July 2005: Gospel Evangel

“God is on the move”: The Listening and Redesign Team
[coverage of Conference Assembly 2005]

by Martha Yoder Maust, chair, Listening and Redesign Team

What does a Listening and Redesign Team do? We listen. We listened to those who gathered at annual sessions. We asked one question: “In your history with Conference (or with the church), when were you most energized or excited?”

Each person had time to write a response, then five minutes to tell their story to everyone at the table. Once all the stories had been shared, the table groups listed common themes that emerged during the conversations. The pages of themes were posted on the wall for people to read.

Over lunch, the Listening and Redesign Team worked hard, compiling comments from more than 30 pages. Eight themes emerged as most prominent:

Worship: appreciation for prophetic preaching, wonderful singing, special visuals and worshipping with a larger body of believers

Prayer: in many times and places; small table groups and corporate prayer

Mission: moving from self-preservation to reaching out; energized by new churches and new growth

Connectedness: in table groups, congregation-to-congregation care and especially in care by conference regional ministers at times of change or difficulty

Diversity: we are blessed by different racial and ethnic origins, different Christian traditions, genders, geographic locations, etc. One table wrote, “God dwells in more places than Goshen/Elkhart!”

Conflict: appreciation for times when conflict has been handled well and times of reconciliation; pain from unhealed divisions

Leadership development: formal and informal mentoring, including programs such as Teacher/Disciple, Journey, Lead Now and ReFocusing

Youth and children: memories of times with other children at conference; appreciation for the energy and gifts of young people today

On Saturday morning, the eight themes were shared with the gathered body and prayer was offered -- giving thanks for God’s movement in our past and asking God to move among us in our future. We ended with a time of individual prayer and reflection, asking what God might be saying to us, to our congregations and to our conference.

For our team’s meeting in August, we will have a lot of reading to do as we work through the individual responses that were gathered at annual sessions. Please pray that the team might be open to hear God’s direction for the conference.

-- Martha Yoder Maust attends Shalom Mennonite in Indianapolis.