Message from Our Pastors

On Saturday, July 7, a group of leaders from the congregation gathered for a day-long retreat to
examine the question, “Should we explore a new governance model for Manhattan Mennonite Church?” Those who were present for this retreat included the pastors, all four elders (Melissa Atchison, Dale Hershberger, Rene Smalldridge & Dawn Wall), the church officers: moderator (Dean Denner), treasurer (Kirk Hargett) & recorder (Merv Bitikofer), and chairs of several standing committees: faith formation (Rhonna Hargett), peace, service & witness (Dave Redmon) & worship (Karen Franz). The chairs of the social committee (Resa Price) & facilities committee (Stan Bartel) were also invited and had originally planned to attend, but were unable to be present due to scheduling conflicts that came up.

The impetus for this gathering came out of the experience of the pastors on their sabbatical last fall. As we met with pastors and some lay leaders from a number of different congregations, we found that many had remodeled their governance structures in recent years. Having experienced some frustrations with our current model ourselves, we began to wonder about the possibility of embarking on an exploration of new structures for MMC as well. Our goal for such a restructuring is to assure that all the ministries of the church have a home with a clear system of oversight, support, and accountability.

After discussing this matter with the elders for a few months, they agreed to invite congregational leaders to spend several hours together examining our current structure and discerning whether or not to explore a new model. At the end of that time of discernment on July 7, the group overwhelmingly agreed that it is worthwhile to begin this process of exploration. Please note that this does not necessarily mean that there will be changes to our governance structure, merely that we are starting to explore that possibility.

Following the leadership retreat, the Elders appointed a "Governance Working Group" to begin the process of exploration. This group consists of Bob Atchison, Aaron Dyck, Rhonna Hargett, Dawn Wall, and Pastor Richard. We expect that they will spend time listening to members of the congregation and writing drafts of proposals for possible changes in the current structure. We anticipate that sometime next year some changes in structure may be implemented on a trial basis. At this point, we don’t know whether the proposed changes will entail a major overhaul of our structure or if our goals can be accomplished with relatively minor tweaks in our current structure. In the end, any permanent changes in structure would need to be approved by the congregation.

As the congregation embarks on this process of exploration, your prayers for wisdom and discernment are appreciated. If you have questions about what happened at the recent retreat, feel free to speak with any of the people who were present. We as pastors are also happy to talk more about our experience and how we see this process moving forward. May God’s Spirit be with us as we seek to fulfill the mission with which Manhattan Mennonite Church has been entrusted.