafziger said.

Church members did much of the work themselves, with Dana Miller of Dana Miller Building Solutions as general contractor. Miller, an Assembly Mennonite member, also oversaw previous expansion projects there, including a big one in 1994.

Nafziger said more than 75 church people were involved in various facets of the project. And member Susan Nelson volunteered to serve as project manager.

The congregation moved into its new spaces in May 2019, and officially dedicated the expansion the following September.

How did Assembly begin?

Assembly Mennonite formed in 1974 when several house churches and small groups decided to assemble for worship on Sundays.

Participants started talking about buying a property for congregational use about two years later.

In 1978, an empty factory building on South 11^th Street was purchased, and members did much of the renovation work to create a space for worship, day care for children and a rental apartment.

The first part-time staff person was hired in the 1980s and more property was purchased next to the meetinghouse.

A major building expansion took place in 1994 – a new worship space and three classrooms to be shared with Walnut Hill Day Care and Faith Mennonite Church.

The Walnut Hill operation – now called Walnut Hill Early Childhood Center – moved to its own building in early 2018.

Faith Mennonite Church still shares the Assembly building, worshipping on Sunday evenings.

The Assembly mission statement is: Assembly Mennonite Church seeks to be a dynamic Christian community by together meeting God, who draws us beyond ourselves into nurturing, sharing and living the good news of God’s love as known in Jesus Christ.

A participatory congregation

Assembly Mennonite is a bit unusual in that the church has four pastors – all of whom are part time.

‘We have monthly congregational meetings,’ Nafziger said. ‘We do everything by consensus.’

Karl Shelly, Pastor of Community Building and Mission, said Assembly is intentional about having part-time pastors.

‘This decision is rooted in its desire to be a ‘participatory congregation’ where many aspects of congregational life are carried out by the congregation,’ Shelly said.

‘For example,’ he said, ‘for every 10 sermons delivered at Assembly, pastors might deliver two of them.’ And many aspects of what some might term ‘pastoral care’ are done by Assembly small groups.

As a less ‘pastor-centric’ church than many, ‘the congregation has made the decision that, at least so far, it does not want full-time pastors and the different kind of authority or reliance on professional leadership which comes with that,’ said Shelly.

Anna Yoder Schlabach, Pastor of Worship and Pastoral Care, joined the pastoral team in November 2018 and Scott Coulter, Pastor of Congregational Life and Hospitality, joined the pastoral team in October 2019.

Written materials for visitors note that, ‘Assembly is actually the assembly of small groups, and Sunday morning corporate worship is only part of our life together.’

Jim Miller is a writer and editor at Everence and managing editor of Everyday Stewardship.