MWR : Franconia leader served by getting outside office

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Sept. 7, 2009 issue

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Franconia leader served by getting outside office

By Sheldon C. Good Franconia Mennonite Conference

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SOUDERTON, Pa. — In 13 years of work, Donella Clemens never had her own office. For her, ministerial leadership meant getting out and building relationships.

Clemens

“It’s always most meaningful for me to meet with people elsewhere, in their own space,” said Clemens, who concluded work June 1 with Franconia Conference of Mennonite Church USA.

Though Clemens was on staff from 2000 to 2006, she spent most of her years with Franconia Conference in unpaid leadership.

In February 2006, Clemens transitioned to a volunteer position with Franconia Conference.

“I had begun receiving Social Security money,” Clemens said. “I didn’t need to be receiving two checks. I told [the conference] to give the money to someone else.”

The conference hired Jenifer Eriksen Morales, minister of transitional ministries.

Clemens began as conference minister in 2000, when the positions were first created. Willis Miller had first invited Clemens to conference leadership in 1996. At the time, Clemens was finishing up her role as moderator of the Mennonite Church.

“I didn’t go looking for leadership roles,” Clemens said. “The positions came and were offered to me. I always looked at them as calls from God, through people and the church.”

The late Richard Detweiler offered Clemens her first church leadership role. In the 1960s, Detweiler asked Clemens to serve as coordinator of Christian education at the Souderton congregation. Clemens and her husband, Wayne, had been attending for years. Clemens became the first female superintendent of adult Sunday school.

She later joined the board of directors at Christopher Dock Mennonite High School and served for 16 years, including eight as chair.

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