I returned from Pittsburgh with, like many convention goers, quite a mixed array of experiences, thoughts, and emotions to process. I was energized; I was exhausted, having had the honor of attending convention as both a high school youth sponsor and a Pink Menno organizer.

I was still more or less in this “post-convention daze” when I showed up at Hyattsville Mennonite Church one week after Pittsburgh for our Convention Reflection Sunday. In hearing and re-hearing the stories of my seven high school students, I was left with a clarifying urge:

We Will Be Okay. We, the Mennonite Church, will be okay.

Here’s why.

It is not that it wasn’t okay — the explosion of pink in Pittsburgh, the steady flow in and out of the Hospitality Room, the sound of pink four-part a capella, the fluid boundaries of our circle encompassing singers who might otherwise not have joined our cause but found harmony, the way the skylights made sun descend on us like heaven while the waters rolled like justice under bridges – it was more than okay; it was something divine.

But what grounds my hope for the future of the church? What makes me recommit in a single Sunday to this treacherous mess of Anabaptism?

It is hearing youth who ask honest questions. Youth who digest convention sermons that preach theology very different from their own and, while they might find it disturbing, come away grateful for a chance to get a taste of the “Mennonite buffet.”  Youth who proudly where pink in true community alongside one who comfortably does not. Youth who love both directing hymns and moshing to Christian punk-rock. These are youth willing to live with[in] difference.

We certainly need the movers, the shakers, the agenda-pushers to keep the church going where it needs to go; some of my youth are these movers, as well. But they are also young people who are grounded in a reality of difference in the church, and they are okay with that. In fact they seem more than okay with that – they articulate what is positive in their experience of difference in the church. The different theology of “the other” – or the one among – is not a threat to their Mennonite church. They call it confusing, curious. They are still in community. They are still talking.

If this doesn’t look like Anabaptism, I don’t know what does.

And if this kind of Anabaptist theology shapes the youth who are and will continue to lead our Mennonite body, we will be okay.

Whew! It’s been a LONG day working for PinkMenno at the Pittsburgh MCUSA convention, but a lot of progress has been made. We’ve been equipped with bracelets, scarves, stickers, and roughly 400 folded shirts bearing four fabulous designs. The hospitality room – located on the third floor of the Mariott Courtyard – is currently set up, so anyone is welcome to stop by at any time. We had some representatives from EMU Safe Spaces come in and help fold shirts and generally put things together, and we’ve had a huge variety of other volunteers as well. Tonight we had a hymn sing before the joint worship session, which I was unable to attend but heard went just swimmingly. There was also a rehearsal for the  “Choir for Inclusion,” which again, I didn’t attend but was told went marvelously. Tomorrow we have planned an early morning meditation, two open worships, and three hymn sings. Please continue to keep us all in your prayers!

- Kerry Bush, PMPress

Dear Pink Mennos,

Hi! I just arrived in Pittsburgh and I’m writing with a quick introduction. My name is Stephanie Krehbiel, and I’m a doctoral student at the University of Kansas in the Department of American Studies and the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. I’m here in Pittsburgh because my dissertation research is on the experiences of LGBTQ Mennonites, and more broadly, on the role sexuality-related issues play in Mennonite identities. I’m an ethnographer, so I choose to do my research in conversation with the people who shape and are shaped by the issues I’m studying. I decided to come to Pittsburgh two years ago, when I was preparing to start my PhD and reading all the dispatches from Pink Mennos at the MCUSA conference in Columbus. Clearly, important things happen at these conferences that have ramifications in people’s lives for a long time afterward.

I don’t think it’s ever fair for an ethnographer to go around studying people without giving back some of her own story, so a bit about who I am and why I’m writing about this: I don’t go to church, but I did grow up Mennonite, in North Newton, Kansas. I was baptized as a teenager at the Bethel College Mennonite Church, and later attended and graduated from Bethel College. My husband and I were married in BCMC a few years later. For both of us, the church’s treatment of our Mennonite LGBTQ friends and family members has been instrumental in our gradual drift away from Mennonite churches and institutions.

So it feels a little weird to be here. In fact, I’ve never been to a Mennonite conference before. And while the conference registration form wouldn’t allow me to label myself “other” or “anthropologist” or “none” rather than choosing a congregation, Ervin Stutzman and the other moderators know why I am here and have given me their official permission to be a fly on the wall at conference events. I’m most interested in the folks of Pink Menno, Menno Neighbors, and BMC, however, and part of how I’d like to thank you for letting me learn in your midst is to help you chronicle the events of this week. It helps me record what’s going on, and it lets you respond to and amend my accounts of the days’ events if you choose to, be that in writing or in person. I hope that between me and the other Pink Menno Press volunteers, we create a record of this week that is useful to all of us.

I’ll be around Pink Menno events all week, so please come introduce yourself. I’d love to speak with as many of you as I can. I’m the one with the brown ponytail and the HRC messenger bag, probably looking slightly intimidated. (I haven’t been around this many Mennonites in a long, long time!)

Pink Menno is happy to announce the release of the first installment of the One Voice project. For more info and previews of the songs, check out the One Voice page. To buy the album, go to the Pink Gear Page.

Abigail was fussy. It was raining again and it didn’t look like she and her older sister, Amanda, would be going with their grandparents to the beach that morning. The North Carolina weather was unpredictable this time of year and it looked like this might be another day of playing games inside.

But Grandma Rose had a different idea. “Let’s look at some old photos,” she suggested. “Why don’t you bring me my computer? It’s on the dining room table.”

Abigail carefully lifted the laptop off its charger and brought it to her grandmother. She waited patiently as her grandmother logged in and then brought up the web albums.

“Okay, “ mused Grandma Rose as she scrolled through the albums. “What sounds interesting? How about your baby pictures? Your parents’ wedding? I even have some old photos of your dad!”

“What about pictures of Dad in high school?” suggested Amanda, who had just walked into the sitting area with a towel wrapped around her wet hair.  Abigail quickly agreed. She would be starting sixth grade next month, but knew many of Amanda’s high school friends.

Grandma Rose found the album she wanted and pointed to a slender blond boy. “This is your dad as a sophomore—just the same age that Amanda is now.”

The girls bent over the photos, exclaiming at the funny hairstyles and clothing fashions from twenty years earlier. “What’s with the baggy shorts?” asked Amanda. “Ewww, is that Dad’s underwear?”

“Oh yes!” chuckled her grandmother. “I just hated that those boys went around with their shorts hanging down so low and their underwear showing. I guess I got used to it after awhile. In fact, I had forgotten all about that silly fashion!”

“Well, here’s another silly fashion,” declared Abigail. “Look at this picture. All these kids are wearing pink! Even the boys! Yuk! Since when do boys wear pink?”

(Click here to read the rest of this entry)

I’m a psychiatrist who sees the work of God in the awesomeness of the brain – the ways we are made to become ourselves in relationships, the actions of grace in the so-strong pull towards healing, the infinite diversity, the power of nonviolence to facilitate change, etc. If God isn’t a Mennonite, at least I can hope that the Anabaptist traditions can witness to some of the divine wind that sustains the universe.

As one whose “Mennoniteness” is so deeply woven into thought and action, I have been constantly inspired by the courage and grace of the queers who have persistently modeled commited faith – in spite of such absolute invalidation, stubborn misunderstandings and attempts to exclude from both church and faith, you/they have continued to show up, use gifts for the growth of Christ’s body, offer the cup of cold water and prayers of the heart. For all the ways that you stay in communication, while still claiming whatever space you need to be your God-shaped selves, thank you.

As a psychiatrist I see on a near daily basis the impact of the persecution of those who don’t fit the mainstream heterosexual mold. And so as a human being, as one who journeys with those seeking healing, and as a Christian, I need to urge my fellow believers to create life-saving space for those who are threatened by active hate whether that is from another person or within themselves. (Click here to read the rest of this entry)

Welcome to the new pinkmenno.org!  The online community at pinkmennocapmpaign.ning.com is definitely still around – you can access it here (click on “Pink Menno Network” above) or by linking directly with the above address.  We hope this new site will be a better way to communicate – more streamlined, easy to navigate, and more accessible to anyone looking for information about Pink Menno.  We’d love to hear your feedback about the new site – email us at pinkmenno@gmail.com.