Due to a conflict with AMBS Pastors and Leaders week, the Healthy Boundaries training schedule for March 1 has been moved to February 1.  If you are a credentialed leader in need of this training, please check your schedule to see if the February 1 date works. The location is Living Water Community Church in Rogers Park, Chicago, IL. More details are online at illinoismennonite.com <http://illinoismennonite.com>   To register for this event, please email Holly Mason at hmason@mennonite.net by January 15. 

ELKHART, Indiana (Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary) — Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), Elkhart, Indiana, will honor the legacy and racial justice work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with two events on Jan. 14 and 15 under the theme, “No Church in the Wild: Christianity, White Supremacy, Black Liberation and Hip-Hop.”

The featured speaker will be Daniel White Hodge, Ph.D., associate professor of intercultural communications at North Park University in Chicago and a recognized urban youth culture expert and cultural literacy scholar.

He is the author of The Soul of Hip Hop: Rims, Timbs and a Cultural Theology (IVP 2010) and Hip Hop’s Hostile Gospel: A Post Soul Theological Exploration (Brill Academic 2017); his next book, Homeland Insecurity: A Hip-Hop Missiology for the Post-Civil Rights Context (IVP Academic), will be released in June.

Hip-hop music and culture have a complex place in American society, observes Nekeisha Alayna Alexis, Intercultural Competence and Undoing Racism coordinator at AMBS and an organizer of the AMBS events.

“On one hand, they have become lucrative products that influence global trends in fashion, music and everyday language,” she says. “Yet hip-hop’s origins are from predominantly Black, economically marginalized communities — communities that remain pressed to the fringes and do not receive the recognition or the benefits they deserve for their contributions.”

Responses to hip-hop within and outside of the church can also be complicated, Alexis says. While some people uncritically dismiss it, others carelessly appropriate it. There are also debates among those who embrace it about how it has developed, where it’s headed and what needs to change. For this reason, she is grateful for the insights that Dr. White Hodge brings to the table.

“One of the things he adds to the mix is the ability to look at hip-hop as a valuable, critical and important cultural resource that we can learn from,” she says. “I’m excited to host an educator, thinker and leader who approaches the genre as a source of wisdom, who honors the creativity behind the form and recognizes its value in our society — and even to the practice of faith in the way of Jesus.”

Alexis also notes the connection to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who as a pastor and Christian leader fought against injustice within a movement that drew strength from singing, music and storytelling.

The events, to be hosted by AMBS’s Intercultural Competence and Undoing Racism team, include:

• Free public lecture: “The Soul of Hip-Hop and the Church in America”
  Sunday, Jan. 14, 2–3:30 p.m. at the Historic Roosevelt Center, 215 E. Indiana Avenue in Elkhart.
  AMBS is also hosting a book drive for the Tolson Community and Youth Center at the event; new and gently used non-religious books for diverse youth in grades 3-7 are especially welcome.
• Interactive workshop: “Intercultural Competencies in an Era of Trump and Fake News”
  Monday, 15, 8:30 a.m. – noon at AMBS, 3003 Benham Avenue in Elkhart.
  Registration is required for the Jan. 15 workshop (limited to 30 participants); see description at ambs.edu/mlkday.

For information about the types of books that are desired for the book drive, as well as the events, see: ambs.edu/mlkday

 Located in Elkhart, Indiana, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary is a learning community with an Anabaptist vision, offering theological education for learners both on campus and at a distance as well as a wide array of lifelong learning programs — all with the goal of educating followers of Jesus Christ to be leaders for God’s reconciling mission in the world.

TISKILWA, ILLINOIS (Hungry World Farm).   Stephan Rauh will become the first Lead Produce Farmer for the new organization, Hungry World Farm, on February 1, 2018.  Most recently Rauh raised vegetables for a farmers’ market, Community Supported Agriculture and direct sales in the Metamora area.  He graduated from Wheaton College with a degree in biology and a Human Needs and Global Resources certificate.
Rauh comes to Hungry World Farm with deep and varied experiences with raising food and working with food distribution.  He worked and learned for six months in Nicaragua.  He completed internships at Clay Bottom Farm (Goshen, IN) and 12 Seasons Farm (Fort Myers, FL). Rauh gained varied experiences volunteering at ECHO’s Global Farm in Florida.  He completed studies at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center in Agroecology.  Last winter Rauh worked to help design and establish a small fruit and nut orchard on the Big Island of Hawaii. He worked in Christian Service at a food bank and food pantry in Elkhart, Indiana, through the Mennonite Mission Network.
Hungry World Farm began in the fall of 2017 as a nonprofit organization receiving the former Plow Creek property east of Tiskilwa.  Hungry World Farm invites all to reflect upon the theory and practice of food production and consumption in deep consideration of hungers in the global village. The farm is near Tiskilwa, Illinois and includes tillable land, woods and a native hillside prairie.  Hungry World Farm utilizes the farm as a textbook for healthy, sustainable food production. Individuals and communities are empowered to strengthen local food systems, reflect on their own consumption and systemic impact on the environment.  Would you like to explore supporting the startup or volunteering on the farm?  Please contact hungryworldfarm@gmail.com.

Greetings to each of you as we celebrate the salvation of God through Jesus Christ. As you reflect on the past and anticipate the future, may your …eyes see, your ears hear, and your heart conceive of what God has prepared for you (I Cor. 2:9-13). With joy, a strong Missional Leadership Team has been working this past year alongside our conference minister, Michael Danner, to address some of the issues before us, and I want to bring you up to date on some developments.

1. Annual Assembly: Because we struggle with how to allocate time between worship, inspiration and business when we gather for one weekend, we are dividing our assembly into two separate gatherings this year.
2. A one-day delegate meeting at Metamora Mennonite Church on February 17 to discuss and discern financial and structural concerns facing the conference. Delegates will assist leadership in setting a direction for our work, (see 2C below). We will also affirm IMC leadership at this meeting.
3. A two-day gathering at Sonido de Alabanza in Cicero on Friday and Saturday, October 19, 20. The focus will be on worship, equipping and learning more about the challenges and ministries of the churches in this area. As we plan, we hope to include workshops, tours, music from different churches, and a few speakers. Participants are invited to stay an extra day to worship with a local church on Sunday morning.
4. IMC Financial and Structural Resources: Delegates asked the MLT to address a multi-year pattern of insufficient funding for conference that has resulted in a depletion of reserve funds. We believe that conference resources should be funded by contributions from member churches. There is no endowment to draw on and we don’t believe using reserve funds nor private fund-raising are acceptable long-term options.
5. Expenses have been cut as much as possible while maintaining a part time administrative assistant and the equivalent of one full time conference minister. Martín Navarro was hired on marginal time to assist in exploring stronger relationships with churches that primarily serve the Latino community. His position is funded by an offset in Michael’s salary.
6. Not all of the member congregations in the conference financially support the conference, but Michael responds to the requests of all congregations regardless of financial support.
7. The MLT is meeting with a few additional people in January to shape questions that delegates will be asked to address at our February 17 meeting. Your counsel is vital in determining the nature of our conversation and the proposals that will ultimately come back to the delegate body.
8. Year-End Giving: The conference fiscal year ends on January 31, 2018. If your church has not made a contribution to IMC this past year, I encourage you to do so. If you have contributed, we thank you, and ask you to consider including IMC in any special year end giving that you might do. I can assure you that your conference staff works very hard and maximizes every dollar that is given.

Please continue in prayer for us as we discern God’s call and the Spirit’s leading for our future as a conference. Feel free to contact me or Michael if you have any questions.

Don Rheinheimer,

Moderator, Illinois Mennonite Conference

(from left to right: Cal Zehr, pastor at Willow Springs Mennonite Church, Doug Roth, chair of Church Life Team, Jacob Landis, interim pastor at Freeport Mennonite Church, Charlotte Lehman, pastor of Reba Place Church and member of Church Life Team, Anne Munley, pastor at North Suburban Mennonite Church and member of Church Life Team, Curt Fenton, member of Church Life Team)

Jacob Landis was licensed for specific ministry on December 14, 2017, by the IMC Church Life Team.  Jacob is a member of Willow Springs Mennonite Church in Tiskilwa, IL.  He is a member of the IMC Missional Leadership Team and is active in ministry throughout the conference as a supply preacher.  Currently, Jacob is the interim pastor at Freeport Mennonite Church in Freeport, IL. He is also pursuing a master degree in spiritual formation from Friends University in Wichita, KS.

A license for specific ministry allows Jacob to perform all the functions of a pastor within the accountability relationship he has with his home congregation.

Please pray for Jacob as he grows as a pastor and leader!