Reflections on God's Work
Part 8
God is at work. In 2023, the Beacon feature articles will seek to capture a snapshot of the ways God is working in churches across our conference. We pray that these articles encourage your faith and spur you on to join God in the work he is doing in your local congregation.
~Kelsey Jurkovich, Publication & Literature Committee
Pineview Mennonite Church is a community of believers with a significant heritage in Rosedale Network of Churches. The church is located in a rural setting in southern Tuscola County, Michigan, where it was established in 1938 as a mission outreach by Pigeon River Mennonite Church. The composition of the current congregation of 40 people reflects how Pineview was started in an area lacking an established Mennonite community. Most of our church family was not raised in a Mennonite church, but the warmth and love shared by its members has made it a place where an outsider feels welcome. There is strength in the core community of believers who have been nurtured and shepherded by Pastor Roger Hazen and his wife, Sharon, at Pineview since 1999.
Pineview has a history of being a body of believers that connects people, supporting them with prayer and building relationships through Sunday morning worship, Bible studies, coffee hour conversations, service opportunities, and sharing meals together. Like many other small congregations, Pineview endured changes in the composition of our congregation because of the pandemic. In addition, we had several families with children relocate to other parts of the U.S. in a short period of time.
Our members are faithful in responding generously when given the opportunity to support global missions and to meet needs within the community around us.
Pineview is a tight-knit group of believers. We’ve had the opportunity to see God’s love carried out with acts of compassion, kindness, and genuine concern for one another. We’ve had several families lose loved ones in the past four years. In early 2021, God provided strength and comfort when our pastor’s parents passed away within a few hours of each other. Bearing one another’s burdens is a strength found in the body of Christ at Pineview, and it reflects the way we’ve been taught to bring our needs to God and to uphold one another in prayer and through genuine friendship.
Since 2021, God has enabled Pineview to be a welcoming place for several families from a neighboring community that were searching for a place to worship where God’s Word remained the foundation for teaching. This provided a much-needed boost to our congregational life. We’ve seen God supply our financial needs throughout the changing seasons of church life, which is very encouraging. Our members are faithful in responding generously when given the opportunity to support global missions and to meet needs within the community around us.
Recently, one of our members shared a need within the school district where he is a teacher. A family lost their home and possessions due to a house fire. On a Friday morning, a message was sent out to the congregation that we would lift a special offering for this family at the upcoming Sunday morning service. The total raised for that family was just over $1,700.
At the present, the most important part of our congregational life is preparing for a transition in pastoral leadership. The beginning work has been done to collect input from our congregation through a survey provided by Rosedale Network, to assist with the pastoral search process. The leadership team met in July to review the results of the survey, and there will be ongoing dialogue to determine how the search will be conducted. We are convinced that God will guide our hearts and minds as we look to Him for direction and prayerfully seek pastoral candidates able to provide the ministry passion and focus needed to keep this congregation alive into the next decade of its life.
One Response
I’m really enjoying these overviews of the various churches within the Rosedale Network. Thanks, Mary, for sharing the history of your congregation. I love history, and seeing how the original “DNA” of a congregation gets passed on (or doesn’t!) as leaders and congregants change.