Mennonite Weekly Review

NEWTON, Kan. — A leadership transition in Mennonite Church USA will include a history-writing project by the current executive director.

Schrag

Associate executive director Ron Byler will serve as acting executive director beginning Aug. 1, if a new director has not yet been named.

At the same time, current executive director Jim Schrag plans to compile a history of the formation and early years of MC USA before he retires in November.

The MC USA Executive Board approved the leadership transition plan at its April 16-18 meeting in Rochester, N.Y.

Last fall Schrag announced his plans to retire in November, and Byler also made more widely known his plan for a transition away from MC USA Executive Leadership after the June 30-July 5 denominational convention in Columbus, Ohio.

Byler will carry out the executive director functions until a new executive director is in place, unless Schrag’s replacement is named by the time of the convention.

Search committee chair Ed Diller said the committee meets every other week by phone and continues to seek prayer from across the church.

Schrag says this arrangement gives him an opportunity to complete a project that is close to his heart. Trained as a historian and social scientist in his undergraduate work at Bethel College in North Newton, Schrag has continued to be fascinated by history and by the perspectives it provides contemporary leaders. Schrag continued this kind of research while studying at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind.

“I’ve been encouraged by historians like Robert Kreider to compile a history of Mennonite Church USA’s transformation,” Schrag said April 22.

“It’s not going to be a memoir; rather I’m going to write more of a primer on the whole scope of the events that happened prior to Nashville 2001 and those that have happened since.”