Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Agricultural Internship Opportunity

A really cool internship opportunity went out on the national church's Young Adult Ministry Listserv today. For full information, check out the flier, but here's the project's vision:

The Abundant Table Farm Project is a young adult Christian community seeking a contemporary rhythm of life with a land based ministry in Ventura County. The goal of this internship is to connect with young adults who are attuned to the destructive disconnect between land and table in our culture.

The Abundant Table Farm Project seeks to provide an alternative model of living for young adults interested in vocational discernment around spirituality, community, and stewardship of Creation. ATFP hopes to create a space where young adults can negotiate what it means to live out the gospel message within the local community and the broader church, in our current context of human beings alienated from each other and the earth.

This project will equip young adults with practical and spiritual skills for creating sustainable community and agriculture. ATFP participants will leave our program with first-hand knowledge of issues related to the above mentioned disconnect--including environmental sustainability; organic, small scale agriculture vs. industrial agribusiness; community health and access to unprocessed foods, especially as it relates to disadvantaged communities; immigration and labor issues--and a passion to work for justice around these issues.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Pilgrim Travelers

There's a great story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today about our friends at Trinity, Wauwatosa (which happens to be my home parish).

Here's what I think is especially cool about their take on an urban Stations of the Cross: The St. Francis House board recently had a retreat to help identify future directions for our ministry, and one of the important missions we identified (for ourselves and I think maybe for the Episcopal Church as a whole) was to be a sign of "moderate Christian expression" in a world where such expressions seem rare--it's certainly rare that they make the papers. Anyway, I was so happy to see that one did and thought others might be interested and inspired by their humble and contemplative journey.

By the way, we'll have folks from Trinity with us at St. Francis House in a couple of weeks to share a service and a meal.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Terrific Ecumenical Event

For those of you interested in Abrahamic dialogue, here's a story about a terrific event held recently in Nebraska. Exciting, fascinating stuff...