Major new resource documents Mennonite ecumenical dialogue

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Ecumenical dialogue is not an end in itself. It serves as an indispensable instrument to overcome the divisive, mutual misinterpretations of the past. Ecumenical encounters pave the way toward healing painful memories and lead to a deeper understanding of the church’s given unity, thus becoming a more credible witness of that truth.

Edited by Fernando Enns and Jonathan Seiling, Mennonites in Dialogue is a collection of all conversation texts involving Mennonites on international and national levels, covering forty years of encounters with Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed, Baptists, and Seventh-Day Adventists, among others. The texts illustrate growth in agreement as well as identify the remaining convictions that still divide. Continue reading “Major new resource documents Mennonite ecumenical dialogue” →

Bridgefolk announces 2016 conference

Dear Friends of Bridgefolk,

I am pleased to announce the upcoming Bridgefolk conference for 2016!

Theme: “‘I Desire Mercy:’ Practicing the Works of Mercy”

Speakers: Fr. Columba Stewart, OSB, and Dawn Ruth Nelson

Location: St. Benedict’s Monastery and College of St. Benedict, St. Joseph, MN

Dates: July 28-31

Description: Inspired in part by Pope Francis’ Year (Jubilee) of Mercy, this conference will explore how we joyfully receive mercy from God and how we practice the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Stories illustrating the practice of mercy will be drawn from the third century to today.

Registration information and conference schedule will follow soon on the Bridgefolk website.

We hope to see you there!
Peace,

Darrin W. Snyder Belousek
Bridgefolk executive director

“If Any Become Followers” – Living the Disarmed Life

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 12

by Weldon D. Nisly
Preached at Seattle Mennonite Church
on March 16, 2003
(the week before Nisly left to join a Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq)

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Romans 4: 13-25; Mark 8:31-38

Something is wrong

I don’t usually begin with a story, but today I cannot resist. A young pastor was nervously preparing for his first Sunday worship with his new congregation. He checked and double-checked everything to make sure every detail was in place. As worship began, he went to the pulpit for the call to worship. Wouldn’t you know it? The microphone wouldn’t work. He began to panic and said, “Something is wrong with this microphone.” And the people responded, “And also with you.”

Sisters and brothers, something is wrong – terribly wrong in our world. There are those who think something is wrong with us or with me. Why would anyone go to Iraq today?

The Apostle Paul unequivocally told the early Christians that they were called to be “fools for Christ’s sake” and that the wisdom of God exposed the foolishness of the world. “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).

To cut through the illusion and see what is wrong, we must as always be rooted in Scripture. We must be biblical people — holding the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other hand. Together, as faithfully as we know how, we live a disarmed life in a world that best knows an armed life. That’s how foolish Christ and the cross are to the world. Continue reading ““If Any Become Followers” – Living the Disarmed Life” →

Remembering Ivan J. Kauffman, Bridgefolk co-founder

Bridgefolk co-founder Ivan J. Kauffman died on July 15 in Philadelphia, surrounded by family, after suffering a massive stroke 11 days earlier. A funeral mass for Ivan was held on Monday morning, July 27 at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, Philadelphia, PA. A memorial service was also held in Goshen, Indiana, on Sunday, August 2, at College Mennonite Church. The family requested that memorial donations be made to Catholic Relief Services (crs.org) or Mennonite Central Committee (mcc.org).

Two other Bridgefolk co-founders shared their tributes to Ivan at the recent Bridgefolk conference:

I Will Make with Them a Covenant of Peace

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 11

by Jane Roeschley
Associate Pastor of Worship and Lay Ministries
Mennonite Church of Normal, Normal, Illinois
World Communion Sunday, 2008

Genesis 12:1-2, 3b; Ezekiel 37:26-27; 2 Corinthians 3:4-6, 10-11

Hatred Converted by Love

When the drama, The Women of Lockerbie, was performed in Bloomington/Normal, I went to see it. It was shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings, so that event was especially on my mind, not to mention the Nickel Mine tragedy and the ongoing losses of the Iraq war – all situations of immense hurt, and examples of the way our world is full of violence that begets more violence.

Based on true events, The Women of Lockerbie tells the story of women in the village of Lockerbie, Scotland, the place where the US Pan Am 103 jet was shot down in 1988, in retaliation for US military confrontations with Libya. All 259 persons aboard the plane, as well as 11 persons in the village, were killed.

The play is set at a point about seven years after the plane went down. As one can imagine, characters in the play, the loved ones of various victims, voice their hate for those responsible for this tragedy – for both the violent perpetrators as well as those less obviously at fault. Continue reading “I Will Make with Them a Covenant of Peace” →

Bridgefolk 2015 explores miracle of ecumenical healing

Collegeville, MN (BRIDGEFOLK) — Meeting at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, IN, the 14^th annual Bridgefolk conference was held August 20-23 under the theme, “Ecumenical Healing and the Mystery of the Communion of Saints.”

Bridgefolk is a movement of sacramentally-minded Mennonites and peace-minded Roman Catholics who come together to celebrate each other’s traditions, explore each other’s practices, and honor each other’s contribution to the mission of Christ’s Church.

Previous conferences have alternated between Catholic and Mennonite locations in the United States and Canada. Of the ninety participants gathered for this year’s conference, about sixty were Mennonite and thirty Catholic.

This year’s conference featured an array of guests and speakers from Japan, including members of the Mennonite communities in Japan and of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) in Japan. The keynote speakers were Prof. Nozomu Yamada and Fr. Alfonso Fausone SVD, both of Nanazan (Catholic) University in Nagoya, Japan. Continue reading “Bridgefolk 2015 explores miracle of ecumenical healing” →

“Who Are You Having Supper With?”

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 10

by Doug Wiebe
L’Arche Community, Lethbridge, Alberta
sermon to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Lethbridge (abridged)

Luke 24:13-35

Two depressed men walked along the road to Emmaus on the first Easter Sunday. They were not members of Jesus’ 12 disciples, but part of the larger group of men and women who believed Jesus was the long-awaited and hoped for Messiah. But their hopes and dreams had died with Jesus’ crucifixion two days earlier. They were suffering from a crisis of meaning in their lives, and the vibrant, life-changing community they belonged to had evaporated overnight.

Their depression was so deep they did not even recognize Jesus when he began walking with them. Neither did they recognize his voice when he began to teach them. Something in their hearts was stirred as they listened, but the words they were hearing did not reconnect them to the joy, the meaning, or the community that had filled their lives just a few days earlier. Continue reading ““Who Are You Having Supper With?”” →

A papal encyclical, a Mennonite resolution, and the relevance of Anablacktivism

LAWRENCE JENNINGS of Infinity Mennonite Church in New York City has been involved in community and economic development for more than three decades. Since 2013, he has been affiliated with GreenFaith, first as a Fellow, and currently as a lead organizer of the new Restoration Nation faith communities/green jobs initiative. A member of the Thomas Berry Forum for Ecological Dialogue at Iona College, he was one of the key organizers of the People’s Climate March faith contingent, and has ongoing involvement with the People’s Climate Movement, the organizing body that took shape after the March. In these involvements, as well as his work with The Groundswell Group and Moral Mondays, he works closely with faith communities and inner city and “frontline” groups that often are overlooked or excluded. He authored the Open Letter from African American clergy on Climate Change as part of the “Our Voices” campaign, and is on the Steering Committee of Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, both of which aim to encourage people of to speak out about the moral and scientific urgency of the environmental crisis. Lawrence was asked by GreenFaith to write a response to the Pope’s newly released environmental teachings from the Anabaptist/Mennonite perspective. His article originally appeared in two parts on the Mennonite Church USA website (here and here). Continue reading “A papal encyclical, a Mennonite resolution, and the relevance of Anablacktivism” →

Take No Bread for the Journey

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 9

by Bradley Roth
Warden Mennonite Church (Warden, Washington)
February 15, 2009

Mark 6:7-13

In Mark 6, Jesus gathers the Twelve together and instructs them in their mission. They’re to go out in pairs, staying wherever they receive a welcome. He gives them authority over unclean spirits, and we find them proclaiming repentance, casting out evil spirits, and anointing the sick for healing (vv. 12-13). In all of this, the disciples are to travel lightly—extremely lightly. Jesus tells them to take nothing except a staff—“no bread, no bag, no money in their belts” (v.8). They can wear sandals, but they’re not to take an extra tunic—that is, no change of clothes.

To travel light is to be nimble, free to go where you need to at a moment’s notice—like fitting everything into a carry-on bag. But it’s also a recipe for an incredible sort of vulnerability. Jesus desired to remind the disciples of their dependence on God.

Something like this happens at the Lord’s Table. Continue reading “Take No Bread for the Journey” →

by Weldon D. Nisly Preached at Seattle Mennonite Church on March 16, 2003 (the week before Nisly left to join a Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq)