Footwashing: one congregation’s story
Bridgefolk participant Pat Shaver from Seattle Mennonite Church offers these reflections on the challenges her congregation encountered while planning a footwashing service:
Hygiene and hospitality
Seattle Mennonite is an urban congregation with a growing homeless ministry. MRSA (virulent type of infection) is frequent among the homeless. The congregation needed a way to protect the health of the participants while being open and welcoming. To meet this challenge, the congregation provided an individual towel for each person and someone at each station to insure people used hand sanitizer after washing someone’s feet.
A local homeless chaplain said that to allow homeless persons to participate without feeling ashamed, the congregation should Read more
Conference ride-sharing information
A number of people have indicated interest in sharing rides to this summer’s conference. Anyone interested in ride-sharing should e-mail coordinator @ bridgefolk.net. An e-mail list will be formulated in early July to allow interested parties to offer or request rides to/from the conference.
Conference brochure available
A printable brochure for this summer’s conference is now available. Please share this with colleagues, friends and family who may be interested in joining the gathering at St. John’s this July. Visit the 2010 Conference page here or click here to access the brochure directly.
Conference registration now online
Online registration is now available for the 2010 Bridgefolk Conference at St. John’s Abbey. Registrants may choose to register by mail, e-mail or online. Please click here for the registration page.
Summer conference travel information
Those traveling to Minnesota for this summer’s conference may be interested in extended their trip to include a visit to the Twin Cities area. The Dead Sea Scrolls will be on display in the Science Museum of Minnesota. See this link for additional information. Visitors to the museum can also view a display of the St. John’s Bible, a hand-written, hand-illuminated Bible commissioned by St. John’s University.
Mennonite-Catholic dialogue featured in ecumenical conference
The recent Mennonite-Catholic dialogue will be among the projects discussed at an upcoming ecumenical conference in St. Paul, MN. Hosted by Saint Paul Seminary, “A Century of Ecumenism” will be held June 17-19. The conference is organized by Monsignor John Radano, Vatican staff person for the Mennonite-Catholic dialogue.
From the conference website:
The goal of this seminar is to concentrate the attention of scholars on an assessment of specific achievements of international dialogue. Special attention will be paid to international bilateral dialogues that began immediately after the Second Vatican Council involving the Catholic Church with many different churches and Christian World Communions, and the multilateral dialogue sponsored by the World Council of Churches’ Commission on Faith and Order.
The conference schedule and brochure can be found here.
Resource for interchurch families
Follow this link to the website for the Association of Interchurch Families. The organization “seeks to link all those families, groups, and Associations so that together we may grow in Christian unity, and become for our churches an ever-greater gift of healing of the scandal of disunity.
It takes seriously both our marriage commitment to one another and the fact that two churches are represented in our family; by affirming at local, national and global levels the gifts of interchurch families and their potential as a catalyst for wider church unity.”
The most recent newsletter can be found here. Topics in this newsletter include “Spiritual Ecumenism in Interchurch Marital Spirituality” and “Interchurch Families: Domestic Churches.”
Bridgefolk co-sponsors ecumenical peace conference
Peace Among the Peoples is a gathering of ecumenically minded Christian peacemakers. This conference will be an opportunity to reflect on the future of ecumenical peacemaking in North America, and beyond. Bridgefolk is a co-sponsor of this conference.
In May 2011, the World Council of Churches will hold the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in Kingston, Jamaica, culminating the 2001-2010 Decade to Overcome Violence program. The immediate objective of Peace Among the Peoples is to critically appropriate the agenda of the 2011 Convocation.
The meeting will include panel presentations from leading thinkers and activists, such as Stanley Hauerwas, Rita Nakashima Brock and Brian McLaren.
For more information, click here.
Catholic-Mennonite encuentro in Guatemala
COBAN, Guatemala – Local Catholics and Mennonites recently gathered in an unprecedented ecumenical meeting in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. Among the participants were Rob and Tara Cahill, former workers with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Coban. Read more
