“We have a new name” read the text message as I was boarding a flight from Columbus to Albuquerque. I had left the CMC Ministers Business Meeting in Apple Creek, Ohio, before the conference name change discussion and vote. I was traveling to attend the Celebration of Life service in honor of Sara Miller, wife of longtime pastor/church planter Maurice Miller. Sara had recently completed her earthly race following a battle with cancer.
During the flight, with time for reflection, I was able to picture the faces of my fellow pastors, my brothers, men whom I have come to love and respect in my role as conference pastor. I knew that some felt strongly that it was time for a new conference name, others cherished the history associated with the name CMC, and others had theological or cultural reasons for having (or not having) words like “Conference” or “Mennonite” in the name. I believe I know my brothers well enough to recognize that many are embracing a new name, some are disappointed, and a few aren’t sure what to think. But following what I am sure was a respectful and robust dialogue, sharing opinions and thoughts from differing perspectives, the CMC ministers voted to choose a new name—Rosedale Network of Churches.
In Albuquerque, I heard stories of Sara and Maurice’s life together and visited with their friends and family. Maurice shared some of his personal life pilgrimage with me. Maurice left the family farm in Michigan as a teenager in 1970 and prepared to become a Kingdom worker by studying at Rosedale Bible Institute (now Rosedale Bible College) for two years. In 1972, Maurice chose to volunteer with Rosedale Mennonite Missions (now Rosedale International) and soon found himself serving the Lord in Nicaragua. Maurice and Sara met each other working in a remote village clinic and were married in January 1976. They spent the first years of their marriage living in Michigan and then answered the call to serve missionally in Albuquerque, moving their family west in 1986.
Two people, one couple, Maurice and Sara Miller, entrusted themselves to Jesus, which began a stream that is turning into a river that flows into new places and future generations. During my brief visit to Albuquerque, I met people—from California, Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Nicaragua, of course, New Mexico, and other numerous locations—whose lives have been impacted by the ministry of Maurice and Sara. I came away asking myself again, how can one couple bless and impact so many people?
On my return flight, I continued to think about John 7:38 when Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within them” (NIV). And in Acts, there are several references to “increase and spreading,” referring to the gospel of Jesus and His Church, as early believers, submitted to the Holy Spirit, simply lived life with their attention on the kingdom of Jesus.
The 113-year history of CMC is rich with people who were committed to the purity and spreading of the gospel. The original five ministers (representing three congregations who first gathered in 1910), visionaries who invested in launching a mission agency and Bible college, Sunday school teachers, business people, prayer warriors, and present-day pastors and church planters have all contributed to the “increase and spreading”—the springs and rivulets becoming streams, joining to become rivers of life that have literally spread around the world.
As my plane was preparing to land back in Columbus, I began to understand that CMC is not something we are leaving behind. Despite the many seasons of her history, some even filled with strife and uncertainty, the people of CMC have maintained a passion and vision to see the gospel of Jesus Christ impact families and neighborhoods. It is that ongoing passion to mature and multiply churches locally and globally that has brought us to where we are in 2023.
We have a new name, but CMC is not the irrelevant past. Rather, CMC—represented through generations of faithful followers of Jesus, committed to His Word—has propelled us to become “Rosedale Network of Churches,” a global family of Anabaptists.
One Response
There is some degree to which we should perhaps trust our leadership to know what they’re doing while at the same time being cognizant of their humanity and thus the possibility of error. The whole concept of accountability to membership may be a canard, rendering this comment a bit of nattering negativity, since I clearly do not stroll the corridors of ecclesiastical influence, my position being more one of cowering in a supply closet somewhere, to torture a metaphor.
I have long held that Conservative Mennonite Conference was maybe three lies in one name, as we aren’t really conservative, aren’t a conference in the same sense as the area divisions, and are often barely Mennonite in terms of practice or belief. Of course to be accurate, sometimes it could be said we are marginal Christians as well. I think humility demands that concession. But we call ourselves Christ-followers partly as a statement of aspiration. Our former name conveyed that as well. “Mennonite” says something about what sort of Christianity we aspire too. Recent developments in other related groups have somewhat tarnished the name and what it conveys, but that can be said of any name, including the generic “Christian”.
In my thinking, CMC was a philosophical thing, different from the area conferences in that it was not tied to geography by name. Yes we knew Rosedale (or Columbus, or somewhere out there) was sort of the administrative center in some sense, but we identified with it from Oregon to Delaware on the basis of an idea, Anabaptist thought. The new name marries the organization to a school, an agency, a place, and divorces it from a theology. Will it make any difference? Who knows? There is something unsettling about the idea of attempting to hold to beliefs one is unwilling to publicly own. It also has the likely effect of marginalization of those of us not near the geographical center, certainly unintentionally. Loosening our ties to one another doesn’t seem like what we want.
Maybe it is simple recognition that we have largely grown a bit embarrassed, collectively, of our status as outsiders when considering the evangelical world. Our new label allows us to be anything. “Rosedale Network” conveys no meaning of itself. Not sure that is a good thing. That there does not seem to be much reaction could mean approval or it could mean conference (or network) structures are deemed pretty much irrelevant or that the smarter ones among the hoi polloi realize resistance is futile.