By Jessica Griggs for Mennonite Church USA
ELKHART, Indiana (Mennonite Church USA) — Mennonite Church USA is pleased to announce that the 2025 MC USA biennial national gathering and leading faith formation event, Follow Jesus ‘25, will take place July 8-12, 2025, at the Koury Convention Center in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Follow Jesus ’25 will be held in a smaller, more intimate setting, so as to provide a more convenient and economical location for convention-goers. Despite the change of venue, the schedule of events during the four-night convention will remain largely the same as previous years, with daily worship, hymn sings, recreation time and an exhibit hall. Learning tracks, with theme-driven learning sessions, will take the place of seminars. A one-day Women in Leadership summit will be held July 8, prior to the opening session of the convention.
The Sheraton Greensboro at Four Seasons is large enough to provide housing for all attendees and has the added benefit of being directly connected to the Koury Convention Center. This allows attendees to travel between convention activities and their hotel rooms without ever leaving the building. Greensboro’s location, on the east coast, makes travel more convenient for several of MC USA’s conferences that are also located in the eastern U.S. Additionally, Greensboro offers convention-goers a wide variety of attractions, including historical sites, a water park, a trampoline park, an art museum, an aquatic center and an arboretum.
Shé Langley, MC USA’s director of event planning said, “We are excited about the local activities in the city of Greensboro for participants of all ages. Additionally, we hope participants will learn more about the historic legacy of Greensboro, which is home to two key locations on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail.”
Langley, who stepped into her role at MC USA late last year, is coordinating the convention planning process, managing logistics and giving continuity to convention operations, ensuring the event runs smoothly and within established budget parameters. She is also helping plan other MC USA-affiliated events, such as the Hope for the Future conference.
Shé Langley
“Shé has a good sense of who we are as an Anabaptist faith community, especially since she first connected with Mennonites as a young person attending C3 Hampton (Virginia),” said Glen Guyton, executive director of MC USA. “She is capable and competent. Her creativity and critical thinking will help elevate our next national convention to the next level.”
Prior to this position, Langley worked in a variety of roles within the digital marketing landscape, including working as a web developer, graphic designer, UI developer, web and social media manager, Information Technology consultant, and digital marketing strategist. Most recently, she founded her own digital marketing company, with a focus on SEO and web design. Langley holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in IT from The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, and a Master of Arts in communications-digital marketing from Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Langley has a long history of supporting convention activities, from participating in the worship band to providing social media management and web design for the event. She has served as a worship leader, a singer in the worship band and on the worship planning committee for past conventions as well. In addition to her involvement with convention, Langley has also provided support to MC USA in various capacities. She served on the board of The Mennonite (now Anabaptist World) and acted as the digital marketing consultant for the magazine. She has also provided web development support for the MC USA website, among other Mennonite organizations, through her agency, Rank Lift.
“We are in the process of reimagining convention. In this position, I will be handling much of the logistics and planning leading up to convention. My biggest goals are to ensure planning procedures are efficient, to collaborate with the planning team, and to manage logistics and timelines well,” Langley said. “So much goes into planning convention, and it’s magical to see a project take shape from an idea to the main event.”
Mennonite Church USA is an Anabaptist Christian denomination, founded in 2002 by the merger of the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church. Members of this historic peace church seek to follow Jesus by rejecting violence and resisting injustice. MC USA’s Renewed Commitments state the following shared commitments among its diverse body of believers: to follow Jesus, witness to God’s peace and experience the transformation of the Holy Spirit. Mennoniteusa.org