PNCUCC offers global partner opportunities in Korea and Germany

Korean partners invite delegation of 10 people

The Conference’s Global Ministries Committee is recruiting 10 people to visit the East Seoul Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea May 10 to 18 as part of the global partnership of the Pacific Northwest United Church of Christ Conference and the Northwest Regional Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Seventeen delegations have participated in exchanges with the PROK, living with host families and learning about the life, issues, joys and struggles of Koreans as they live their faith in their setting and culture.

Participants are Ed Evans, Terry Teigen, Jim Spraker, Francesca Sabrina, KJ Royle, Kathy and David Helseth, Medora Moburg, Clint Cannon and John Williams.

Ed Evans, chair of the joint UCC conference and Disciples regional Global Ministries Committee and leader of the delegation, said, “We seek to learn about our sisters and brothers in Korea.”

Since the PROK formed in 1953, he said it has had a prophetic understanding of the church and its mission in society. It is committed to dialogue, engagement, diversity, reconciliation, democracy, human rights and reunification, along with providing food aid to North Korea and being active in national and world ecumenism.

For information, call Evans at 360-683-4704 or email edevans@aol.com to arrange for delegates to speak upon returning.

German church plans clergy symposium Aug. 15 to 20

The Global Ministries Committee has received an invitation for clergy to participate in a Pastoral Colloquy on “Building the Presence of Christ in the Neighborhood: Building the Church and Serving the Community” August 15 to 20 in Brandenburg, Germany.

Frank Schuermer-Behrmann of the Berlin-Brandenburg United Evangelical Church (UEK) has invited representatives from the UCC conference and Disciples region to join representatives from the UEK’s other global partner, the Penn Central Conference.

Four years ago pastors Steve Erikson of Shalom Richland and Darrell Berg of Coupeville, Wash., attended a colloquy. Former Pacific NW Conference Minister Randy Hyvonen also nurtured contacts with Berlin-Brandenburg.

The featured leaders are Viola Kennert, director of the Pastoral College in Brandenburg, and Hal Taussig, visiting professor of New Testament studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York City since 1998 and co-pastor of Chestnut Hill United Methodist Church in Philadelphia since 1990.

The program will include field trips to urban and rural churches making a difference in their communities, as well as to landmarks in Berlin and Brandenburg.

"As our neighborhoods become more and more secular, we have renew our search for ways of speaking and living in the spirit of Jesus. What consequences do political and social change have for the life of our congregations and of our church?" said Scheurmer-Behrmann, describing the program

"On the other hand, we may not let our political engagement and our social work disconnect themselves from our spiritual and theological grounding.  They must rather lead us to also renew our theology and our faith and connect them to our experience as we walk with the spirit," he continued.

The week will be one of walking—mainly metaphorically, some physically—and learning together, discussing new impulses in ecclesiology and Christology, visiting local churches und comparing similar and divergent experiences on the two continents.

This is the seventh colloquy between the churches as part of the Full Communion shared between the UCC and the UEK since 1981, and part of the partnership between the Penn Central Conference and the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg, and the Pacific Northwest Conference.

For information, call 509-535-1813.

 

Copyright Pacific Northwest Conference News © February 2010