Uncategorized

June 16-20: The Challenges of Anabaptism Today: Learning with Yoder and Hauerwas
Palmer Theological Seminary Summer Course
(www.palmerseminary.edu)

June 19: Third Thursdays Pastors’ Breakfasts
Agape Prayer Ministry

September 5-7: Kairos School of Spiritual Formation
Contemplative Spirituality: Joining the Stream

September 13: Congregational Leadership Conference on Disabilities
Peaceful Living (www.peacefulliving.org)

September 23-25: Values-Based Leadership Program-Leading from the Inside
Laurelville Mennonite Church Center, Mt. Pleasant, Pa.

Courses offered by Eastern Mennonite Seminary
(www.emu.edu/seminary)

Harrisonburg, Va. campus:

June 16-28: Summer Institute for Spiritual Formation:
Incarnation, Healing and Hope

Online Courses:

Aug 26- Dec 14: Ethics and Nonviolence: Sermon on the Mount

Aug 26- Dec 14: New Testament: Text in Context

Lancaster, Pa. Campus:

September thru December, varied: Pastoral Care: Ministry to Persons Throughout the Life Cycle

September thru December, Thursdays, 6:30-9:30 pm: Congregational Revitalization

Suburban Philadelphia campus @ Biblical Seminary:

September thru December, Mondays 6 -9 pm: Active Nonviolence: Nurturing Peaceful Transformation
This course will explore the use of active nonviolence as a means of personal and social transformation consistent with the Anabaptist understanding of the Gospel’s call to liberation, justice and peace. Instructor: Jon Rudy
(www.emu.edu/lancaster or www.missio.edu)

Summer courses and events from
Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary
(www.ambs.edu)

June 14–30: Celtic Spirituality Pilgrimage
This 16-day pilgrimage visits historic Celtic Chris-
tian sites in Scotland and Northern England. Instructors: Marlene Kropf and Willard Roth

June 16-27: Mennonites in the U.S.: Change and Continuity Across Three Decades

June 16-27: Family Systems and Pastoral Care

June 16-July 3: Hebrew readings: Prophets

July 7-18: Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations

July 7-18: Celebrating the Christian Year

July 7-18: Spirituality, Pastoral Care, and Healing

July 7-25: History of Christian Spirituality

July 21-August 1: Job and Wisdom

July 20–26: Creation and Spiritual Renewal
This course takes place in the Boundary Waters Area in Minnesota. Instructor: Arthur Paul Boers

August 7-9: Upgraded? Conversations on technology and worship

John Tyson, jtyson@mosaicmennonites.org
Intern, Franconia Mennonite Conference

Christians, whether in the garden in Gethsemane or in the crowded streets of South Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., call out to God. Individually and corporately, prayer is the oldest practice known to the Christian tradition.

In our current day in age, however, we are experiencing many elusive shifts in how we think and, consequently, how we act. Though this is a broad phenomenon, these cultural shifts are changing how we worship. Most especially, they are providing new joys and challenges dealing with matters of prayer. According to Marta Castillo, pastor of Nueva Vida Norristown (Pa.) New Life, “The challenge is to cultivate a lifestyle of prayer personally and a climate of prayer within the church.”

In Washington, D.C., members of Peace Fellowship Church gather on the first Sunday night of every month for a “concert of prayer.” While weekly prayer tends to be more private and prone to interruption, the “concert of prayer” is meant to unify the community in a collective effort to awaken to God. While the “concert” typically lasts 90 minutes, the community often ventures outside the church doors to offer prayer and hospitality to the neighboring community.

Philadelphia Praise Center, akin to Peace Fellowship Church, also gathers among other church communities who reside in the neighborhoods of South Philadelphia for monthly prayer in unity. The Nueva Vida congregation offers prayer and worship to God in a diversity of languages.

Creating new forms of prayer and reinvigorating old forms is a challenge of today’s congregations. Peace Fellowship Reverend Dr. Dennis Edwards is exploring diverse forms of prayer as a response to new cultural shifts. “All of our senses need to be made use of in prayer, especially through art,” says Edwards. While artistic prayer may be less time-honored, the Peace Fellowship community is also reinvigorating the ancient practice of confession in their worship.

As new corporate prayer challenges emerge at the forefront, the leaders of these communities feel responsible to re-ignite their individual prayer life. Philadelphia Praise Center Pastor Aldo Siahaan commented, “For me, the challenge is to have the same attitude and heart every time I pray, but it is not easy. My strength is my prayer life and the people who pray for me. I know my limitation as a leader but every time I pray, God encourages me and gives me wisdom, strategy and so many other things that if I use my own brain I won’t find.”

In similar light, Reverend Edwards stressed, “I can offer a fair amount of criticism to myself, I need to be the example and set the tone.”

Walter Brueggemann. Oregon: Cascade, 2007.

Owen E. Burkholder, Conference Minister
Virginia Mennonite Conference

In his early years, Brueggemann was, “rightly taught that prayer is ‘the conversation of the heart addressed to God,’ a formula that I believe derives from Augustine.” (xiv) As he has continued his study of the Psalms he has been surprised by the genuinely dialogical character of the interaction between Israel and her God. “I have come to understand…the dialogical quality of faith that leaves our life with God always open and unsettled, and available for new demanding/yielding venture.” (xvi)

The complaint psalms bring ‘the experience of dislocation’ to full voice. “They are willing to articulate this chaos to the very face of the Holy One.” The complaint psalm “is disorientation addressed to God. And in that address, something happens to the disorientation.” (11)

The movement from disorientation to reorientation is also given full voice in the Psalms. In reorientation, the presence of God is seen as transforming the earlier situation, not just restoring a mess to its former state. This evokes the deepest gratitude.

In this fashion, Brueggemann helps us deal with the realism of the Psalms. He holds before us the difficult texts, inviting us to see them first through Jewish eyes. And he finishes with a chapter on ‘Vengeance – human and divine.’

At issue, of course, is the way in which we perceive God to be at work in the world. And that brings the whole question of prayer into clear focus. We bring ourselves to prayer with all of our experiences, and some conception of God. In the authenticity of that interaction we find the possibility of deliverance from the “pit” into the “shelter of safe wings.”