Category: Announcements

Bridgefolk 2011 to explore hospitality, forgiveness, common worship

News release

MCC Welcoming Place
MCC Welcoming Place

Akron, PA (Bridgefolk) – Mennonites and Catholics will join together this summer in prayer and friendship at the tenth annual Bridgefolk summer conference.  Entitled “Practices for our Life Together in Christ,” the 2011 summer conference will take place August 4-7 in Akron, Pennsylvania, and focus on the practices of hospitality, forgiveness, and common worship.

This summer’s conference will be the second in a series of summer conferences focusing on nine “key practices” of Bridgefolk. Over the course of three years, Bridgefolk conferences are exploring spiritual practices that sustain the active Christian lives of both Catholics and Mennonites. Mennonite Central Committee’s Welcoming Place will host the gathering. Continue reading “Bridgefolk 2011 to explore hospitality, forgiveness, common worship” →

Conference on “just peace” in the Netherlands later in June

An Amsterdam university and a Dutch Mennonite seminary will host a conference on “just peace” later this month.  The occasion will also follow up on a recent international convocation on peace in Kingston, Jamaica, and inaugurate the professorship of Mennonite ecumenist Fernando Enns.  Continue reading “Conference on “just peace” in the Netherlands later in June” →

Harder to address future of Canadian ecumenism

Winnipeg, Man. — Dr. Helmut Harder, Professor Emeritus, Canadian Mennonite University, and former General Secretary of Mennonite Church Canada, will be a keynote speaker at the 20th Summer Ecumenical Institute at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, July 6 – 9.

Harder has a long history of working with ecumenical agenda, and is noted particularly for his initiative and years of experience in fostering a Roman Catholic-Mennonite dialogue, addressing both commonalities and differences. Continue reading “Harder to address future of Canadian ecumenism” →

Summer conference update

Bridgefolk Conference 2011

Mark your calendars for this summer’s conference: August 4-7 at the MCC Welcoming Place in Akron, PA. Conference planners have been meeting to finalize details and registration and conference information will be made available in April.

This summer’s conference, second in a series of three, will continue to explore “key practices” that we share as Mennonite and Catholic Christians.  Our gathering this summer will provide an opportunity to explore the practices of hospitality, forgiveness and common worship.

The conference, in the beautiful retreat setting of the Welcoming Place, will provide ample opportunity for personal reflection, sharing in small groups and corporate worship.

Watch the Bridgefolk website 2011 conference page for more information in coming weeks.

Kreiders publish new book on Worship and Mission After Christendom

Bridgefolk participants Alan and Eleanor Kreider have published a new book,  Worship and Mission After Christendom.  Their publisher, Herald Press, hints at why their work will appeal to the “sacramentally-minded Mennonites and peace-minded Catholics” who make up Bridgefolk:

Today, as Christendom weakens, worship and mission are poised to reunite after centuries of separation. But this requires the church to rethink both “mission” and “worship.” In post-Christendom mission, God is the main actor and God calls all Christians to participate. In post-Christendom worship, the church tells and celebrates the story of God, enabling members to live in hope and attract outsiders to its many tables of hospitality.

In this passionate and thoughtful study, Alan Kreider and Eleanor Kreider draw upon missiology, liturgiology, biblical studies, church history, and the vast experience of today’s global Christian church-to say nothing of their long tenure as teachers and writers in contemporary England and the United States. Academically responsible but also practical and accessible, Worship and Mission After Christendom is a much-needed guide for people who take seriously God’s call to be the church in a world where institutional religion is no longer taken for granted. Continue reading “Kreiders publish new book on Worship and Mission After Christendom“ →

Bridgefolk featured on Australian radio

Bridgefolk co-chairs Marlene Kropf and Abbot John Klassen were recently interviewed for an Australian radio show discussing modern ecumenism.  The interview will air this weekend and soon be available online.

A preview from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

ABC Radio National – Encounter 20 February 2011

Convergences:  ecumenical stories

What has happened to ecumenism, since the early enthusiasm of the sixties and seventies?   The stories of convergence told in this Encounter tell of points of unity within diversity.

In the great ecumenical excitement of the 1960s, Rev Dr Norman Young (once Methodist and now Uniting Church) and Fr Gerald O’Collins SJ (Catholic priest and theologian) became friends.  Their ideas converged on the importance of ecumenism – and on the figure of Jesus

Political scientist Scott Waalkes comes from a Calvinist background – but he has taken up with the Catholic tradition’s use of the liturgical calendar and with theology, in order to critique globalisation.

And in Minnesota, Mennonites (Anabaptists) meet up with Benedictine monks.

Mennonite seminary hosts conference on Mary

Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (Elkhart, Indiana) will be hosting a conference entitled My Spirit Rejoices in God my Savior: Mary in Anabaptist Dress in late March.  Bridgefolk board members Mary Schertz and Marlene Kropf are among the event coordinators.

From the conference website:

We recognize Mary as woman who said yes to God. We recognize her as the first disciple in Luke’s Gospel. We identify her as a revolutionary. She tugs at us in art, music, poetry and drama.

As Mennonites have become more involved in ecumenical conversations, we realize that Mary plays a role in those discussions as well. While we will examine Anabaptist perspectives in particular, we want to encourage dialogue on the biblical figure of Mary and to examine recent interest in her from a variety of perspectives.

This conference, sponsored by the Institute of Mennonite Studies, will initiate and encourage wide-ranging discussion about Mary, including biblical, theological, pastoral and practical aspects. We are inviting people from a variety of disciplines to join us, so that these conversations involve pastors, church members, scholars, artists and church leaders. Our hope is that all who participate will join in conversations about Mary and will experience art—music, poetry, story and visual art—that will help us understand the place of Mary in our lives and thoughts

Click here to visit the conference site directly.  A short article in the Mennonite Weekly Review can be found here.

Bridgefolk Briefs

A few items of interest this week:

  • From Mennonite Church Eastern Canada: A service of healing between Mennonites and Lutherans will take place later this month in Waterloo, Ontario.  Bridgefolk participants might be particularly interested in the story of footwashing as a means of healing relationships.
  • Click here for a report on the day of reflection for Mennonites and Catholics in South Bend, Indiana.  This gathering, involving many friends of Bridgefolk, was previously announced on this site.
  • Resources from last summer’s conference are now available on the 2010 Conference page.  Click here to read the presentations by Abbot John Klassen and Mary Schertz or to view the footwashing liturgy used in our corporate worship.
  • Share your thoughts on the Discussion page.  The current discussion topic explores the interaction of movements and institutions in church life.