Executive Conference Minister of Pasadena Southwest Mennonite Conference, Stanley Green, spoke into our Anabaptist Basics series on October 16th. His sermon on the Spirit and spirituality was entitled Spirituality and the Profane. Stanley talks about he and his wife, Ursula, being among four other couples that founded Pasadena Mennonite with retired missionary, Dorothy Smoker, 36 years ago. This was also their welcome into the Mennonite denomination, where Stanley went on to serve as Executive Director of Mennonite Mission Network, prior to which he served as pastor, conference minister and mission executive in South Africa, Jamaica and the United States.

Stanley describes his first pastorate in South Africa, where his parishioners were menial laborers on farms producing ostriches and grapes. Stanley knew that the very religious white owners of the farms would beat their workers. They were paid little, forcing them to buy on credit from the farm store half-way through the month. And at 13, children were taken out of school to work the farms.

This history created an interest for Stanley regarding the topic of spirituality. Current definitions and the history of the western church created a duality between mind and body, and other-worldliness over earthliness, as well as linear thinking. This has been manifested through sexism, climate change, and wide-spread disease that plagues our society.

It is time to bring back what has been forgotten: the body, the physical world, and those labeled as “other” back into our consciousness so that our world can heal and find restoration.

Hear more as Stanley talks about the impact of this history on discipleship, as well as born out in Jesus incarnationational ministry.