Thank you for supporting IMMC through relationships, prayer, and financial gifts. As a token of our appreciation we would like to invite you to enjoy some fellowship and refreshments with us on Wednesday, December 20 from 1-3pm at our offices located in East Goshen Mennonite Church.

So that we can know how many refreshments to prepare, please click here to RSVP by December 15.

We are already looking forward to our Spring Summits. We will have worship, a guest speaker, and some energizing topics of discussion! The In-person version will be on March 9 will be hosted at Prairie Street Mennonite Church (Elkhart, IN) and the Virtual Option will take place the following weekend on March 17 via Zoom. Choose which ever works best for you and mark your calendar. More information to come in the New Year.

• Your generous financial gifts, which make it possible for IMMC staff to continue supporting congregational pastors and lay leaders. Our aim for Giving Tuesday was to generate new and/or returning donors and you helped us meet our goal! We are deeply grateful!
• Carmen Horst’s ordination at Walnut Hill Mennonite Church on Sunday December 10. What a joy it was to celebrate God’s call and Carmen’s “yes!” Sharon Yoder officiated the ordination.  
• An active culture of call and nurture at Walnut Hill Mennonite Church. Amazingly, Carmen was the seventh person to be ordained at Walnut Hill since 2012! Others were Jane Miller; Randy Miller; Linda Lehman Thomas; Brent Siegrist; Ben Bouwman; and Sharon Norton. Praise be to God!     

• Joanne preached via Zoom at Wildwood Mennonite Church on November 19^th.
• Joanne continues to meet with members of our leadership teams for debrief sessions for the Intercultural Development Inventory
• Joanne met with Goshen, Elkhart, Swanee, and Youth Pastor clusters.
• Sharon preached via zoom at Wildwood Mennonite Church on December 3.
• Sharon joined rich conversation at the quarterly transitional and interim pastor gathering via zoom on December 13.

• The Ministry Credentialing Team recently hosted two credentialing conversations (ordination for Carmen Horst and License toward Ordination for Osée Tshiwape and a meet-and-greet with Maria Hosler Byler. Carmen was ordained at Walnut Hill; Maria recently began serving as lead pastor at Sunnyside and Osée will join her in January as assistant pastor.  
• Sharon met with several congregational leadership teams over the past month to discuss needs with upcoming pastoral transitions.
• Healthy Boundaries training is required for credentialed leaders every 3 years. IMMC will host a 201 training on January 10 and AMBS will host a 101 training on February 19. See this link to register: Healthy Boundaries Training | Mennonite Church USA (mennoniteusa.org).
• LET continues to assist pastors in their continuing education goals, and has made it a priority to connect IMMC congregations with one another as “sister churches” next year.

From Colton Eby, Youth Program Director at Amigo Cetre:

We at Amigo are just about ready to go for our Winter Youth Retreat in a little over a month. I’m hoping to see many of your youth here! I have attached a flyer, the registration instructions, and an example schedule from last year. These can also both be found on our website. Prices have increased slightly from the past to make sure that we can pay our staff, speakers, and band. It is $150/youth and $140/sponsor or pastor.

Registration Instructions

Conference Co-Minister, Joanne Gallardo, reflects on experiencing Advent and Christmas as she writes Five things Friday roundup: Advent books and cranberry sauce.

AMBS’s new Practical Leadership Training modules are designed to help pastors, lay leaders, community leaders and leaders of nonprofit organizations increase their capacity to provide effective Anabaptist leadership in a variety of settings. You can select the modules that are best suited to your interests and needs.

The modules — which vary in depth, length and format — focus on four areas: administration, leadership, contextual engagement and well-being.

Learn more or download the one-page flyer to share and post.

Safe Church, Mennonite Church USA’s newly formed abuse prevention ministry, now has a webpage available on the MC USA website. The webpage offers resources to help faith communities keep children, youth and vulnerable adults safe from all abuse. Among other materials, the webpage contains a major update to the Circle of Grace curriculum.

Nancy Kauffmann, interim denominational minister of Church Safety, said, “Anyone who wants to be proactive in preventing abuse of any kind in our homes, churches and communities — congregations, pastors, educators, schools, agencies, parents, conferences — in other words, anyone looking for resources, including curricula, trainings, consultation services and speakers, should visit the Safe Church webpage.”

The webpage is continuously being updated with additional resources, but currently, the webpage offers resources related to policy guidelines, training and the ability to request a consultation, in addition to the Circle of Grace curriculum. All resources have been vetted by MC USA staff.

One way that Safe Church recommends faith communities protect people from abuse is through the creation of a protection policy. The webpage provides guidelines on how to develop a protection policy, as well as examples of protection policies from other MC USA churches.