Present: Judy Cantrall, Kryss Chupp, Monica Claassen, Gerry Forshey, Bob Johnson, Barbara Kolar, Jan Lugibihl, Chuck Neufeld, Shirley Pulgar-Hughes, Kevin Vincent, Jan Wiebe.

Reason for Meeting: to clarify confusion about whether or not a covenant identifying LUMC as the sponsoring congregation for the Pilsen MVS unit had been "dissolved" and to discuss the future of the unit's relationship to LUMC.

Background & History: We spent some time reviewing the history of the Pilsen unit and the church's relationship to it. The unit began in 1980 or 1981 at the initiative of local Mennonites living in Pilsen and expressing a clear vision for service within this predominantly Mexican immigrant community. The covenant with the LUMC to be the sponsoring congregation was established when Marty Scott was pastor in around 1985. Shirley had spoken by phone with Marty Scott (LUMC's pastor at the time the covenant was created) who shared that most of the documentation was burned in the fire at Peace Church during the days that LUMC was part of the 3 church Emmanual Parish. Kevin recalled that Gerry had met with former pastor Franklin and they suggested that since the covenant was not being acted on, it should be dissolved. Gerry carried that message to the support committee who then asked Rich Boyd to draft a letter to LUMC about the issue. Jan L. had a copy of the letter but it was neither signed nor dated and so apparently was never sent and the dissolution process was never completed. Representatives of LUMC stated clearly that the church's administrative board had never authorized a dissolution. And thus it was clarified that indeed there had been no official dissolution of the covenant between LUMC and MVS.

Current Situation: Currently none of the Pilsen VSers have assignments in the Pilsen neighborhood with the exception of the Children's Program coordinator. The relationship between the unit and LUMC has been very weak for several years. Most support committee members live in the Pilsen neighborhood but attend different churches.

We acknowledged all of the many factors that have simultaneously impacted the situation in which we currently find ourselves:

- LUMC: after Marty Scott left, the church floated for several years through a series of part time pastors; the church exists to be of service to the community but it's been hard to maintain a clear mission with all that transition and lack of stability. Now with Shirley and her husband, the church is looking at 3-6 years of stable leadership.

- Local Mennonite support: a number of local Mennonites living in Pilsen who were deeply connected to LUMC for many years moved out of the city within the past few years; local Mennonites currently serving on the support committee have their primary church connections elsewhere.

- Neighborhood Agencies: also within the past several years and for a variety of reasons, many of the primary agencies where VSers have worked in Pilsen are no longer accepting volunteers.

- Support Committee: the support committee has been through a significant transition within the past 1 1/2 to 2 years.

Nature of Future Relationship: Given the current situation, it seems that we must ask ourselves some fundamental questions about vision/mission. Chuck Neufeld (MVS staff representative) suggested that we are really 2 communities facing the same questions -- how are we connected and how can we be? what are our visions/missions? The question was posed to LUMC: Imagine that there were no existing MVS unit in Pilsen -- would LUMC propose an MVS unit? would there be a Methodist program to call on? what's the vision/mission of the church that MVS might be a tool to help implement? how can LUMC convince MVS that they are prepared to be a sponsoring congregation? (hard to justify a covenant if local Mennonites are not involved)

Some comments from LUMC representatives in response:

- there is a long history of Methodist/Mennonite cooperationin South America (Chile); LUMC needs people from the MVS generation (who tend to be in their 20's); VSers need a pastor to support them too; there is no real counterpart to MVS within the Methodist system

- the problems in the neighborhood are the same as when the unit came into being and the church continues to look for ways to respond

- Mennonites always helped keep the vision focussed

- "If your heart is as my heart, give me your hand."

Chuck suggested that the support committee, the unit, and the church must each answer that question -- where is your heart? There are a number of options (this is not an all-inclusive list)

1) recovery of a vision

2) some support committee members withdraw but bless a LUMC vision

3) support committee with other congregation want to sponsor the unit

4) several congregations link together to co-sponsor the unit (or units -- Pilsen & E. Garfield Pk.)

The following process was proposed for dealing with the fundamental vision questions:

1) each group (LUMC & the Unit/Support Committee) will meet separately to work through the issues at hand. Chuck will make an MVS document called "Criteria for MVS Projects" available as a guide to help us.

2) each group will try to have moved through this discernment process by June 18th when we will have another joint meeting (7:00 at Shirley's).

3) each group will share the notes of all interim meetings with each other and with Chuck.