RESPONSE

Elizabeth Raid

James Lapp’s DSM Summer 2001 comments on “Being a Missional Church” struck common chords and activated long-standing needs to be heard, to belong. Recently I returned to the Iowa site of the 1859 beginning of the General Conference Mennonite Church where Pauline Krehbiel and Howard Raid, my parents, were born and raised. In doing so, I revisited that part of my heritage.

Now, as my GC branch merges with another Mennonite branch to become Mennonite Church USA, I have heard little mention of how GC founders emphasized gathering all Mennonites to support education and spread the gospel. Unity in diversity was their touchstone.

Current efforts bring us back to where the GCs began. Our task remains to provide a banquet table, to prepare food that nourishes, to invite others not only to the table but also to bring other dishes that will taste and smell different from our ethnic fare. Only then can we feast together on God’s rich blessings.

I happened to be born into a GC family; thus my Anabaptist-Mennonite beliefs are mine partly by chance. I have also chosen them. I’m not willing to throw out my beliefs to be generically boring. But I do want to extend the table so I can grow and learn from others and so together we can share in the richness of God’s banquet table for all. I don’t want to give up four-part singing, for example. But that doesn’t mean I can’t also learn to appreciate other types of worship music.

To grow in faith, I must let go of two things: my fears—fears of the other, the unknown, that within me which I dislike; and my need to be right. My journey of divorcing, leaving employment, and going to seminary has helped me begin to face my fears and realize I do not have all the answers, that my ways are not necessarily best for others.

That journey has included pondering my place in the church’s ongoing mission. I believe everyone dialogues with the same questions at various times: Who am I? Why am I on this earth at this particular time? As we address such questions at both personal and institutional levels, we realize answers are always in flux. We change and grow, letting go of old ways and embracing new experiences and understandings.

The apostle Paul calls us beyond being babes in Christ. So too the church must move beyond an excluding sense of being a particular type of family, a “like precious faith” heritage, and demanding sameness to control outcomes.

With Jim, I’m ready to count the cost and move on. I’m willing to make mistakes, ask questions, learn, and grow. To do less spells despair and death for the church. Christ has gone before us. God is with us.

—Elizabeth Raid