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Growth at Assembly Mennonite Church in Goshen, Indiana, is benefiting a congregation 650 miles away. When Assembly Mennonite enlarged its facilities, it tithed a portion of the project expenses to aid others.

A program called JoinHands, operated by Mennonite Men, helps churches that have the resources for major capital improvements share money with churches in need of help buying or building a place to worship. And that's what happened in this case. JoinHands was the conduit to channel the Assembly Mennonite tithe to Mara Christian Church, near Charlotte, North Carolina, a member of Virginia Mennonite Conference.

"We feel it's the right thing to do, for more established congregations to help the newer ones," said Steve Thomas, U.S. Coordinator for Mennonite Men. He describes the essence of the program as "congregations thinking beyond themselves."

Mara Christian Church, a growing congregation composed mostly of people who moved to the U.S. from Myanmar (formerly Burma), now owns the church building it had rented. The JoinHands grant the church received made that transformation possible.

Members of the North Carolina congregation are "thinking about their lives as people of God. The spiritual vitality there is good for others to see," Thomas said. He added that Mara Christian Church members invested a good deal of "sweat equity" in renovating the church building it purchased. Those who receive JoinHands grants "often are people without a history of power and privilege," Thomas said. "Often, they're people coming from a situation of real need."

JoinHands is patterned after 2 Corinthians 8, in which Paul wrote about abundance and reciprocity, Thomas said. "That's our key text." He added, "It's an Anabaptist perspective – not just a Mennonite perspective." One church helping another "is an issue of stewardship, so it linked naturally to Everence,"  Thomas said.

Everence^® church loans have helped several established churches (including Assembly Mennonite) that shared some of the money associated with major projects to aid younger churches.

Jim Miller is a writer and editor at Everence and managing editor of Everyday Stewardship.

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Early March as the warm weather and longer daylight hours inched closer, men gathered at Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp for the annual Men’s Retreat hosted in part by Mountain States Mennonite Conference. This retreat was attended by 46 men and was filled with laughter, good singing, and much conversation. Steve Thomas, US Director for Mennonite Men, facilitated the worship sessions during the weekend on “Celebrating God’s Love, Grace and Compassion in Our Everyday World.” He led participants in reflecting on their image of God and offered table discussion groups to explore questions and ideas together. 

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What does Anabaptism have to teach us about healthy masculinity? Don Neufeld and Steve Thomas, coordinators of Mennonite Men Canada and Mennonite Men USA, respectively, have edited a collection of essays, Peaceful at Heart: Anabaptist Reflections on Healthy Masculinity, with support from the Institute of Mennonite Studies, to answer this question. This project of Mennonite Men is a collaborative effort by and for men, promoting an Anabaptist Christian perspective on masculinity. Retired AMBS President Sara Wenger Shenk provides an afterword in which she writes that the “chorus of male voices represents ... a breakthrough moment for Mennonite men in particular — provoking an urgently needed conversation about what it takes to form and be peaceful men.”