|
|
|
|
|
In This Issue
- Gathering 2013: Dates Confirmed!
- New EP Endorsers
- Year-end Financial Report and Invatation to Support the EP
- New on bLOGOS
- Meet the New Endorsers
| |
Visit the
Ekklesia Project Website
the Ekklesia Project
|
|
Advent Calendar
He will come like last leaf's fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud's folding.
He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.
He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.
He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.
Rowan Williams |
|
|
Gathering 2013 - July 11-13 - DePaul U. in Chicago
Practicing the Peace of Christ in Church, Neighborhood, and Country
At this year's Gathering, we will examine concrete ways to make peace in our churches, neighborhoods, country, and across the globe. For, as Bonhoeffer reminds us, the Peace of Christ must be practiced, or it is no peace at all.
Mike Budde and Stanley Hauerwas (co-founders of EP, as it were) will converse on "the abolition of war."
George Kalantzis, long-time endorser and professor at Wheaton College, has agreed to co-present on peace among nations. George regularly brings students to the summer Gathering. He has recently published Caesar and the Lamb: Early Christian Attitudes on War and Military Service.
Randy Cooper and Jana Bennett are confirmed as a co-presenters on peace in congregations. Randy has served on a CFI pastor-scholar team, wrote our pamphlet on singing together peaceably, and pastors Martin First United Methodist in Tennessee. Early in his ministry, Randy co-directed a retreat center for prayer and the witness of peace in the world. Jana serves on the Board of EP, teaches at the University of Dayton, and is the author of Aquinas on the Web, and Free to Leave, Free to Stay: Fruits of the Spirit and Church Choice.
Dates are confirmed, July 11-13.
|
|
New EP Endorsers:
Again this month, we are listing the names of those who have endorsed The Ekklesia Project in the last month. If you don't know what endorsing signifies, read the Declaration and Invitation of EP, or its summary as a fourfold claim.
The new Endorsers are:
Richard Rollefson (San Diego)
Karen Bloomquist (Washington)
Stephen Chu (Hong Kong)
John Wymer (New York)
Michael Howard (New Jersey)
Matthew Humphrey (British Columbia)
|
|
Year-end Financial Report and Invitation to Support the EP
Dear Friends of the Ekklesia Project,
We invite you to consider making a year-end gift to support the work of the EP. Your tax-deductible contribution allows us to maintain a presence in many places: the annual summer gathering, the Congregational Formation Initiative, our website, and an array of publishing projects.
We do all of this with an annual budget of about $40,000. As we entered the month of December, we are about $2,300 short of where we need to be. Your donation will help us continue to this work and serve congregations.Donating online is easy and secure: http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/ways-to-engage/donate/
You can also mail contributions to:
EP Treasurer
c/o Englewood Christian Church
57 North Rural St.
Indianapolis, IN 46201
Thank you for your generous gifts and for all the ways you support the work of the Ekklesia Project.
Advent Blessings,
The EP
|
New on bLOGOS: This is Good News?
by Debra Dean Murphy
Gaudete in domini semper.
These words from this week's lectionary epistle are also the text of the introit of the mass for the third Sunday of Advent. Thus on Gaudete Sunday, when Advent's sober mood is broken a little and the pink candle on the wreath is lit, we remember that we are invited to "rejoice in the Lord always."
These words are so familiar that perhaps we have lost the sense of irony in saying or singing them during a season and on a day when much of what we recall is rooted in scandal and gloom: the disgrace of pregnancy outside of wedlock in a strict patriarchal culture and John the Baptizer's wide-eyed, fiery condemnations.
Read More |
|
MEET THE NEW EP ENDORSERS: Travis Curtice
Travis Curtice lives at the foothills of the Boston Mountains in Fayetteville, Arkansas with his wife Kaitlin, son Eliot, and two dogs-a husky, Sam and chocolate lab, Charlie. They moved to Fayetteville in 2010 from Joplin, Missouri, so that Travis could pursue his graduate studies in comparative politics and international relations at the University of Arkansas. While completing his master's degree, Travis worked as a teaching fellow for the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies. After finishing, Travis continued teaching for the political science department.
Travis has worked in Bosnia, Uganda, and India teaching and researching the causes and effects of conflict. Travis and Kaitlin together conducted research in  Northern Uganda and their relationship with God and one another is deeply rooted in the experience
s they shared while working and relating to the struggles of the majority world community. They plan on visiting Israel and the West Bank in May, where Travis is
considering teaching and Kaitlin engaging her social work studies and music therapy.
Travis and Kaitlin are blessed to be a part of a church filled with rich community and friendships. They lead a community group that struggles to seek and live out genuine dependency on the precepts and sacraments of the Kingdom.
Travis heard of the Ekklesia Project through Gerald Schlabach's book Unlearning Protestantism, and then visited the website. The discussions engaged through the EP quickly resonated and encouraged him. Travis and Kaitlin eagerly look forward to attending an upcoming EP gathering. When not grading papers and preparing lectures, Travis fills his time with enjoying all the joys and challenges of learning to be a father. On slower days he enjoys kayaking, hiking and roaming the Ozarks with his son.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
