ELKHART, Ind. (Mennonite Mission Network) — Instead of sitting in pews, one bright October Sunday, about 20 members of Lamorlaye Mennonite Church north of Paris headed for the lake.
As they strolled by the lapping waters, surrounded by oak and beech trees, the worshipers stopped to study the life-giving structure of the tree roots.
“[The trees’ root systems] led us to consider the role and importance of the roots of our spiritual lives,” said Linda Oyer, who led the service and heard of the idea of a “walking church” from the London Mennonite Center. She is sent by Mennonite Mission Network to teach and write from an Anabaptist perspective, in partnership with different French organizations.
Oyer structured her congregation’s walk around the passage from Jeremiah 17:7-8 that compares the faithful to a tree growing along a riverbank. It likens the hope and confidence that we get from our faith to the life-giving sustenance that trees get from their deep roots, which keep them alive through droughts.

“It’s one thing to hear the words of the text of Jeremiah inside a room of pew seats, but it’s another to see, touch and smell the roots of the tree as they reach toward the water,” said Oyer.
This special Sunday was one way congregations praise God in places other than a church sanctuary. Mennonite Mission Network personnel and partners receive new insights on worship when they pray and praise God in unusual places.
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh Mennonite Church chose to put their resources into the community instead of toward a church building. This host congregation for a Service Adventure unit meets in Hope Elementary Charter School that also houses other community organizations, like The Encouraging Place, a women’s ministry that brings women together for support groups, retreats and camps. Members of the congregation volunteer and some have worked with the organizations that use the building.
“When Raleigh Mennonite Church began about 27 years ago, we made the intentional decision not to put a lot of money into a building infrastructure,” said Stan Martin, the Service Adventure support committee chair. “We wanted to focus on being a part of the community. The sentiment was strong enough that it was articulated in our core values statements that were adopted a number of years ago.”
Las Piedras, Uruguay

The Iglesia Menonita Natanael congregation bought some land in 1991 where they posted a tent to worship under. When the tent broke, the congregation got creative and bought a broken-down bus.
They put curtains along the windows and sat in their “pews” facing the driver’s spot. The church used the bus for about three years as they constructed their building.
Now, a pair of bus seats remains in the sanctuary to remind them of their early church life.
“You could say it was strange, but it was nice,” said Maruja Giribone, the pastor at the church. “We like to remember the experience because although it was hard to invite other people to worship with us, we had lots of faith in the church.”
Odessa, Ukraine
Mary Raber, who serves with Mennonite Mission Network and teaches at Odessa Theological Seminary in Ukraine, wrote that some Protestant congregations organized since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 do not have their own buildings.
She attends Trinity Baptist Church, which meets in the lecture hall of the local Society for the Visually-Impaired. Since the building is designed for people who can’t see well, there are special features, such as a contrasting light brick pathway. The church contributes to the society by doing some janitorial work and sponsoring a 10-day camp for visually-impaired adults.
Paris, France
Janie Blough, a Mennonite Mission Network worker who serves at the Paris Mennonite Center and is also a doctoral candidate in worship studies, said that it isn’t foreign to Anabaptist congregations to worship in unusual spaces. In the denomination’s early history, they were often persecuted and had to meet in secret.
This made them focus on the essentials of worship: building relationships with God and one another.
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Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, leads, mobilizes and equips the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world. Media may contact news@mennonitemission.net.