Joanne Dietzel has learned to ‘live joyfully from the inside out’ in her work with the church.

When Joanne Dietzel was 18, she says she was watching a Billy Graham crusade on TV and marveled at how many people received Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.

It caused her to ponder, What happens after the altar call? Who will help nurture all those new believers to deepen their ongoing discipleship?

At that point, Dietzel, who grew up in Lancaster (Pa.) Mennonite Conference (LMC) in the 1950s and ’60s, says she had no thoughts of becoming a pastor to help nurture people’s faith. Yet, because of affirming experiences in early faith and church life, Dietzel as a young woman felt a strong pull toward ministry.

“One of my prayers as a young adult was, ‘God, open doors to use me in nurturing ways and let me know which door you are inviting me to walk through,’ ” she said during a telephone interview in March from her LMC office in Lancaster. It’s where she serves as conference coordinator and as coordinator of Mennonite World Conference’s Prayer Network. It’s a prayer ministry supporting the upcoming MWC’s global assembly—Pennsylvania 2015—July 21-26 in Harrisburg, Pa.

God opened many doors for the willing-spirited Dietzel, now 64. After high school graduation, she served as a volunteer for Eastern Mennonite Missions in Anderson, S.C. Upon her return home, she served as an administrative assistant and dorm adviser at Lancaster Mennonite School (LMS), where she met Dan Dietzel. After they married in 1978, they raised a family of two children—Angela and Andrew.

Dietzel stayed at home when the children were small. After they went to school, she worked as a part-time administrative assistant at the Lancaster campus of Eastern Mennonite University. She later took college and seminary classes part-time for 10 years before graduating in 2014 from Eastern Mennonite Seminary with a two-year certificate in pastoral studies.

Before those studies began, in 1995, Ervin Stutzman, former LMC bishop and moderator (staff position), hired Dietzel as his assistant—a role that in 1998 expanded into the conference coordinator position. Prior to that time, LMC had not called women into work with the bishop board. However, Stutzman, executive director for Mennonite Church USA, says her giftedness and spiritual depth prompted his risking change.

“Strengths I saw in her were gifts for organizing and worshipful work—organizing events as an extension of her commitment to Christ that entails a respectful listening to and conversation with the Spirit,” he said during a March telephone interview. For years, she was the only woman at bishop board meetings. Today that is no longer true. With gracious strength and negotiation abilities, she led the way for others to follow.

“She could hold to her convictions without becoming resentful of those who didn’t share those, and she didn’t alienate people,” he said. “She quietly used her gifts to function well in a time of unrest, questions and differences. Joanne loves the church, and she is able to live fruitfully in the tensions that arrive in a diverse setting.”

Some of this balance was no doubt honed for Dietzel during her LMS dorm adviser days during the 1970s, when students were questioning long-held dress codes. She said she learned one shouldn’t write people off because they can change. Teenagers may have some issues they work through later on with God. “You just never know who they will turn out to be and what they will do in their life,” she said.

For example, one student after every school year burned her covering in the parking lot. “Today she doesn’t carry any of that anger or frustration and is a testimony to God’s transformation,” Dietzel said.

Dietzel’s open attitude toward others still marks her ministry today, says Lee Schmucker. She is one of Dietzel’s mentors and provides resources to Mennonite Church USA-related organizations through leadership trainings and other services. Dietzel took the first Values-based Leadership Program (vblp.org) in 2002 and later served as a small-group leader in trainings for others.

“Joanne is a gentle challenger—someone who leans in without pushing in,” said Schmucker in a recent telephone interview. “She focuses on relationship-building first. She is a relater and leads by example. I don’t see her playing it safe, but I don’t see her pushing things like the gender issue in your face, either. Her imprint is much larger than her visibility.”

Often invisible to the public eye are the burdens Dietzel bears in her heart, even as her calm reason and compassionate collegiality prevail. She confesses that serving amid the tensions sometimes is a labor of love laced with losses and limitations, though not void of hope.

“One of my greatest losses in life has been the realization that the church is not perfect,” she wrote in a 2011 spiritual journey essay. “The church is made up of imperfect people like me. The greatest joy is seeing transformation in the church—new life, new ways of being church, new people, new opportunities.”

Early farm, church families form solid sense of self

Affirmation coming from several sources likely helped form her proactive perspective. She was born on July 8, 1951, to Isaac and the late Elizabeth Hostetter. The family grew crops, livestock, garden produce and six hardy girls who did the “boy” chores. The girls were born within 13 years, followed by the birth of a baby brother when Dietzel was 25.

Despite immersion in a conservative culture, their parents did not make the girls wear plain clothes. They wore coverings, but they were allowed to cut their hair. And they had a TV, which was different from many of her friends. Her father trusted his girls to do challenging farm work—a trust she carried over into her church life, Dietzel said. “When I was asked to be president of our youth group or to teach Sunday school, I didn’t feel it was something I couldn’t or shouldn’t do.”

In addition, a flood of God’s grace into her heart as a teenager reinforced her sense that even though she was imperfect, she was a beloved child of God. “I still remember the moment when it dawned on me who Jesus really was—an intimate friend and not somebody out there I couldn’t reach or touch,” she said.

Much later Dietzel realized the magnitude of the gift that church connections were for her. These connections included nurture from Sunday school teachers, biblical literacy in Bible quizzing and wholesome social activity with youth group.

Her appreciation for these church connections was piqued further when she did genealogy work for a class at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind. She discovered that her family has had generations of involvement in church—particularly on her father’s side. For example, her great-grandfathers Abram Martin and Isaac Eby were bishops in Lancaster Conference.

“In light of what I’ve been doing for the past 20 years, it amazes me, the things that unfold in a person’s life,” she said. “What struck me is that the appreciation I have for the church isn’t something I nurtured on my own. I feel like it has been passed down from generation to generation. I am more aware of that now that I have a granddaughter. What is passed on has an important influence on one’s life.”

New generations lead in new ways

There is some holy irony in the fact that the late bishops’ great-granddaughter serves alongside today’s bishops in ways that would have been unthinkable in their era. Dietzel has also served in several committees and leadership roles within Mennonite Church USA.

As coordinator of MWC’s Prayer Network, Dietzel’s ministry has broadened still further. She is part of the network’s planning team and coordinates communications between groups and individuals around the world. They are praying that the assembly be Spirit-filled, Spirit-led and Spirit-detailed.

“So often I have seen God intervene in direct ways that were way outside the box of what we were planning or hoping for,” she said. “Many times we invite people to be our presenters two years in advance of an event. And God puts on their heart exactly what the conference needs in the present.”

Dietzel said she is relying on God’s timeliness and faithfulness to unify the mammoth gathering of people from diverse cultures whose languages include French, German, English and Spanish. The network participants’ prayers include intercession for inspired worship planning, on-time visas and passports, smooth transportation connections, effective communication and affordable accommodations.

This will be her first MWC global assembly—held every six years in different countries. Yet she’s heard past stories about MWC’s Zimbabwe 2003 Prayer Network that testify to the power of prayer in calling forth God’s resources and shaping genuine hospitality. “That country had so little,” she said. “Yet the hosts had such a strong belief that God would make everything happen in terms of having enough food and volunteers.”

She experienced a similar faith-filled hospitality when she traveled to Africa several years ago with an LMC delegation. It’s where their brothers and sisters in Christ dropped everything they were doing to receive them, she said. “So often in North America, we believe we are too busy to take five days off to do something like this,” she said. “It is not about having things look a certain way or about us saying the right things. It is about the openness of the heart.”

Relationships fuel her soul

Her ministry has been fulfilling, she said. Yet it’s her family, friends and personal relationship to God that calls her back to her center. They all connect her heart, first formed as young farm girl to love Jesus and neighbor, to be a beloved child of God among God’s other children.

One of her key relationships, she said, includes her three-plus-decade marriage to Dan, who retired this spring after 41 years of teaching at LMS. They live in Strasburg, Pa. He has been one of Dietzel’s biggest cheerleaders, she said.

“Dan has never tried to tie me down and has given me freedom to explore and develop my gifts,” she said. “He has been fully supportive of all the roles I’ve taken on. It is such a joy to be in a relationship with someone who wants to see me grow.”

Their family has grown, too. Angela, who has a college degree in elementary education, has come back home to live with her parents while she works as a logistics coordinator for the MWC gathering. The couple is also enjoying its first grandchild, Adelyn, 2, born to son Andrew and daughter-in-law Julie. In fall 2014, Julie gave birth to a second daughter, Nora Anne, who was stillborn, the day before Thanksgiving.

The grief of that loss—in addition to the heaviness of uncertainty about whether LMC will remain with Mennonite Church USA because of differing convictions—are sapping some of Dietzel’s spiritual and emotional resources, she said. She is seeking renewal through support she receives from her congregation, Ridgeview Mennonite Church in Gordonville, Pa., as well as from her relationship to God.

The family is still experiencing raw grief, and it is hard not to feel jealous of other people who gave birth to healthy children near that time, she said. “I understand in a much deeper way that just like the rain falls on all different kinds of people, so do these kinds of situations,” she said. “We can ask, Why me? Why us? But there are some things we will not fully understand.”

She has cut back to 80 percent time at work, which gives her Mondays to spend with granddaughter Adelyn. “Watching her develop and grow brings me so much joy in the midst of the pain,” Dietzel said.

In the desert, hope for rain

Dietzel said she is currently navigating a dark night of the soul that has sown some spiritual dryness. During this time, she has been challenged to live according to her life vision statement: “living joyfully from the inside out.” The statement challenges Dietzel to remember that with the Lord there is always a promise of new rain.

“My hope is that God is still very active, and I think we need to strive to keep connected to what God is doing in this world and get on with the real work of the church,” she said. “I just don’t think God wants it to be as complicated as we make it. I hope we can live beyond the complications.”

What she hoped for so long ago—the opportunity to nurture people in their faith—has come true and will persist as the dominating passion of her life. Still, she said, she feels deep sadness over the prospect that the denomination may unravel because of its current tensions regarding sexuality. It would be a great loss for her personally, given how the Mennonite church has shaped and fed her for a lifetime, she said.

“Many people think the church is dying or going way,” she said. “I rather think the church is changing rapidly, but there is hope in change. As long as I am in this role, I don’t want to lose the hope that this is God’s church—not LMC’s church, not Mennonite Church USA’s church. That hope makes all the difference.”

Laurie Oswald Robinson is a free-lance writer in Newton, Kan., and the author of Forever Family. This was the cover story on the July issue. Click here for the full issue.