MFSA Announces General Conference Events

The following information is taken from the MFSA email newsletter of March 29:

Love Your Neighbor welcomes Dr. James Cone as the preacher at a noon worship service April 29 at the Straz Performing Arts Center. Dr. Cone will speak from his life experience and connect that experience to contemporary hopes for justice. Dr. Cone was recently interviewed by Bill Moyers on his book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree. The worship service will be "streamed" and posted online. Rev. Delyn Celec coordinates the worship team. Delyn was a part of the denominational worship team leading General Conference in 2008 and continues her work at Shenandoah University. This past year she was "extraordinarily" ordained by Church Within a Church. Rev. Tanya Linn Bennett, professor of worship at Drew University, will design the service.

Love Your Neighbor and MFSA invite United Methodists to join in the "Send Your Prayers to General Conference" project. Fabric prayer cloths will be draped or attached to the fence around a tabernacle tent to create a prayer wall. Reconciling churches, communities, campus ministries and individuals are invited to send fabric prayer strips for the Love Your Neighbor prayer wall. Those not bringing prayer strips with them to General Conference may mail them to the Reconciling Ministries Network office or Howard Johnson Hotel (mailing information below) and a Love Your Neighbor volunteer will attach the prayers to the wall during General Conference.

Love Your Neighbor encourages participants to create their prayers during worship framed by a litany or music. To create a fabric prayer strip for this project, cut a strip of fabric no larger than 2 inches wide by 30 inches long. Select a fabric or use scraps from other projects. Written prayers show up best on bright colored fabric (patterned or plain). Write a prayer on one side of the fabric using permanent marker. Permanent markers bleed through fabric so protect the writing surface underneath.

Prayer fabrics may be mailed to arrive by April 18 to Reconciling Ministries Network c/o Meg Carey, 3801 North Keeler Ave, Fl 3, Chicago, IL 60641 or to arrive between April 19 and May 2 to Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel, c/o Meg Carey (LYN office), 111 West Fortune St., Tampa, FL 33602.

Beyond the work that MFSA is doing as part of the Love Your Neighbor/Common Witness Coalition, the organization also will raise awareness of issues central to its mission.