Quaynor set to make Big Valley Mennonite history
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BELLEVILLE -- Phoebe Quaynor came to Belleville because housing cost less.
She stayed because a neighbor invited her to pancakes.
Quaynor was living in State College and working on her doctorate at Penn State when she began looking for a more affordable place to live. The search brought her across the mountain to Belleville and the Maple Grove Mennonite Church.
A neighbor invited her to the church's monthly pancake breakfast.
"What brought me to their door was literally a simple invitation," Quaynor said.
What kept her there ran deeper.
She had been praying for a worshiping community that felt like family. At Maple Grove, she found a congregation whose theology and hospitality seemed to say, "God loves you."
On Aug. 30, that congregation will formally ordain Quaynor as its preaching and teaching pastor. Church leaders say she will become the first woman ordained in a Mennonite church in the Big Valley area.
Lancaster Mennonite Conference Bishop Alan Kauffman will preach and officiate at the 10 a.m. service at Maple Grove, 115 Maple Grove Road in Belleville.
For Quaynor, the ceremony publicly affirms what she believes God has called her to do and the congregation willing to stand beside her.
"It feels like a baptism into public ministry," she said.
Quaynor doesn't point to one dramatic moment when she knew she belonged in a pulpit. She remembers something quieter.
She grew up in Ghana and lived there until she was about 20. As a child, she read the Bible largely as a book of adventures.
Later, questions about faith became harder to set aside. She wanted to reconcile what she heard in church and read in Scripture with what she saw in life. That curiosity led her into theological education and eventually pastoral ministry.
She calls the feeling a "distinct hum in the background" of her life.
That path eventually took her through Princeton and Penn State before Belleville. She earned a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. Ken Byler, a longtime Maple Grove member and former leadership chair, said her education shows in the pulpit.
Byler described Quaynor as a strong communicator with deep biblical knowledge, but said what happens outside the pulpit matters, too.
"She lives that too," Byler said.
Her ordination takes Maple Grove into territory no Mennonite congregation in Big Valley has entered before.
Byler said women have served Maple Grove for years in lay leadership and teaching roles. Quaynor's role goes further. She serves as the congregation's spiritual leader and regular preacher.
"That's the first time that's ever happened," he said.
Lancaster Mennonite Conference requires a congregation to sponsor an ordination, so Maple Grove members had to vote on Quaynor's. Byler said the vote received strong support, though it wasn't unanimous. He said Quaynor also received overwhelming support when Maple Grove hired her as pastor.
Quaynor knows some Christians remain hesitant about women serving as pastors. She prefers the word "hesitation" to resistance.
Living in Big Valley pushed her to think more carefully about why Christians disagree on the question. She came to see much of that disagreement as rooted in different interpretations of scripture.
She hasn't responded by dismissing those who disagree. She wants more conversation.
"I wish we would have more dialogue," she said.
The experience has deepened her appreciation for humility and a willingness to listen.
Quaynor is equally careful about how she describes Maple Grove.
Maple Grove has a history of taking steps other Mennonite churches in the valley had not yet taken. She pointed to Maple Grove's early use of musical instruments in worship. Still, she doesn't favor calling the church "progressive."
She prefers "innovative."
She sees her ordination in that same history, another instance of Maple Grove's willingness to explore what church leadership can look like.
Quaynor also resists the idea that her ordination begins the story of women serving the church.
When Quaynor thinks about becoming the first, she thinks about the Anabaptist women who came before her. They taught and sustained congregations even when their service wasn't formally recognized.
"I really don't see this as starting from scratch," she said. "I see this as standing in a much longer history of women who have been faithfully serving God."
She also thinks about the girl who feels pulled toward ministry but has never seen a woman standing in the pulpit.
She wants girls and young women who sense a call to ministry to trust it.
"I want girls and young women to recognize that call as legitimate," she said.
Quaynor also made a point of thanking the men at Maple Grove who supported women in leadership.
"Because frankly, if they say no, this won't happen," Quaynor said.
The service on Aug. 30 will mark a first for Big Valley.
For Quaynor, it will make public the call that hummed through much of her life, in the congregation she found because one neighbor invited her to breakfast.