We started coming to Pasadena Mennonite Church in 1992.  Our son, Ben, was 5-years old. When we arrived, Ty,  Annika, Bob Nolty and Karen were already here, along with a few of the original founding members of the church, the original pastor and others. But the day we arrived, we were the newest ones to show up.

They clearly were either very short of volunteers or wanted to immediately weave us into their net, because after the service, the head greeter asked if I could be a greeter the next Sunday. When I was hesitant, pointing out that I didn’t know many people and probably wouldn’t be the best greeter, I could see he wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer and I greeted my heart out on my 2^nd Sunday.

A few days before our 3^rd Sunday, I received a phone call from a woman who said “This is Laurine from PMC”.  I had no idea who she was and had no idea what PMC was. I literally had to ask her to repeat her name and PMC 4 times; and had to ask what PMC is. It finally clicked when she said Pasadena Mennonite Church. She was calling to ask if I’d bring snacks and make coffee that coming Sunday. So, on my 3^rd week I found myself fumbling around in the kitchen. I probably should have wondered about this place, but maybe I was intrigued by how casually and immediately they began their “gifts discernment” around here.

Flash forward a few years; more new people came and were woven in. Many of our grad students attending Fuller and Cal Tech finished their programs and moved away, leaving holes; shifting our culture. Even the 3 Dougs were gone. We called ourselves a “sending church” helping to equip these folks who went on to become pastors or therapists or scientists elsewhere. 

It felt providential that just about the time someone would leave in the 1990’s, someone new would show up named Medendorp, Newton, Moore, Rewers….even Gist. As these folks were introduced as visitors, the rest of us secretly wondered “What will they add? And how long will they stay?”

I learned quickly that although there was this casual air in the room at PMC, we could also take ourselves very seriously.

When someone decided to start a PMC choir you had to go through a 1-on-1 audition with the director. Really?  For a church choir? I thought. But it turned out no one failed their audition and the choir ended up sounding great.

When we wrote up guidelines for PMC nursery volunteers, it was a lengthy list that included things like:

“must be able to determine if a child is febrile”…..(at the time, I didn’t know what febrile meant.)  Our pastor shook his head and said that this would mean that only those with PhDs in child development need apply to volunteer. 

When I organized the Thanksgiving Potluck in my 1^st year, I was told I had disappointed folks by not cooking the turkeys here at church so everyone could smell them during the service. “That’s what the last person had done”…well, that person had moved to Canada, and I wasn’t told that was an expectation or a cherished tradition. 

• Congregational and Leadership Team meetings could go on for hours.
• We’d battle through our consensus process forever.
• Leadership Team Chairs all moved away after their terms were up, providing little continuity. (BTW, we have 10 former LT chairs still attending today.)

We also knew how to laugh at ourselves. There was the time when we had 12 people named David attending PMC and, yes, we found a way to insert humor in the blessed ritual of Advent by having the “12 Daves of Christmas” come up as a group to light the Advent Candle. We could never have pulled this off if all these Daves hadn’t walked through our doors at some point. The “3 Doug’s” just didn’t have the same ring to it.

Maybe because of our ability to take ourselves a bit too seriously yet remain casual…maybe because we were both a sending church and receiving church…and maybe because we could laugh at ourselves and also carry the serious message of peace to the world in which injustices are too many to count; that whether I’ve been in need of a refuge or needed to hear a call to action or find a sense of belonging, you have provided it. I am serious when I say you have provided these things even if you weren’t here yet. At some point you showed up at our door and have yearned to provide hospitality, love and affirmation and a call to action. What you have offered goes beyond the founding of Pasadena Mennonite Church. It goes all the way back to Jesus lending forgiveness to strangers and goes back to the help the Old Testament Prophets received in their faith that the birth of the Blessed One would happen even if not in their lifetime. 

We are all a part of this. If we are faithfully willing to do these things to the best of our ability, even if we don’t audition for the choir… the Holy Spirit has shown time and again that God’s grace will link us to this chain that began long before PMC came on the scene. In the 1990’s we were learning how to be a church and how to respond to the world. Today, we don’t know what will come of it all, but we will be doing it together in the name of Christ.