Description:

Join us for a presentation and a café discussion with free drinks & snacks.

Crypt Café
st marys church, upper street
islington, london, n1 2tx
Angel or Highbury
buses 4, 19, 30, 43
parking on single lines or side street possible
hosted by Wood Green Mennonite Church

Description:

Throughout the centuries women have “passed on the comfort” by creating blankets and quilts. These have given warmth in time of crisis: sickness, mourning, and war. During the morning hours of this seminar we will be looking at the story written in the book Passing on the Comfort (An Keuning-Tichelaar and Lynn Kaplanian-Buller). An was a member of the resistance movement in the Netherlands during WWII. Just after the war ended, she provided sanctuary for Mennonites fleeing from Russian forces.

North American Mennonites heard of the need for comfort and sent hundreds of quilts over to England. They were dispersed to Holland from a house on Shepherds Hill, run by the Mennonite Central Committee, just a few doors down from where the LMC is now. Decades later Lynn discovered some of these quilts in An’s house and decided their story needed to be told. Thus the book was written.

Description:

Introduction

Conflict is normal and inevitable – but Christian leaders often feel ill-prepared to handle conflict in the church. The Skills Training Course for Mediation and Facilitation for Senior Church Leaders is designed to equip leaders with practical skills for responding constructively to conflict. This acclaimed five-day course explores conflict within us, between individuals and within the church. The course aims to raise self-awareness, to develop understanding of conflict and to teach methods to facilitate resolution and transformation of conflicts, particularly through the development of mediation and facilitation skills. Although focussed primarily on the church setting, the skills learned are transferable to other areas of life.

Description:
Much popular contemporary spirituality is a quest spirituality, mono-polar in its primary direction, with the primary goal of connecting with one’s depths, attuning oneself with essential humanness and shared universal humanity. Traditional Christian spirituality is bi-polar - “to know one’s true self and to know the true God,” said Augustine. Jesus, unlike his followers, did not teach a bi-polar spirituality of such individual encounter with God as the goal of the inner life. He was utterly clear, unequivocal, in teaching authentic tri-polar spirituality — discovering and knowing the self by knowing and loving God through the experience of loving the neighbour who images God.

Description:

Join us for a presentation and a café discussion with free drinks & snacks

Crypt Café
st marys church, upper street
islington, london, n1 2tx
Angel or Highbury
buses 4, 19, 30, 43
parking on single lines or side street possible

Description:

(Course fully booked)
This course in Church Leadership and Family Systems at the London Mennonite Centre is designed to enhance the ability of participants to function as mature leaders within their churches. It will provide a safe forum for processing challenging situations in ministry, while also facilitating reflection on a way of thinking about the human condition which has implications for all aspects of life. Following a successful course in 2005, Bridge Builders is pleased to welcome the return of the course in 2006.

Since the publication of Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue, by Dr Edwin Friedman, church leaders have found an understanding of Bowen family systems theory a valuable tool for understanding congregational systems. Dr Murray Bowen understood families as emotional systems impacted by two key factors: the level of anxiety within the system and the level of differentiation of family members. As a student of Bowen, Friedman saw the relevance of Bowen’s ideas for congregations and their leaders.

Description:

The Bible is diverse and complex but it is dominated by violent images of God, violent story lines, and violent expectations and explanations of history. The Exodus involves genocide and ethnic cleansing but is understood within the tradition as a story of God’s liberating violence. Exile stories explain the people’s horrible historical plight under one crushing empire after another as a consequence of their sin and God’s punishing violence. Prophets promise that repentance and right conduct can lead to another round of liberating violence, historical reversals in which God “saves” Israel by crushing Israel’s enemies. Apocalyptic writers and prophets, including John the Baptist, portray violence as part of a cosmic struggle, with historical consequences, between the forces of good and evil, with hope rooted in God’s vindicating violence at the end of history as we know it. The Gospel writers offer competing and arguably irreconcilable portraits of Jesus: Jesus who loves enemies and calls us to be peacemakers; and Jesus who will return as violent, apocalyptic judge.

Description:

(Course fully booked)
Conflict is normal and inevitable – but Christians often feel ill-prepared to handle conflict in the church. The Skills Training Course for Mediation and Facilitation in the Church is designed to equip Christians with practical skills for responding constructively to conflict. This five-day course explores conflict within us, between individuals and within the congregation. The course aims to raise self-awareness, to develop understanding of conflict and to teach methods to facilitate resolution and transformation of conflicts, particularly through mediation. Although focussed primarily on the church setting, the skills learned are transferable to other areas of life.