At the beginning of a new calendar year, we often recall the important events of the previous year. How do U.S. Mennonite Brethren remember 2024? What are the top news stories of this past year?
Topping our list as CL editors is the far-reaching change in USMB leadership, both among staff and volunteer board members. Our list also includes the struggles and successes related to church multiplication and leadership development and ongoing discussions related to human sexuality and the USMB reversion clause.
Here are the events the Christian Leader editors regard as key happenings for our national conference. Where possible, links are provided to related stories on our website.
New leaders
The year 2024 marked significant USMB leadership transitions with the summer National Convention marking a changing of the guard.
Three USMB staff members, with a combined six decades of experience, retired this summer: Donna Sullivan spent 32 years as administrative secretary, bookkeeper and event planner; Don Morris concluded 20 years with USMB, 12 years as Mission USA director and eight years as national director; and Lori Taylor worked for 16 years as administrative assistant and webmaster.
Aaron Box, a USMB pastor and previous Leadership Board member, was hired as the new national director. Sullivan was replaced by J.L. Martin as bookkeeper and event planner and Desirae Rolen as administrative assistant. Rolen also took over Taylor’s role as USMB webmaster.
Box is working with a group of relative newcomers on both the Leadership Board and Board of Faith and Life, including board chairs Dave Thiessen and Jesse Swiers, respectively. The most experience any returning member brings to either board is four years.
District leadership is also in transition. Two of the five districts hired new district ministers in 2024: co-district ministers Darren Foddrell and James Moore in the Eastern District and Brian Harris in the Southern District. District ministers are members of the Leadership Board, Board of Faith and Life and National Strategy Team, three key leadership groups.
Church planting
At the close of a rocky year for USMB national church planting efforts, National Director Aaron Box paused national involvement in church planting to assess how best to move forward.
Even though church multiplication is one of three USMB core commitments, national U.S. Mennonite Brethren church multiplication efforts took a hit in 2024. Early in the year, Brian Harris, church planting mobilizer, resigned to become the Southern District Conference minister. Harris was quickly replaced by Scott Thomas, who was involved with USMB church planting from 2016 to 2018. However, Thomas, who began work Feb. 1 on a contracted, part-time basis, resigned within months.
Leadership development
While implementation of the USMB core commitment of church multiplication struggled in 2024, leadership development activities took a strong step forward. In January, National Director Don Morris convened a by-invitation-only vision summit focused on the shortage of young leaders. Fifty-seven pastors and leaders in leadership development spent three days discussing generational and global trends, current church culture and U.S. Mennonite Brethren educational culture.
One result of the summit is that the four districts that own Tabor College are working with the institution to develop training opportunities for pastors and leaders. Another encouraging sign has been the growing number of USMB churches that have developed internship programs and the increase in high school and college students who took advantage of the internship opportunities. The Christian Leader plans to highlight some of these new internship opportunities in 2025.
Human sexuality
USMB leaders continued to talk about matters related to human sexuality. While there was no debate regarding the USMB Confession of Faith’s affirmation of marriage as a covenant relationship uniting a man and a woman for life and rejection of all homosexual practice, there was discussion on how best to express this conviction while also loving well those who disagree.
After two years of discussion, in early 2024, the USMB Board of Faith and Life released the document, “Responding faithfully and lovingly to LGB persons,” to district ministers for distribution. The paper, focusing on what it means to love neighbors, friends and family members who experience same sex attraction, was processed at the national and district levels for two years. BFL continued to work on a resource for local churches on transgender issues. For those looking for help in talking about these issues with their children and friends, these two resources will be helpful.
Within the broader Anabaptist context, USMB continues to advocate for its traditional position regarding human sexuality. In May the Leadership Board informed pastors that USMB had redefined its relationship with Everence, an inter-Mennonite stewardship ministry, due to Everence’s close association with Mennonite Church USA. MC USA is moving toward affirming LGBTQIA persons. This means USMB will no longer be represented on the Everence board of directors.
Reversion review
The question of what happens to property when a local church closes or leaves the U.S. Conference of MB Churches (USCMBC) — commonly known as the reversion clause — has been discussed at the national and district levels for many years. This year the Leadership Board hoped to bring clarity to the issue when it recommended changes to the USCMBC bylaws.
However, delegates to the 2024 National Convention did not approve the proposed bylaw change, so at its fall 2024 meeting, the Leadership Board discussed the topic again. The board anticipates bringing a new proposal to the 2026 convention that can help to resolve this issue.
Other memorable happenings
In other national conference news, LEAD Pods, the USMB podcast, released its 100th episode in March, and USMB NextGen moved its national summer camp for high school students to Camp WOW in Oklahoma.
Fresno Pacific University celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2024, and communities in the Midwest commemorated the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Mennonite Brethren to the United States.
Local USMB churches responded to natural disasters, including congregations in North Carolina and Nebraska. Parkview MB Church in Hillsboro, Kansas, was one congregation that celebrated a milestone anniversary.
U.S. Mennonite Brethren remembered the contributions of three men who died in 2024: Tabor College professor Richard Kyle; John E. Toews, who was on the faculty of Tabor College, Fresno Pacific University and MB Biblical Seminary; and Rolando Mireles, a school teacher from La Grulla, Texas, who served the USMB church in a variety of ways.
International MB news
USMB is one of 24 national conferences that are part of the International Community of Mennonite Brethren, and in 2024, news from the international MB fellowship included celebrations and challenges.
Elton DaSilva, previously the national director of the Canadian Conference of MB Churches, began serving as the ICOMB global director in January 2024. Unfortunately, less than a year later, financial realities prompted the Global Board to release DaSilva in October 2024. Global Board members and others will carry out leadership duties with the help of a part-time executive assistant.
Mennonite Brethren in Democratic Republic of Congo observed their 100th anniversary with a week-long celebration in August. The centennial anniversary of the Communauté des Églises des Frères Mennonites au Congo (CEFMC, Community of Mennonite Brethren Churches in Congo) was delayed two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The week of preaching, singing, choir performances, a pastors’ conference and evangelistic rallies drew international guests as well as thousands of Congolese.
While it appeared that conflict in the India MB Conference had been resolved following the selection of new leaders in 2023, it became apparent in 2024 that settling the long-simmering tensions would take time.
More top picks
Although these are the notable events that stood out to us for 2024, there are other ways to select top stories. We identified the Top 10 most-viewed posts from our website, christianleadermag.com. Readers may also be interested in our list of most-viewed CL feature articles and most-viewed C-Link news stories from 2024.
Connie Faber joined the magazine staff in 1994 and assumed the duties of editor in 2004. She has won awards from the Evangelical Press Association for her writing and editing. Faber is the co-author of Family Matters: Discovering the Mennonite Brethren. She and her husband, David, have two daughters, one son, one daughter-in-law, one son-in-law and three grandchildren. They are members of Ebenfeld MB Church in Hillsboro, Kansas.
