Mennonite Church USA is helping fuel growth and diversity through its Thrive 2023 church planting grants. This year’s winners are Peace Church in Brooklyn, New York and Community Mennonite Church of Hope, in Bellingham, Washington, build circles of community in creative, Jesus-centered ways.
“It’s wonderful to see how church planters and members of these worshiping communities are reimagining what it means to be a peace missions church,” said Rachel Ringenberg Miller, denominational ministerial leadership minister for MC USA.
Brooklyn Peace Church
![Group of 13 people in front of a church](https://www.mennoniteusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Brooklyn-Peace-Church-launch-photo.jpg)
Jason Storbakken (far right) with members of the Brooklyn Peace Church at its 2022 launch.
“It feels like a house church in a big sanctuary,” Jason Storbakken said of Brooklyn Peace Churchwhich open to worship in 2022, and averages 15 to 18 people at its monthly worship service. He notes that congregants call him “pastor” because he “kind of fills that role,” but he adds that “it’s all run by volunteers.” We are not hierarchical. We are the priesthood of all believers. Even when we gather, we gather in a circle.
The small congregation is bilingual. “The complexity we find ourselves in is we have some people who only speak Spanish, others who only speak English,” Storbakken said, so they use interpreters and give each other a lot of grace.
The congregation also shares space with two other churches, an English LMC Garifuna church and an indigenous Kichwa group from Ecuador.
“We are all connected,” he said of the three congregations. “There is a lot of synergy. I’m really interested to see what might happen from these three congregations that share this space and value peace. We have a true Christian relationship with one another, even though we are different congregations.
The Thrive 2022 grant helped cover basic operating costs of Brooklyn Peace Church, including renovation of the physical space and the purchase of additional chairs, worship items, a projector and more . The grant also provided resources for a website. The congregation gathered for several special worship services in 2022, including a memorable service in which pastors and leaders from other countries Atlantic Coast Conference churches gathered to provide prayers and blessings for the new congregation.
Storbakken said he hopes the new Thrive grant will continue that momentum, helping the church expand its reach, increase accessibility for all and strengthen its operational support. The goal is a full launch, with the congregation meeting weekly for worship by the end of 2023.
Storbakken is excited about the future. “We are a small congregation, but we are agile, robust and have a big vision to contain many perspectives, voices and identities. Through partnerships, we can reimagine what the traditional Church looks like,” he said.
Community of Hope Mennonite Church
![Photo of a woman wearing sunglasses against a background of several people sitting on the grass.](https://www.mennoniteusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Rachael-and-COH-members.jpg)
Rachael Weasley (foreground) with members of Community of Hope Mennonite Church.
“There are some benefits to meeting outdoors that I didn’t anticipate,” said Rachael Weasley, pastor and church planter of Community of Hope Mennonite Church, Bellingham, Washington, describing the growing ministry of the Wild Church. “This makes us accessible to people who are immunocompromised and those who suffer from religious trauma and are not comfortable in a church setting. We form a circle, somewhat naturally. I think we are shaped by the architecture of the outdoors. It helps us remember that nature is beyond our control, just like God. There’s something useful about that, especially when you’re doing queer theology,” she explained.
Not everyone at Community of Hope identifies as queer, but they seek to do church in a queer way, according to Weasley. She explains that this means looking at the gospel through the lens of queer theory, seeing how Jesus operates on the margins of power. The church, which began as an online community, grew with help from Thrive Grant to include outdoor, in-person gatherings in the Wild Church Tradition. There is overlap between online and in-person gatherings, but they also attract different crowds.
The online community, which meets via Zoom on the first Monday of the month, has grown from 13 participants in summer 2022 to 30 current participants from across the country, with gender-neutral language for God and liturgical arts to support a process constructive queerness. theology, as well as a traditional sermon and hymns from Voices together. Many of these people also attend Mennonite churches in person in their area, Weasley said.
In person, the Community of Hope meets monthly every third Saturday in parks around Bellingham, where winters are mild. Worship services attract about 15 attendees, including parents of queer people and those looking for a less patriarchal church. According to Weasley, the outdoor model meets their needs in important ways, including minimizing overhead costs and prioritizing accessibility to a safe space for queer visitors.
Community of Hope also hosts Queer Theology Sunday School, a quarterly educational event on Zoom open to people from MC USA and the Mennonite Church of Canada. Guest speakers discuss various topics, such as biblical hermeneutics, trauma and healing. Additionally, Community of Hope hosts two online support groups: one for parents of LGBTQ+ children and one for queer people in ministry.
Previous Thrive grants helped Community of Hope launch its Wild Church and provided guest speaker honoraria for Queer Theology Sunday School, which Weasley credits with helping grow its online congregation.
With the help of Thrive Church Planting Grants and a grant from Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference, Weasley was able to increase his hours from 8 to 15 hours per week. “I plan to use these extra hours exclusively for publicity and outreach, to grow the church!” ” she says.
“We anticipate that this (fiscal) year will potentially be our last grant-funded year,” Weasley said. “Community of Hope’s self-sufficiency means that…queer and trans people, their allies, and their family members will have a safe online place to worship and ground their spirits – in a way that does not conflict with their love for the diversity of people. human sexuality and gender. This means that queer and trans people will have access to a queer pastor online and to each other… (and) that local people who have been wronged by the church will have a safe place to anchor their spirituality in the open air, with a liturgy sensitive to their experience. past traumas of the Church.
About the Thrive Church Planting Grant
MC USA established the Thrive Church Planting Grant in 2020. The program provided a $5,000 revolving grant to nurture and support the ministry needs of new peace mission churches in the United States. Mennonite Church USA board staff and Mennonite Mission Network staff are in conversation to discuss ongoing church planting strategies.
Mennonite Church USA is an Anabaptist Christian denomination, founded in 2002, and a recognized peace church. Members seek to follow Jesus by rejecting violence and resisting injustice. MC USA Renewed commitments set forth the following shared commitments among its diverse bodies of believers: to follow Jesus, to bear witness to the peace of God, and to experience the transformation of the Holy Spirit. MC USA includes 15 regional conferences and more than 470 congregations across the United States. MC USA is part of the Mennonite World Conference, a global religious family that includes churches in 60 countries. Mennoniteusa.org