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Conference News
Special event: The Adventure of Parenting Teenagers
Living Hope Farm shares available at Apple Butter Frolic
Perkasie congregation screens award-winning documentary
Perkasie Mennonite Church screened a newly-released international documentary film this September to congregational and community members. The film, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, tells the inspirational story of women caught in the middle of a vicious civil war in Liberia who banded together to find ways to bring peace.
Thousands of women — ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters, both Christian and Muslim — came together to pray for peace and then staged a silent protest outside of the Presidential Palace. Armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions, they demanded a resolution to the country’s civil war. Despite bullets and threats of death and torture, the women prayed, demonstrated for nine straight months and helped negotiate a ceasefire and a transitional government which ousted dictator Charles Taylor.
One of the leaders of the movement, Leymah Gbowee, helps narrate her story. Gbowee later was a student at Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. She has won numerous humanitarian awards.
A New York Times columnist described the movie as a story of the “power of ordinary people to intervene in their own fate.” It was directed by Emmy-winning director Gini Reticker.
Contact Becky Felton at Perkasie congregation if interested in purchasing or borrowing a DVD of the film at info@perkmenno.org The film was screened at hundreds of locations in the U.S. and Canada in honor of the International Day of Peace, September 21.
SLF host Child Safety 101
Conference Assembly 2009: Cultivating Healthy and Growing Leaders
Full Online Docket
Read the full online docket in preparation for Conference Assembly in November!
Conference Related Ministry Reports
Read updates from the wide variety of Conference Related Ministries
Conference Assembly 2009 Schedule of Events
Link to map of Souderton Mennonite Church
Printed Materials
please print and bring the following document with you to Conference Assembly
- VFP Progress Update 2009
Workshop Descriptions
Please check back soon for the following:
Newly Credentialed Leaders
**information will be posted as it becomes available.**
Conference Assembly 2009 Online Docket
Section I – Board / Committee Updates
Click here to read updates from the Conference Board, Ministerial Committee, Finance Committee, and FMC Properties.
Section II – Minutes 2008
- Friday, November 7
- Saturday, November 8
- Summary of Actions
Section III – Gift Discernment
- Ballot 2009
- Gift Discernment Nomination Form
Click on the link above to see the blank nomination form we ask delegates to fill out, suggesting names for the gift discernment process. This form will be handed out for delegate input at Conference Assembly.
Section IV – Conferring Documents
Vision and Financial Plan Update
- Vision and Financial Plan Team Recommendations – November 10, 2007
- VFP Progress Update document
Franconia Conference leaders meet with initiators of Open Letter
Franconia Mennonite Conference leaders recently met with young leaders who crafted and signed the Open Letter to Franconia Conference, which calls for a more inclusive Franconia Conference.
Before making the letter available on the Internet, a group of these young leaders requested a meeting with Noel Santiago, Franconia Conference executive minister. The letter is now posted online and continues to garner signatures from those who support the inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons in the life and leadership of Mennonite congregations.
Franconia Conference staff Ertell Whigham, Jessica Walter and Randy Heacock, assistant conference moderator and pastor at Doylestown (Pa.) Mennonite Church joined Santiago in the conversation with young leaders–Amanda Yoder of the Blooming Glen congregation, Christian Allebach from Souderton church and Maddie Ruth, Emma Ruth and Justin Yoder all from the Salford congregation.
According to Santiago, “The conversation together between these young persons and conference leaders was cordial, healthy and informative. I believe we were able to hear and understand what these young persons wanted to communicate and commend them for the approach and grace in which they communicated it. While it is evidently clear that we’re at very different places of understanding and practice, nonetheless, this gathering was one expression of the resolution on following Christ and growing together even as communities in conflict.”
The resolution was one of three passed at the Mennonite Church USA denominational assembly in Columbus, OH, in July. Across the church, youth and young adults have been mobilized toward action and engagement out of the conversations in Ohio, particularly around issues of human sexuality.
Franconia Conference continues in dialogue with Alpha (NJ) Mennonite Church toward discernment of future relationship and postures together after the congregation’s move toward openness to members and leaders regardless of sexual orientation. Details on that process will be released in the near future.