A New Mennonite Disaster Service
Dan Schrock
During the recent presidential race, a kind of disaster occurred in the American social fabric. It feels that this election cycle was one of the most angry elections in decades. From voters and candidates, we heard appeals to violence, stories of sexual assault and sexual harassment, animosity toward immigrants, hostility toward Muslims, charges of email […]
The Master’s Touch
Dan Schrock
On the corner of Neil and Forsythe Avenues in Columbus, Ohio, you will find a hair salon called The Master’s Touch. The proprietors are Christina and Ed Anderson, an inter-racial couple who’ve owned this hair salon for more than 20 years. When we lived in Columbus, I usually went there so Christina could cut my […]
Do not Fear; only Believe
Marilyn Rudy-Froese
In what feels like another lifetime, I preached on the story of the hemorrhaging woman. Looking back on what I recall of what I said, I’ve done my share of cringing. I was a summer student pastor, having finished one year of seminary. In a moment of compassionate insight this week for my younger self, […]
Touching Jesus
Dan Schrock
Today we’re continuing a series of six worship services on congregational practices that make Berkey the congregation it is. Two weeks ago we renewed our baptisms and last Sunday we focused on honoring each other. Today we turn to rituals in worship. Numerous times, the focus group that we gathered to talk about congregational practices […]
Friendship and Intimacy
Marilyn Rudy-Froese
In February 1944, when she was 13 years old, Anne Frank, a Jew who was in hiding in Amsterdam, wrote: Today the sun is shining, the sky is a deep blue, there is a lovely breeze and I am longing–so longing–for everything. To talk, for freedom, for friends, to be alone. And I do so […]
Temples of the Spirit
Dan Schrock
Many of us in the modern world regard marriage as something of a capstone in human experience. The ideal, we think, is to marry, have children, buy a home, and live the good life. The fact that so many gay and lesbian couples want to marry shows how much marriage is idealized in our culture. […]
A Fuller Vision
Dan Schrock
In high school I didn’t know much about trees. I was around them all the time but I didn’t understand them. We lived on a farm in those days, with maple, catalpa, an ash trees growing around our house. I saw them every day. I admired their stately trunks and glorious leaves, their ability to […]
The One Whom God Helps
Dan Schrock
This morning I want to talk about dogs. Not just any dogs, but the dogs in this parable. It turns out that the dogs have an important role in this story—and when we properly understand the role of the dogs, a doorway opens to understand the parable more clearly. When Americans think about dogs, they […]
Collaborators
Dan Schrock
The parable of the good Samaritan might be Jesus’ most famous parable. If you interviewed random people on the sidewalks of downtown Goshen and asked them whether they know Jesus’ parable of the alert slaves in Luke 12:35‐40, they’ll probably stammer around a bit, then admit they don’t know that parable. But if you ask […]
Salvation: Therapy, Cure, and Health
Paul Leichty
What do you do when you come to the end of the rope? Where do you go when the lifeline is failing? Where do you go when you are ill and the doctors have tried everything and nothing seems to work? Where do you go when the medical folks say you are dying? Where do […]
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