June 8, 2025 / 9:30 a.m.
What is ordination?
A reflection by Eric Massanari, PNMC Executive Conference Minister
In A Shared Understanding of Ministerial Leadership, our Mennonite Church USA polity statement on ministerial credentialing and leadership, ordination is described as "a long-term, leadership-ministry credential granted by the church. Ordination is the appropriate credential for all pastors, area conference ministry staff, chaplains, missionaries, evangelists, those serving as the national-office ministers, and those determined by the church to have a continuing ministerial-leadership role in, and on behalf of, the church."
Ordination typically follows a two-year period of licensure, during which time an individual's fitness and readiness for longer-term ministerial leadership is assessed within the life of the community of faith. In our Anabaptist lineage of Christian faith, the community is an integral part of the call and the credentialing of ministry leaders. As it is stated in the Shared Understanding document: "A person's call to ministry occurs within the body life of the church. A person does not appoint him- or herself to the ministry--one is chosen by the church. By affirming a person's strengths and gifts, the congregation confirms the person's inner call to ministry." In other words, while ordination suggests a setting apart of certain persons into ministerial leadership roles, this setting apart is always rooted and grounded in the Body of Christ, the church.
I find it particularly meaningful that ordination shares the same root as the word ordinary. Both come from the Latin, ordinare, which literally means “to set in order.” Ordination is a commitment to the path of becoming, with God’s help, one's most “ordinary” and real self as a ministering person. It means humbly and courageously accepting the gift of being simple, free and “coming down where we ought to be,” as the old Shaker song goes. It means accepting God’s call to a path of seeing, naming and evoking that same holy ordinariness at the heart of each person one serves in ministry, and at the heart of each moment one lives in the messy beauty and brokenness of life. Ordination means allowing one's life to become a proclamation and a magnifier of the great Love of God, so fully embodied and revealed in Christ, that is the source and ground of all. Ordination is always communal in its expression and action.
To become ordained for ministry is not a call to be or become an extraordinary or particularly holy variety of human being. Rather, ordination is a path that seeks to embody and proclaim the truth that to be human is already something quite extraordinary and holy.
In A Shared Understanding of Ministerial Leadership, our Mennonite Church USA polity statement on ministerial credentialing and leadership, ordination is described as "a long-term, leadership-ministry credential granted by the church. Ordination is the appropriate credential for all pastors, area conference ministry staff, chaplains, missionaries, evangelists, those serving as the national-office ministers, and those determined by the church to have a continuing ministerial-leadership role in, and on behalf of, the church."
Ordination typically follows a two-year period of licensure, during which time an individual's fitness and readiness for longer-term ministerial leadership is assessed within the life of the community of faith. In our Anabaptist lineage of Christian faith, the community is an integral part of the call and the credentialing of ministry leaders. As it is stated in the Shared Understanding document: "A person's call to ministry occurs within the body life of the church. A person does not appoint him- or herself to the ministry--one is chosen by the church. By affirming a person's strengths and gifts, the congregation confirms the person's inner call to ministry." In other words, while ordination suggests a setting apart of certain persons into ministerial leadership roles, this setting apart is always rooted and grounded in the Body of Christ, the church.
I find it particularly meaningful that ordination shares the same root as the word ordinary. Both come from the Latin, ordinare, which literally means “to set in order.” Ordination is a commitment to the path of becoming, with God’s help, one's most “ordinary” and real self as a ministering person. It means humbly and courageously accepting the gift of being simple, free and “coming down where we ought to be,” as the old Shaker song goes. It means accepting God’s call to a path of seeing, naming and evoking that same holy ordinariness at the heart of each person one serves in ministry, and at the heart of each moment one lives in the messy beauty and brokenness of life. Ordination means allowing one's life to become a proclamation and a magnifier of the great Love of God, so fully embodied and revealed in Christ, that is the source and ground of all. Ordination is always communal in its expression and action.
To become ordained for ministry is not a call to be or become an extraordinary or particularly holy variety of human being. Rather, ordination is a path that seeks to embody and proclaim the truth that to be human is already something quite extraordinary and holy.
We welcome Megan Ramer, Kristen's mentor, to be our preacher
Megan Ramer (she/her) has served as Lead Pastor of Seattle Mennonite for ten years. In 2015, she returned “home” to Cascadia where she’d spent some particularly formative young adult years prior to seminary in Denver and a decade of ministry in Chicago. Megan truly believes that we both witness to and participate in God’s vision of a Just Peace for all of creation, and finds joy when we are able to fully embody Jubilee justice in our communal life. Some of her favorite restorative activities are reading, camping, and hiking, including her most sustaining weekly practice of #fridaysabbathhikes. Megan also enjoys experiencing the magic of live music, snuggling with her cat, Rogue, frequenting the theatre to see her actor husband, Jon Stutzman, perform, and going on traveling adventures both large and small. It has been Megan's sincere pleasure to serve as Kristen's conference-appointed mentor pastor, and she's eager to enjoy Oregon strawberries and Gabriela snuggles.
Pastors Kristin Jackson and Terry Rediger will also participate in the service
Kristin Jackson was installed as the pastor of Living Water Community Church in Chicago in September of 2011. Living Water is a neighborhood oriented congregation that has Sunday services in four languages: English, Nepali, Swahili, and Khmer. Kristin has lived in Rogers Park since 1994, and has been a member of Living Water since it began. She loves this neighborhood and feels called to participate in God’s good news of reconciliation here. Kristin earned an M.Div from North Park Theological Seminary and an M.Ed from Loyola University, and worked for many years as a teacher before becoming a pastor. Kristin and her husband Julian have two teen-aged sons. Kristin Jackson has been a mentor for Pastor Kristen Swartley through a 2 year program she participated in for new pastors called “Transition to Leadership” facilitated by Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS).
Terry Rediger is a retired Mennonite pastor who serves as a District Pastor for PMC with the Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference (PNMC). He meets with PMC pastors regularly to check in and support them. Terry has pastored all across the country, including these states: Iowa, Washington, Oklahoma, and Oregon. A fun fact is that Terry was Kristen’s pastor when she was a child in Cedar Falls, IA, and baptized her when she was around 11 years old.
