Gwen Guftason-Zook, Pastor Candidate
The Old Fool once worked with mostly small churches. At present he is blessed to be a member of a large one. On Sunday morning, August 9, 2014, Gwen Gustafson-Zook, pastor candidate with special assignments in Spiritual Formation and Outreach, preached the sermon at College Mennonite Church. The text for her sermon was John 9:1-41 and her theme was Life on the Margins.
Gwen told vivid stories relevant to present times and interpreted the old story of Jesus healing a man born blind. She was delighted when I told her I saw in her sermon a connection between spiritual formation and outreach. If her call is confirmed by the congregation she will join a team of pastors, each having special assignments as follows:
Pastor Daniel Yoder with the Genesis youth group who summarized the Bible in one hundred words
Pastors: Phil Waite, – Team Leader; Lee Dengler, – Music & Choirs; Susan Dengler – Worship & Music; Willie Kanagy – Facilities & Finance; Daniel Yoder – Jr. & Sr. High Youth; Talashia Keim Yoder – Young Adults; Pamela Yoder – Community Life and Pastoral Care; Marty Lehman – Administrative Pastor
Coordinators: Sheila Yoder – Deaf Ministries; Claudia Granados – Hispanic Ministries.
Administrative Assistants: Kathy Harshbarger – Receptionist; Diana Hershberger – Database Management; Sandra Shenk Lapp – Communications.; Jessica Whiticar, Director of Food Services And then there are commissions who support the activities of this large church
My Joy with a birthday display of cards and a rose.
On Tuesday, August 12, 2014 Pastor Phil Waite hosted a banquet for retired ministers and their spouses/friends. Since it was My Joy’s birthday, I joyfully invited her to go with me and we enjoyed the banquet together. I estimate that there were 40 or 50 persons present. The group was larger than the membership of many Mennonite Churches. Pastor Phil spoke to us on the question “Can a Mennonite Church be Large?”
He told us that he was trained at AMBS to be the pastor of a small church, which describes most Mennonite Churches. To transition from being a normal-sized church to a large one requires different expectations, strategies and goals.
The Old Fool provides links to the College Mennonite Church because many of its ministries excel in quality. I believe that every Mennonite Church, small or large, should be growing in size. I have learned to not despise small churches. They have strengths of intimacy and community that dare not be lost as the church grows larger. A large church can do what a small church cannot do.
Phil recommended that we read, “Inside the Large Congregation” by Susan Beumont. He concluded, as I remember it, that we must give our all to growth as a large congregation, or be content to shrink to a small church size.
I’ve always been part of a smaller church. I think you have more closeness and more meaningful worship in the smaller assembly. Think of the tremendous administrative expense to “run” a large church! You have to break it down into small groups anyway to really “become church”.
I have no results from great surveys or such, only a personal observation: Small Mennonite churches are small because they unconsciously (or in some cases consciously) want to be small. They talk a good talk about evangelism but there is a Mennonite quiet-people-of-the-land psyche that is comfortable and keeps them small.
I’ve felt the closeness and meaningful worship in the smaller assembly that you speak of. I’ve also been a part of two larger churches, Bahia Vista in Sarasota, and College Mennonite in Goshen. Neither is or was a perfect church. Yet the dynamic witness and worship available to a large church is often under estimated by those who have only experienced the closeness of a smaller church. It does require a change of perspective to accept the need to worship from Sunday to Sunday with a majority of people whose names are unknown. From data I gathered while General Secretary of the SE Conference I learned that as a rule members of our smaller churches gave more per capita than members of our larger churches. I’m not sure how this works out in the Indiana Michigan Conference.