Advent greetings from Bridgefolk
Dear friends,
The season of Advent is a time of hopeful expectation and prayerful reflection. At Bridgefolk, we share in this spirit of hope for what is to come, as well as gratitude for what has been. The past year has brought many blessings to the Bridgefolk movement: A successful conference at MCC Welcoming Place challenged and enriched us. New friends have broadened our circle. Developments in ecumenical dialogue have given us cause for hope and renewed opportunities for progress. We have much cause for praise and celebration.
At the same time, we are aware that we rely on the support of committed friends of Bridgefolk to continue to pursue the vision set before us. In the coming year, we hope to devote resources to adjusting our administrative structure, developing our annual conference and encouraging participation in local and broader Bridgefolk activities. To meet our aspirations, we will rely on your support.
We invite you to take a moment during this busy time to consider making a financial contribution to the ongoing work of Bridgefolk. Your contribution will help ensure that the work of Bridgefolk moves forward in the coming year.
Bridgefolk is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Your contributions will be tax deductible. Please consider sending a check of $50, $100, $250 or more to Bridgefolk, Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville MN 56321. You can also donate online by going to http://bridgefolk.net/howtohelp. Thank you in advance for your generosity.
In deep gratitude,
Marlene Kropf and Abbot John Klassen,
Bridgefolk Co-Chairs
Bridgefolk in the news at the Vatican
In the lead-up to Bridgefolk’s recent conference, the Vatican’s daily newspaper published a short article on Bridgefolk, and Vatican Radio followed up with a summary:
- Click here for L’Observatore Romano August 10 article, then go to page 6.
- Click here for Vatican Radio report.
Praying the Bridgefolk prayer – 10 years and counting
Ten years ago this week, a small group of original Bridgefolk participants and leaders met together to talk, pray and discern. How should we follow through on our initial meeting in Pennsylvania in 1999? What kind of community are we becoming? How will participants know if they are “members?” Should we have a common discipline of prayer, the way religious orders do? What will bind our life together when we depart? It would be good to at least have a common prayer that would resonate equally with Mennonites and Catholics, they decided, but what might that be?
In the middle of the night, one of Bridgefolk’s co-founders found the following prayer taking shape, got up, and wrote it down. When he shared it with the others the next day, the group embraced it as a simple answer to many of our questions:
- If someone can pray this prayer with all their heart, he or she is Bridgefolk.
- Our rule would be to pray this prayer daily, and live accordingly.
On this 10th anniversary of the Bridgefolk prayer, therefore, we invite you to pray our common prayer today, to make or renew your commitment to pray it daily, and to live out the groanings we share for a Church of unity, nonviolence, and faithfulness to our Lord Jesus Christ. Read more
Discussion: Movements and Institutions
During our most recent conference, frequent conversations focused on how we relate to our larger church institutions. Do we take on the role of prophet, calling institutions to new ways of thinking? Or do we work within the systems in place to make small but meaningful steps in reconciliation? Can we do both?
A recent post, found at the Interchurch Relations page of the Mennonite Church USA offers some reflection:
Movements and institutions need each other.
This summer and early fall I met people who are part of movement Christianity.
In August I attended a Jesus Radicals gathering hosted at Portland (Ore.) Mennonite Church.
In September I attended a gathering of community networkers convened by Reba Place Fellowship in Evanston, Ill., a Mennonite Church USA congregation, to discuss how to support newer discipleship communities.
Later I flew to Southern California and participated in a west coast Catholic Worker retreat. These Catholics live together in houses of hospitality, emphasizing the importance of Christian peace witness.
I also spent time with Urban Village, an intentional community birthed out of a Sunday school class at Pasadena (Calif.) Mennonite Church.
At the Abundant Table Farm Project in Oxnard, Calif., I was inspired by the integration of work, church and life as an organic farm, intentional community and worshiping community all use the same land.
In each case these groups are alternative communities interacting with the institutional church in a variety of ways.
After these visits I landed in Pittsburgh for MC USA’s Leaders Forum, a gathering of conference representatives, agency board members and denominational staff. I was there in my staff role with MC USA, feeling the tensions of working within the institutional church while also being in relationship with movements on the margins. I thought of how different we look today from the “leaders forum” that met in a barn, secretly, to draft the Schleitheim Confession in 1527.
Given our Anabaptist origins, I wondered, how are our institutions accountable to movements at the margins? Have we given increasing power to institutions while limiting movements in our midst? How have movements, at times, refused to engage with institutional structures?
Have we become either cynical about institutions or dismissive of movements? What could it look like for there to be mutual accountability between movements and institutions, recognizing that institutions often carry disproportionate amounts of power?
Let’s be open to the Spirit’s creativity and wisdom, wherever it is found.
Joanna Shenk, of Elkhart, Ind., is associate for interchurch relations and communications with Mennonite Church USA.
While written from a specifically Mennonite perspective, this post has some things to say about the broader issues at work here. As we continue to discern and move forward in this second decade of Bridgefolk, what are your thoughts?
Saint John’s awards Mennonite peacebuilder John Paul Lederach its highest honor
As part of its commencement ceremony May 9, Saint John’s University and Abbey in Minnesota awarded Mennonite peacebuilder John Paul Lederach its Pax Christi award. The university’s highest honor, the Pax Christi award ” recognizes those who have devoted themselves to God by working in the tradition of Benedictine monasticism to serve others and to build a heritage of faith in the world.” Saint John’s Abbey has hosted Bridgefolk conferences and Abbot John Klassen is the Catholic co-chair of Bridgefolk. The text of the award appears below.
The public radio program Speaking of Faith, recently featured Lederach and his work. The program is at http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2010/art-of-peace. Gerald Schlabach, executive director of Bridgefolk and a colleague of Lederach’s in the 1980s, recommends this extensive interview as an introduction to the style of grassroots relationship-building that has influenced Bridgefolk’s approach to ecumenical dialogue.
Saint John’s Abbey and University
Collegeville, Minnesota
John Paul Lederach, coming from a Mennonite Christian tradition of peacemaking, you have had a life-long commitment to working toward the non-violent resolution of conflict. Read more
Bridgefolk director calls new book the fruit of much interchurch dialogue
Gerald W. Schlabach, Bridgefolk co-founder and long-time director, has just published a new book on the practices of stability that all Christian churches need to sustain community in an age of individualism and mobility of all kinds. “I know I’m being a little provocative with the title,” says Schlabach, “but Unlearning Protestantism is really the fruit of many years of interchurch dialogue. I have tried to listen to various traditions as they have grappled with the challenges of loyalty and dissent, and to share my reflections in a way that helps all of us grow together toward Christ.” Read more
“Let go of marytr complex,” urges Bridgefolk participant
Bridgefolk participant Julia Smucker recently published a letter to the editor in The Mennonite (Oct. 6 issue, p. 4). Since her letter needed to be shortened, she asked to share the original letter here: Read more
Bridgefolk 2009 conference registration now open
2009 summer conference registration is now available on the Bridgefolk website at http://www.bridgefolk.net/conferences/2009bridgefolk/. You are welcome to register online or to print out the registration form and send it by mail. If you have special concerns regarding your arrangements for the event, please contact Kent Yoder at info@bridgefolk.net. A schedule for the event is soon to follow.
New Bridgefolk website up and running!
The new Bridgefolk website is now up and running! You can visit the site at http://www.bridgefolk.net/. We plan to add a few elements in the coming months, but this is essentially the finished product. Thank you to Gabe Schlabach for his commitment to this project, and to all of you for your verbal and financial support. This is the first step in an effort to improve the Bridgefolk communications program. Keep watch for more to come.
