Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

I hope you have a blessed month of June, living, loving and serving our Lord in the Church and community. Our missional church focus continues to be sharpened by the leading of the Holy Spirit as we seek to develop a vision for the future. We see the Holy Spirit leading us to have regular prayer walks with our community. Our last prayer walk in May had others from Emmanuel Lutheran Church and St. Christopher’s Catholic Church. What a wonderful witness to our community that different denominations are coming together to pray in our community. Our missional church focus is leading us to wrestle prayerfully with questions, “what is God calling our church to be and to do?” We are inviting our congregation into this discussion as we discern God’s activity in our congregation and community. Our Missional Team will be talking more about this as we go along.

Some of you may still be wondering what being a missional church looks like. Our church has been in the talking/praying/learning phase for a while. It is starting to take its most obvious form to date: prayer walks. That is only the beginning. Perhaps the best way for me to illustrate a church finding their missional church calling is to relay a story I found about another church in our very own state and the transformation they went through. Our church could experience such a transformation as we step forward in faith . Will you step forward? Or will you stay in your comfort zone? ~~ Pastor Rob

Here it is:

Learning As They Go
By Jeff Hawkes April 2012

Editor's note: Habecker Mennonite Church is one of nine churches (4 Mennonite and 5 Presbyterian) in a Central PA Cooperative PMC Cluster.  Their story of discernment and transformation by the Holy Spirit has been, and continues to be, remarkable! This article is reprinted with permission from Lancaster Online.

                 Stepping outside Habecker Mennonite Church, Rhoda Charles, 57, gave a shout.  "Everybody come in now!" she called.  It was 10 on a Sunday morning, time for worship. Newcomers from Burma, mostly in their 20s and 30s, some with children, had been chatting or tossing a football, and they came pouring into the brick church, a lonely sentry on a back road in Manor Township.

"Listen to God's word," said Bwe Paw, facing the congregation and reading from Galatians, first in a Burmese language.  Every second Sunday of the month, refugees from Burma lead worship at Habecker church. On other Sundays, Pastor Karen Sensenig oversees a traditional service, albeit one in

which the Burmese sing from a hymnal in their tongue. Eighty or more worshippers show up on any

given Sunday, the congregation evenly divided between Burmese and native Lancaster Countians, the

older women in head coverings.

What's going on at Habecker's is an audacious experiment in biculturalism. The small congregation of gray-haired Mennonites decided a few years ago to reach out to the growing Burmese community and say, Let's do church together. The result: a church reborn.  "This most certainly is God's story," Charles told me, "and we are learning as we go."   A pall hung over Habecker's six years ago when young families wanting a different worship experience decided to leave. About three dozen old-timers were left behind, and "it was just a grieving," recalled Janet Habecker, whose husband, Nelson, 66, has family ties

to the church dating to the 1700s.  "We were praying for families and kids again," said Wilbur Nissley, a

Habecker congregant for 23 years.

The change came gradually. No one woke up one day and said, Let's make Habecker's bicultural.

What happened is that members Arthur and Miriam Charles sponsored a Burmese family of four in 2008. The family belonged to the oppressed Karen people, who years ago took up refuge in camps along the Thai border.  Habecker members rallied around the family, then helped when six more arrived a few months later. From that beginning, Habecker church experienced a revival, as working with the refugees promoted healing.  "This is a church where you do hands-on things," Nelson Habecker said. "You don't just come to warm the seat."  The outreach includes setting out to Lancaster on Sundays to bring Burmese families to church. Members also help the adults find work, get to medical appointments and navigate government services. They helped the refugees start a garden and work with them to improve their English. Charles has been present when moms gave birth.

On a recent Sunday, Pastor Sensenig invited children to the front of the sanctuary for a story. Seventeen, all children of refugees, gathered around her. A prayer answered?  "My family loves to come every week," said Hsar Hel, 28, who arrived in Lancaster knowing no English. "We are Christians, but here we are people first."  Driving Hsar Hel to the dentist one day, Charles mentioned that her mother-in-law was having knee surgery.  "We pray," Hsar Hel said.  So in the parking lot, the women stopped and prayed, Charles in English, Hsar Hel in the Karen language.  Then together they said, "Amen."

Jeff Hawkes is a staff writer for Lancaster Online.