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
Why footwashing – a testimony
I read with interest your announcement of the Foot Washing Conference to be held this summer. I am a retired Mennonite Minister in Des Allemands, LA. I would love to attend your conference. But that is not possible. Instead I will share this testimony: Read more
Recommended reading: “As Different as We Think: Catholics and Protestants”
Protestants and Catholics may use much the same vocabulary to express their respective beliefs and practices, but behind this common language lie different ways of thinking. Becoming aware of and paying attention to these differences is essential for fruitful ecumenical dialogue.
Bridgefolk board member Darrin Snyder Belousek calls our attention to a recent article in Books & Culture that explores those background assumptions in an especially succinct and helpful way. The full article is not available online, except to the magazine’s subscribers, but Darrin shares his summary below: Read more
“Forgiving Lutherans could be a temptation for self-righteousness,” says Mennonite theologian
The request of our historic persecutors for forgiveness presents us Mennonites with a temptation and an opportunity, warns Jeremy Bergen, assistant professor of Religious Studies at Conrad Grebel University College, Waterloo, Ont. In response to a previous article in Canadian Mennonite, Bergen publsihed the following commentary on the magazine’s website. Read more
The Mennonite features personal story of Mennonite-Catholic journey
A recent issue of The Mennonite includes a reflection from a “dyed-in-the-wool Catholic” who “came to feel comfortable and welcomed in a Mennonite community.” The article is linked here.
Sermon for Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
A friend of Bridgefolk recommends a sermon preached at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on January 18 on the occasion of Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Click here to read.
Excerpt:
The insight of our ecumenical pioneers in Edinburgh Missionary Conference in 1910 is that witness to the things of Christ’s resurrection will only be effective if Christians are united with one another, be it the churches Acting Together in Haiti this week and in the coming years, the churches responding to human division and unjust structures, the churches responding to the environmental crises, the churches responding to war and violence, the churches responding to cynicism and despair with the good news of the Gospel. In all these things, we bear witness to the Risen Christ, together.
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity coincides with response to Haiti
“This week we join Christians of all denominations and traditions in celebrating the Week of Christian Unity,” wrote Joetta Schlabach, Bridgefolk participant and pastor of Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis, to her congregation this week. “Certainly the tragedy in Haiti is drawing people of all faiths—and many who do not profess faith—to join in a unified response of compassion and aid. Let us pray that some of the hostilities and misunderstandings between faith communities will diminish as people join hands in service.”
For more on the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2010, including links to a joint statement by World Council of Churches and Vatican bodies reflecting on the occasion, visit http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=3193.
Meanwhile, as many people wonder how to respond to the tragedy of earthquake-ravaged Haiti, and how to insure that aid reaches Haitians through reliable channels, Mennonites and Catholics can turn to their churches’ well-respected relief and development agencies. Here are links to the most prominent examples:
Mennonite Central Committee: http://mcc.org
Catholic Relief Services: http://crs.org
“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
A Tribute to Brother Roger of Taizé
by Ken Henke, Princeton Theological Seminary
On Tuesday, August 23, funeral services will be held for Brother Roger of Taizé. At the age of 90, he was attacked with a knife by a woman, most probably mentally disturbed, in the midst of community prayer in the Church of Reconciliation at Taizé, France. He died shortly afterward.
The son of a Swiss Reformed pastor, at age 25 he left his native Switzerland and came bicycling into the tiny, poor hamlet of Taizé in France, seeking a place where he could quietly devote himself to a life of prayer and contemplation. A peasant woman, keeper of the keys to the run-down house and property which Roger Schutz had come to look at, begged him to buy the house and stay. Later on, when asked, “Why Taizé?” Roger Schutz was to say: “I chose Taizé because the woman was poor. Christ speaks through the poor, and it’s good to listen to them. Anyone who begins with the poorest of the poor is not likely to go wrong.” Read more
