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  Stephens City Mennonite Church is one among many small, aging, congregations in Northern District. Our members are geographically scattered, but share a unity of purpose in loving our neighbors, seeking to assist those in need, and a love of music. During the pandemic, many of those dynamics have shifted. Using Zoom has enabled several…

In this issue of Pathways, we are to share “stories of coping, thriving, innovation, danger, struggle, hardship, new ways of working, new focuses….” Yes—to all of the above. It’s amazing how the same experience—and experiment—can contain all of those components at the same time. Like every other congregation, we at Weavers Mennonite Church are also…

The apostle Paul comments in II Corinthians 12:10 that “When I am weak, then I am strong.” God’s strength often seems most apparent when we ourselves are weak. Each year, usually in mid-March, Springdale Mennonite Church, located on the outskirts of Waynesboro, Va., hosts the local overnight homeless shelter WARM (Waynesboro Area Refuge Ministry) for…

Park View Mennonite Church grapples with losses but finds undiminished connections   We have made a significant discovery at Park View Mennonite Church. Even though we cannot gather physically in the space where we love to worship, pray, and sing together, our sense of community has not diminished. On March 13, we made the difficult…

Early Church has never been defined primarily by our Sunday morning gathering. We have been known for the high value we have placed on being a glimmer of God’s presence when we worship and relate at Our Community Place (OCP), and for lots of non-Sunday face-to-face interactions. Before the coronavirus hit, we had already begun…

Big Spring Mennonite Church is alive and together, even if we have to be together by Zoom. We have said we are so grateful for Zoom and we are so tired of Zoom. But the Holy Spirit has been with us through all of our virtual gatherings and it has been good. By being a…

Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home; …and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. – John 16:32 It all started with an elbow bump— not my type of hugging and a difficult thing for our older Waynesboro Mennonite…

  In this time of church doors being closed, we have the opportunity to live into our professed Anabaptist theology that the church was never about the building. We are the church. Like the old song, “I am the church. You are the church. We are the church together.” At our church, the exchange, in…