Forest Hills Mennonite Church

On January 21, 1525, two people in Zürich baptized each other during a Bible study. This unexpected action catalyzed the Anabaptist (re-baptizing) movement within the Reformation. As we approach the 500th anniversary the start of a movement that reshaped the world, we're spending the month of January exploring how God was at work through the Radical Reformation, what it looks like to faithfully fo...

The birth of Christ is God's hope breaking into the world anew. As we reflect on this new and glorious morn, what's our expectation for the future? 

The Christian story complicates some understandings of hope, particularly when we think about human agency. Christmas is an opportunity to recognize that God's power—not just our own—is the focus of true hope. 

If hope is about a better future, then true hope begins with an honest acknowledgment of all that is wrong in the present.

What's your prediction for the future? It's a notoriously tricky business making predictions like that. But the story of Christ's arrival seems to radically reshape humanity's relationship with the future. Through Christ, God assures that the future can be better than present. In other words, Christ gives humanity hope. 

What do we do while we wait? The Apostle Paul describes Christians as people with a "citizenship in heaven" and a people who are eagerly waiting for a savior from there. What does faithful waiting look like? 

Paul's list of the fruit of the Spirit offers a beautiful, inspiring picture of flourishing Christian community, yet it ends on a sobering note: to fully experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness, each us needs to practice self-control. 

Gentleness (also translated as "meekness") is sometimes misunderstood as weakness. Christian preachers often go to great pains to remind people that meekness isn't weakness. While that may be true, it's also beside the point: gentleness, as a fruit of the Spirit, is about demonstrating softness, tenderness, care, and compassion in all our interactions with others. 

How do followers of Jesus respond when we feel our most important values are under attack? And what does the fruit of the Spirit have to do with it?

What if some of the goodness we lack exists in those with whom we have the deepest disagreements? 

Is kindness a form of weakness, the last refuge of people who can't get what they want any other way? Or does kindness contain a surprising and subversive power, a fortitude that allows us to move toward each other even in the most impossible of situations? 

Is patience a harmful response to injustice?

One way to think about peace is that it's the experience of nothing being missing and nothing being broken. When relationships seem deeply broken, how might God move us toward peace? Is it possible to escape seemingly endless cycles of retribution, revenge, and violence? 

Christians know an awful lot about what joy is not—how it's not the same as happiness or it's not circumstantial or it can't be temporary—but what can we say joy actually is? Drawing on emerging insights from neurobiology, perhaps we can say that joy is a communal experience, something that emerges when we're glad to be together. If that's true, then the fact that God is always near to us and alwa...

We're all living through what one cultural commentator calls "a bitter age," one marked by divisiveness, polarization, and distrust. As followers of Jesus, what might change if we drew on an ancient roadmap for flourishing together, cultivating and sharing the fruit of the Spirit by practicing love, joy, peace, patience, and more? This Sunday, we embark on a nine-week journey into God's vision for...

Jesus wants us well-rested. That's the promise we find in Matthew's Gospel, and its implications can radically reshape our lives. Pastor Jon is joined by Nita Landis, a spiritual companion, writer, and retreat leader, for a conversation about real rest. 

At Jesus' baptism, the evidence of God's presence couldn't be clearer: a voice from heaven announcing "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." As others begin to follow Jesus, though, their experiences are far more ordinary and every day, yet they still choose the path of discipleship. 

George Washington quoted Scripture frequently, and he quoted from the prophet Micah more than any other Biblical author. Looking ahead to God's preferred future, Micah envisions that "everyone will sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one will make them afraid." Is it possible for us to live into this vision?

"Is there enough?" All of have an automatic, often subconscious answer to that question, but we might not always be aware of the forces and ideas shaping our assumptions. Pastor Jon explores the subconscious ways we learn to interpret the world as a place of scarcity—and how God's goodness teaches another story. 

Dr. Nancy Heisey explores the letter to the Ephesians, and God's desire to invite real flesh and blood human beings into the common good. 

After the events of this past weekend, Pastor Jon offers some perspectives on how we remain faithful to Jesus during tumultuous times. 

Christian worship practices throughout history have an experiential richness that can seem to be lacking from some post-Enlightenment or Protestant expressions. What are some benefits of embracing liturgical traditions in worship?

Oil, in the ancient world, was rich with symbolism and significance. From celebrating abundance to practicing hospitality, for experiencing joy to seeking health, oil was an important part of daily life. How might we experience the richness of that tradition today?

The Psalms remind us of how good and pleasant it is for kinfolk to live together in unity. Our experiences of worship, however, sometimes serve to remind us of our differences rather than bringing us closer together. How does our mentality about worship allow us to move closer to unity?

Almost 5% of the Psalms are characterized as "penitential" or "confessional" Psalms—prayers offered to God after transgressions or sins. While we tend to think of confession as a primarily private matter, the Psalms invite us to consider the practice of corporate confession in gathered worship.