Introducing "MennoNeighbors" - Join The Journey To Renew Mennonite Community

MennoNeighbors

Introduction: A growing number of Mennonites are finding fellowship and mutual support through an informal network called MennoNeighbors. As others express interest in learning about this group, we have compiled the following statements to help to describe why we find this network helpful in our faith journeys. These are evolving articulations of who we want to be, not formal creedal statements.

Statement of purpose

We believe that the identity and mission of the Mennonite Church is to witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that the central tenet of that gospel calls us to God’s shalom. We are interested in joining hands with others who are committed to making this calling more of a priority for ourselves and our denomination.

As individuals and as congregations, we provide mutual support and counsel to other individuals, congregations, church employees, and others who are working to proactively foster truth, love, justice, and peace. We find encouragement through relationships with each other; we support ministries of peace, and work to expand the voices of inclusion and compassion within programs of the Mennonite Church USA, and in the wider community -- locally, nationally and globally.

Common interests and concerns among us have evolved around the centrality of justice (compassion for the marginalized) and peace (nonviolence, holistic shalom) in the Gospel and example of Christ, and therefore in the Anabaptist vision. Issues we see as important to justice and peace include urban ministry, church polity (congregational vs. central authority), biblical authority and interpretation, women in leadership, and the welcome of persons regardless of differences in gender, culture, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation or other characteristics. Beyond our local congregations and conferences, MennoNeighbors has become, for many of us, an important locus for conversation about and discernment on these issues.

Our vision is of a Church that exemplifies the following:

Hospitality
Compassion

Peacemaking
Founded upon unconditional love
Conflict resolution/mediation, nonviolence
Acknowledgment that we are all strangers searching
Mission understanding as neighbors sharing with one another
Ministry and solidarity with the poor and otherwise outcast
Community: welcoming, giving and receiving counsel
Instruments of God's blessing; blessed to bless
Liberty, peace, and justice for all

Living simply
Inclusiveness

Identity

MennoNeighbors is an informal network of individuals and congregations who correspond frequently and meet occasionally to provide mutual support and shared discernment related to issues pertaining to the Mennonite Church. Previously called "Urban Ministers", some of us have experienced fellowship and mutual support since 1989 as we have shared in the hosting of semi-annual meetings. The joy of our gatherings has been to gain strength from each other's presence.

MennoNeighbors is not an official body. We encourage congregations and individuals in our number to maintain relationships with and/or continue their membership in Mennonite Church USA insofar as that can be accomplished with integrity.

We come together around a common way of listening to each other and caring for each other whether or not we're in complete agreement with each other. We wish such “holy listening” would be practiced throughout the broader MC USA denomination.

We are connected in various ways to Anabaptist Mennonite churches and understandings; we listen to each other's cares, joys, questions, cutting edges -- offering support, challenge, fellowship, strength.

We are Mennonite Christians who support one another as we grapple with issues that shape our congregational lives in the context of our various settings and the body of Christ. We seek a safe space for conversations with and among congregations who:
1. are comfortable asking and struggling with questions in our faith journeys;
2. seek the fellowship and counsel of others in the wider church;
3. believe that personal faith formation and discernment takes place primarily on the congregational level;
4. value differences as opportunities to discover our oneness in Christ;
5. value the role of listening and conversation in building up the body of Christ.

The evolution of mutual interests and needs over these years led to the following covenant of understanding:

1. Our intention is to support each other through regular attendance at annual plenary meetings (usually in the fall).

2. As a body, we are committed to respond to an individual's or other congregation's request for counsel or discernment.

3. We commit ourselves to give financial assistance to MennoNeighbors for purposes of communication, facilitation of annual gatherings, and sharing in travel expenses.

For further information about MennoNeighbors, contact Lin Garber at information@mennoneighbors.org

or go to: http://www.mennoneighbors.org/mailman/listinfo/neighbors

Left Brain Husband (Hilarious!)

If you are having a tough day, this oughta do it to cheer you up!

And if you are organising food to take to the sick or grieving, you'll want to listen & learn from this woman's experience!

For those of you who are not from NC, Jeanne Robertson, the story teller here, was Miss North Carolina many years ago and then won Miss Congeniality in the Miss America pageant. When you listen to this you will know why! Jeanne is from Burlington, NC.

This will be audio only - no picture - but if you're a woman who does the primary cooking/shoping and EVER sent a man to the grocery store for ANYTHING, you'll definitely want to listen to this piece all the way through, to the very last "punch line"!!

(And if you're a man, particularly a Left-Brain Man, I imagine you will relate to this story, as well!)

Simply click on the speaker icon at:
http://tinyurl.com/m5gooz

Reform? Why do we need health-care reform? Everything is just fine the way it is!

What’s Not to Like?

By Jonathan Alter - in Newsweek (online version)

Jul 31, 2009

Go ahead, shoot me. I like the status quo on health care in the United States. I've got health insurance and I don't give a damn about the 47 million suckers who don't. Obama and Congress must be stopped. No bill! I'm better off the way things are.

I'm with that woman who wrote the president complaining about "socialized medicine" and added: "Now keep your hands off my Medicare." That's the spirit!

Why should I be entitled to the same insurance that members of Congress get? Blue Dogs need a lot of medical attention to treat their blueness. I'm just a regular guy and definitely deserve less.

I had cancer a few years ago. I like the fact that if I lose my job, I won't be able to get any insurance because of my illness. It reminds me of my homeowners' insurance, which gets canceled after a break-in. I like the choice I'd face if, God forbid, the cancer recurs—sell my house to pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment, or die. That's what you call a "post-existing condition."

I like the absence of catastrophic insurance today. It meant that my health-insurance plan (one of the better ones, by the way) only covered about 75 percent of the cost of my cutting-edge treatment. That's as it should be—face cancer and shell out huge amounts of money at the same time. Nice.

I like the "lifetime limits" that many policies have today. Missed the fine print on that one, did you? It means that after you exceed a certain amount of reimbursement, you don't get anything more from the insurance company. That's fair.

Speaking of fair, it seems fair to me that cost-cutting bureaucrats at the insurance companies—not doctors—decide what's reimbursable. After all, the insurance companies know best.

Yes, the insurance company status quo rocks. I learned recently about something called the "loading fees" of insurance companies. That's how much of every health-care dollar gets spent by insurance companies on things other than the medical care—paperwork, marketing, profits, etc. According to a University of Minnesota study, up to 47 percent of all the money going into the health-insurance system is consumed in "loading fees." Even good insurance companies spend close to 30 percent on nonmedical stuff. Sweet.

The good news is that the $8,000 a year per family that Americans pay for their employer-based health insurance is heading up! According to the Council of Economic Advisers, it will hit $25,000 per family by 2025. The sourpusses who want health-care reform say that's "unsustainable." Au contraire.

And how could the supporters of these reform bills believe in anything as stupid as a "public option"? Do they really believe that the health-insurance cartel deserves a little competition to keep them honest? Back in the day, they had a word for competition. A bad word. They called it capitalism. FedEx versus the U.S. Postal Service, CNN versus PBS—just because it's government-backed doesn't mean you can't compete against it. If they believed in capitalism, the insurance companies would join the fray and compete.

I'm glad they don't. I prefer the status quo, where the for-profit insurance companies suck at the teat of the federal government. Corporate welfare's what we've got, and it's a damn good system. Through a wonderful program called Medicare Advantage, the insurance companies receive hundreds of billions of dollars in fees to administer a program that the government is already running. Don't touch that baby. You'd be messing with the handiwork of some fine lobbyists.

You know what part of the status quo I like best? It's a longstanding system for paying doctors called "fee for service." That's where doctors get paid for each procedure they perform, as if my auto dealer got paid separately for the steering wheel, brakes, and horn instead of for the car.
Fee-for-service is why the medical care at that doc-in-a-box at my mall is so superior to the Mayo Clinic or Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where the doctors are on salary. Who would want to mess with that?

OK, if you really press me, I'm for one change. It's the one that Republicans trot out to prove they're "reformers," too. We could save our whole system if we just capped malpractice awards. Two of our biggest states—California and Texas—did it a few years ago and nothing has changed there, but who cares? It sounds good.

So tell your congressmen and senators when they're home for the summer recess that it's too soon to address this issue. We've only been debating it for 97 years, since Theodore Roosevelt put national health insurance in the Bull Moose Party platform of 1912. We've only had 745 congressional hearings on the subject (I made that number up, but it's got to be close). That's not enough! Let's study this problem more before we do anything about it.

Did I say "problem"? Who said there was a problem? Not me. I like the status quo.

Inside America's Busiest Trauma Center

Inside America's Busiest Trauma Center

This story is relevant to the current spirited discussion of healthcare reform.

-Clair

Hanging Out With "The Spice Grrrrrls !!!"

Clair and Carole Anne with the "Spice Girls":

Ginger and Pepper

We are currently housesitting for 2 months
on Throsby Crescent in Griffith - about a block
from St. Clare's College (how appropriate!)
Griffith is one of 70+ distinct neighborhoods
in Canberra, the Australian Capital Territory.

It's currently in the middle of winter here -
and quite possibly the coldest city in Australia,
but it rarely gets below freezing at night, though
we did have a frost on the still-green grass the
last few mornings. (Aussies think that's "cold!")