Tag: Bridgefolk

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. Continue reading “Praying the Bridgefolk prayer – 10 years and counting” →

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.

Catholic Peace Fellowship magazine features Bridgefolk connections

Now available online is the Catholic Peace Fellowship journal Seeds of Peace, which last year devoted an issue to exploring “Mennonites, Catholics, and the Peace of Christ.”

From the introduction:

Because the Catholic Peace Fellowship has its headquarters in Northern Indiana, we have been graced to live close to, and work closely with, many Mennonite friends. Some of us have been working with Mennonites for quite some time, since the early eighties when the Christian peace movement in this country was focused on resisting the arms race by witnessing to Jesus. The same was true during the First Gulf War, when Mennonites from around the country and in Europe took the lead in supporting military conscientious objectors. Since the attacks of September 11, Mennonites have made it their business to get in the way of war, particularly in their work in sending out Christian Peacemaking to Palestine, Iraq, wherever peace can be made. More recently, and closer to home, we have enjoyed the presence of Mennonites in animating the activities of peacemaking here in “Michiana,” as our region is called. And we in the Catholic Peace Fellowship have been the beneficiary of a close Mennonite friend, Biff Weidman, who rents out our space for a song. In ways temporal and spiritual, we are blessed with the Mennonites whose life and work we are privileged to share.  In this issue, we have focused on the fruitful relationship between Catholics and Mennonites that has been patiently cultivated over the past thirty or so years.

The issue features, among other articles, an excellent reflection by Bridgefolk participants Margie Pfeil and Biff Weidman.  Visit the journal in its original location here.

America magazine article charts steps toward “Our Ecumenical Future;” cites Bridgefolk

A recent article in the Catholic weekly magazine America assesses by Christopher Ruddy, “Our Ecumenical Future” suggested ways for Catholic bishops to promote Christian unity.   The article makes positive mention of Bridgefolk and is available online at http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=12544.

Here is an excerpt, in which Ruddy makes four suggestions Continue reading “America magazine article charts steps toward “Our Ecumenical Future;” cites Bridgefolk” →

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.

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?

Mennonite publication celebrates ministry of Marlene Kropf

Marlene Kropf, Bridgefolk co-chair, retired from her position as denominational minister of worship (Mennonite Church USA) last month.  The Mennonite featured an article in celebration of her ministry.

From the article:

Since 1983, Marlene has been a key leader in the creation of Mennonite worship resources and spiritual formation material and has helped lead six spiritual pilgrimages and numerous music and worship retreat weekends. She has introduced a variety of spiritual disciplines across the church. “The main focus of my interest in worship transformation,” Marlene says, ‘has not simply been a conversion from passive to active behavior in worship but rather toward a more active encounter with God.”

Michiana Bridgefolk sponsors day of reflection

Michiana Bridgefolk will host a day of reflection on September 18 in South Bend, IN.  Participants will focus on “A Mennonite and Catholic Contribution to the World Council of Churches’ Decade to Overcome Violence.” Leaders include Bishop Kevin Rhoades, Marlene Kropf, Andre Stoner, Margie Pfeil, Mary Schertz, Tina Velthuizen, Mike Griffin, Rich Meyer, and Jay Landry.  Click here to access the event flier.