At 4 p.m. on Sunday, when many Houghton students are resting up for another week of classes, or finally turning their attention to a neglected bit of homework for Monday morning, a small, but diligent group of community members, students, and faculty gathers in Belfast for their weekly church service. This is Sojourners Mennonite Fellowship, led by Houghton College professor, Connie Finney.
“Anyone who’s been to Sojourners could tell you that the services there are… different,” said Bonnie Huegel ‘19, who began attending Sojourners last fall, after professors Benjamin and Susan Lipscomb invited her and several other London Honors students to visit the church. “When I went to my first service it felt almost more like a Bible study or small-group worship session than a ‘real’ church service,” she said. Since then, however, she said she has come to appreciate this aspect of attending Sojourners.
“I like that there’s so much focus on the community,” said Huegel. “I don’t only feel like a member of a congregation; I feel like a part of a family. Yes, it’s different; I still feel that sometimes, but I feel it in a good way.”
Raisa Dibble ‘17 said, “When I first came to Houghton, I wanted to commit to a church.” She talked to upper and underclassmen about her desire for a smaller, more informal place to worship. “Everybody kept recommending ‘This Mennonite church, this Mennonite church.’” She visited Sojourners for the first time without knowing much about it, but has attended regularly ever since.
“It’s very comfortable,” she said. “The pastor preaches in her sweatshirt sometimes. I really like that, because, even if you just rolled out of bed, it’s totally fine. They just want you there.”
The format of a service at Sojourners focuses on congregational involvement, encouraging both adults and children to help choose songs during the service, rather than having a worship leader prepare a set list beforehand. Sojourners also stresses the importance of communal prayer expressed in tangible ways, whether through stacking rocks, lighting candles, or some other symbolic, active representation of the spiritual aspects of prayer.
The service also includes a weekly teaching, though it isn’t treated as the “meat” of the service with worship or other elements as appetizers. “The message is very short,” said Huegel. “In most churches, the pastor’s sermon is the main emphasis of the service; at Sojourners, it’s easy to tell that worship and prayer are much more important, and the focus is on the church as a whole, and not only the pastor.”
According to Dibble, Finney preaches about twice a month, with congregation members volunteering to speak on most other weeks. Occasionally, said Dibble, the service will forego a sermon altogether: “We’ll split into small groups and look at a question and talk about it, or in small groups we’ll read a passage and have some reflection prompts,” regrouping afterward to discuss thoughts within the larger congregation.
Finney sees her role as pastor not so much as a top-down leadership role, but predominantly as one through which she serves and empowers the members of her congregation. “If you came to our church on a Sunday, it might not be obvious that I’m the pastor,” she said. Her goal is to serve as a welcoming presence for newcomers, and to identify and encourage giftings within church members, but not to be the star of the show. “A lot of pastors consider themselves to be the main people responsible for the life of the church,” she said. “And so they overfunction, and other people let them do all the work. At Sojourners we try really hard to keep a balance.”
Dibble said one of the things she appreciates most about Sojourners is the feeling of belonging that the small, tight-knit congregation brings. “Almost everybody there is Houghton students or professors,” she said. “So I feel like it’s taking my big church of Houghton and giving me a small portion of that.”
My fictional scenario dramatizes the national economic debate called income inequality. Yet, as a whole, the two Genesee Valley towns offer a glimpse into the true root of the cause of income inequality between the new elite class and the lower middle class. While many carelessly characterize Pittsford as greedy, selfish, and very secular, the irony is most affluent towns are following traditional American values more so than their working class counterparts. While we have always had rich people in the US, it appears that cultural norms that once glued us together have created a chasm between the classes. In the 1950s, there weren’t super rich towns. The rich and poor lived together, worshipped together, and sent their children to the same school. Today, the rich live in super zips, also known as the zip codes with the highest per capita income and college graduations in the country; yet, the glue (i.e. education, marriage, religiosity, and community involvement) holding income classes together is coming apart. 
At the end of last semester, students were told that 3 Bums Pizza would be open upon returning this Fall. Currently, 3 Bums is still in the process of transitioning from their previous location in Belfast, to their new building formerly occupied by the Allegany Harvest Cooperative Market. With the original projected opening date of June 1, and mid-September quickly approaching, people are wondering what is accounting for the delay.