Foundational Values
Many years ago, when our four daughters were experiencing the wonderful and tumultuous years of public elementary and high school, they noticed something about our family that was not common among their friends. As we sat together for dinner one night, one of them commented how their friends seldom ate meals together with their families - the others quickly agreed how they noticed the same thing. What we were doing was unusual in their circle of friends, yet we took it for granted. It was a ‘given’ for us that we would eat most evening meals together as a family, sharing ‘highs and lows’, tears and laughter, reflecting on the day we had each just come through. And in hindsight, it shaped our family more than we realized.
Foundational values are like that. You don’t often think about them, even take them for granted. But they shape you. They become part of the foundation that you start to build your life on, giving you footing and support in a world of shifting sand.
Over this past year in the Witness, we have been exploring our five foundational values and, in this edition, we want to highlight our fourth value:
- Joining the Triune God in Biblical Vision of Mission
- Depending on God in Prayer
- Obeying the Great Commandment & Commission
- Living as the Global MB Family
- Serving Holistically & Contextually
Throughout the following pages, you will read stories from your brothers and sisters around the world, living and loving as family. Our story from the Ukraine shares how churches there live as family by offering practical help to victims of war. In Mexico, pastors and their families are gathering together to strengthen relationships and build intimacy. In Southeast Asia, persecuted Christians have found solidarity and belonging within the International Community of Mennonite Brethren (ICOMB). God is clearly at work throughout our vibrant and growing Global MB family and we have much to celebrate.
Remember and Reimagine
2025 marks 500 years of the Anabaptist movement that demonstrated a way of following Jesus in radical discipleship that is foundational to our story. This year, various celebrations will be held in honor of this significant marker, including a celebration on May 29th, in Zurich Switzerland, to where we can trace the origins of this movement. It is a year to remember and to reimagine this story for how we follow Jesus today.
Key elements that marked this movement from early days onward were the high regard for the authority of Scripture alone and the understanding that believers grew in relationship to Jesus purely by faith. Believer’s baptism replaced infant baptism and began a significant shift of separating church from state. This was seen as an act of treason against the state and the church, leading to many of these early radicals being martyred for their newfound convictions of faith. During the 16th century, the Mennonites and other Anabaptists were relentlessly persecuted, and learned to do ‘theology on the run’ out of necessity.
The early Anabaptists wanted to renew the church and today, the North American church has the opportunity to reclaim this Anabaptist reality again, by learning from people groups within the Global MB family who are rediscovering and living out this persecution story in modern times. These partnerships help us remember what it means to do theology on the run, proclaim the Gospel in the midst of suffering, and reimagine discipleship that is rooted in radical obedience to Jesus and to each other in community. Our North American comfort and wealth continually draw us away from this calling. Our Global MB family can help us, and we need more help than we realize.
The Context of Family
These values of both renewal and mission continue to be held to this day and are lived out in the context of family. As Goheen and Mullins state in their book, The Symphony of Mission, “God does not carry out his mission by commissioning a roster of individual contractors; instead, he adopts a family and incorporates them into his family business of blessing the world” (p 40 of 201). This value of family was central for the people of Israel and continues to be a unique gift that people see and are drawn to as we learn to live as the MB family.
Jesus challenged our definition of family in Luke 14:25-33, where he talks about the high cost of discipleship. Our understanding of family needs to broaden and deepen to include those who have been abandoned by their families once they chose to follow Jesus, as we see in places like the Middle East and North Africa. Places where they are living into the radical and costly discipleship of the early Anabaptist movement and where we can re-enter the story together with them.
Room at the Table
This is an opportunity that I don’t want to miss. Just as my daughters recognized the significance of our family time around our dinner table, I too recognize the great value of gathering and communing with our global brothers and sisters as we join in God’s mission story together. We have so much to share with and learn from each other when we gather around the table. As God’s family grows in scope and diversity, there is always room for one more.
GIVE
Help Ukrainian children and families recover from the trauma of war, build healing friendships, and envision a future with Jesus at the center. <a
