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Bringing the HOPE of Easter to the World
50 Days of Prayer, Awareness, and Giving
Foundry is observing the 50 days of Easter by uniting as a congregation in daily prayer, awareness and giving through the HOPE Fund calendar.
The Hope Fund is a conference-wide endeavor to raise $1 million to bring hope to three areas:
- Rebuilding Gulf Coast Churches
- Supporting the Global AIDS Fund
- Fortifying our Zimbabwe Partnership
Foundry’s goal is $20,000, or $1 a day – for $50 per worshipper. We encourage you to give more (or less) as you are able.
We will receive HOPE fund offerings throughout the 50 days and will dedicate our final offerings and prayers on Sunday May 20, 2007.
For more information, visit the Mission Council table in Fellowship Hall.
Thank you for your prayers and giving!
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Neighbors within Foundry
by Jane Ross, Neighbors Planning Group Committee Member
Seven principles emerged during Foundry's process of answering the question "Who are our neighbors?" Each month the Forge is featuring one of the principles that are being used in current planning about Foundry's future.
When the Neighbors Planning Group began its work, our working definition of Foundry neighbors was based on the assumption that our neighbors did not include people who are in some way connected with the Foundry congregation. However, Foundry members who participated in the congregational gatherings were very interested in using those discussions to raise concerns about groups within the church who might want or need greater fellowship or new programs.
Three groups of neighbors within Foundry, people not yet fully engaged in our community, were identified:
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people who have some limited relationship with Foundry but do not have strong ties to the Foundry community. These people include visitors, non-members who attend worship services but have not joined the church nor participated in other church activities, persons who are involved in our mission programs but don’t attend worship services;
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aging individuals within Foundry who have limited their participation in church activities because of health conditions, lack of transportation, or lack of programs that meet their current needs and interests;
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persons whose needs are not currently met by Foundry’s programs and groups, including people who may have been more active in earlier times.
Limited relationship with weak ties to Foundry: The following suggestions are examples of ways to strengthen ties to the Foundry community: (1) use name tags; (2) designate persons to welcome people after services and during coffee hours, including a staff coordinator; (2) create a group of members who contact people identified on weekly sign-in sheets to encourage them to become active; (3) create a welcome center on the first floor; and (4) develop one-time programs to attract people without current strong church ties.
Aging individuals: Many suggestions addressed ways to accommodate the changed circumstances of aging individuals: (1) organize car pools and pickup services to help people with transportation problems get to worship services and other activities; (2) provide Foundry activities at residential facilities such as Asbury Village and Riderwood for resident Foundry members; (3) organize programs and worship services of special interest to those over 65; and (4) create a 65-plus fellowship or study group.
Groups with unmet needs: Suggestions included testing interest in additional programs for groups such as (1) recently married couples and new parents, (2) youth who want a greater connection with the rest of the congregation, and (3) persons without local support systems.
Former attendees: Suggestions revolved around (1) communications whereby former attendees could remain informed about individuals and activities within the church, and (2) designating special services as times to welcome back former or inactive members.
The next Church Council-appointed group addressing the questions “What is God calling us to do and be?” and “How do we organize to heed that call?” will carefully consider these categories and suggestions as it plans for Foundry’s future.
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Confirmation: A Right of Passage
by Dean Snyder
On Pentecost Sunday, May 27th this year, we confirm our young people. Confirmation is a Sunday more special to me, perhaps, than even Easter and Christmas. I have come to love the sense of continuity that rites of passage such as baptisms and confirmations embody. We have sought to be faithful, as best we could, in our nurturing and perfecting of the faith in our time, but there are others who will join us and take our place. The light of Christ will shine even more brightly and clearer in generations to come. Our failure and shortsightedness will be redeemed by those who follow us. We will share in their witness which will be closer to the fullness of Christ than ours.
Foundry is blessed to have an amazing group of children in our Sunday school, youth in our youth groups, and young people in our Confirmation class. This year we will celebrate the service of Ned Bachman who has been our junior high youth leader for many years. We will honor his years of service on Youth Sunday June 17. He and other adults who have invested themselves in our youth play a very special role in helping to foster the faithfulness of the church. Matt Smith, our youth minister, and our adult youth leaders empower our youth people to think for themselves, to foster their own relationship with God, and to have high expectations of the church to live up to its commitments. Our Confirmation mentors share themselves generously with our young people with great openness and vulnerability.
All of our ministry with and by children and youth becomes crystallized in the act of commitment and trust our confirmands make on Confirmation Sunday. During the service we celebrate our youth, we listen to them share their selected Scripture verses, we lay hands on them, we give them the best of our faith we have to share, we entrust them to lead and push and pull us with them into tomorrow. We express our confidence that after we are gone, they will keep the light of Christ bright.
Every year I am confident that the Spirit of God has been especially present in our Confirmation service. There is a sense of presence in this service hard to describe or to explain. I am not sure if I or we are just more attuned to God's presence or if there is something about Confirmation that is especially spiritual and powerful. Is it possible God is especially encouraged by Confirmation?
I am grateful for our rites of passage like baptism and confirmation. It is not just our young people who are being confirmed on Confirmation Sunday. It is all of us once again declaring by our presence and participation that we will seek to open ourselves – our minds, hearts and spirits – to the love of Christ so that we might become Christ to the world around us.
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Jim Winkler to Speak on Peace with Justice Sunday
This year Foundry UMC will celebrate Peace with Justice Sunday, June 3rd by welcoming Jim Winkler who is the General Secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Church & Society (GBCS). He will discuss what Peace with Justice means for the United Methodist Church, as well as for local congregations like Foundry. Mr. Winkler will also comment about his recent trip to Iran. All are welcome to attend this event sponsored by the Foundry Mission Council and the Peace with Justice Mission Group. This event will be held at 12:30 pm on Sunday, June 3rd, in the Parlor. Lunch will be provided.
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Summer in the City: Foundry's Guest Preacher Series
Beginning this July, Foundry will introduce an exciting annual innovation to our summer worship program. We will be inviting outstanding national preachers to come join us for a few Sundays during the summer to share their message with us. This summer we have engaged the following outstanding preachers:
Sunday, July 1
Rev. Dr. Robert Hill
Dean of Marsh Chapel, Boston University
Sunday, July 8
Rev. Tiffany Steinwert
pastor of Cambridge Welcoming Ministries,
the first new United Methodist church begun as a reconciling congregation.
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Wednesday Night Prayer Circle
A group from the Wednesday worship participants met recently. They have decided to offer a Wednesday night prayer circle that will include a brief service of Evening Prayers from the UM Hymnal and an opportunity to pray with and for one another. The prayer circle will begin on May 2nd, and continue through the end of June (27th), and it will be held from 6:30 – 7:00 p.m. in the Chapel.
This is an invitation to all who would like to pray together to gather and share a time of prayer each week during the months of May and June.
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Special Music Sundays
by Eileen Guenther
For the three weeks that I am in Africa, I have worked together with Dean and Dee to plan three special Sundays. All of the guest musicians are colleagues and friends of mine and I am thrilled that the Foundry congregation will be able to experience their gifts during these weeks. I know that our worship will be blessed by what they will bring us in expanded musical styles and repertoire, all grounded by the deep spiritual commitment of each of the musicians.
Sunday, April 29
Stanley Thurston is a well known musician in the Washington area, the founding Music Director of the Heritage Signature Chorale, as well as the Artistic Director of the Men, Women and Children of the Gospel Choirs associated with the Washington Performing Arts Society. As pianist, Stanley will be the "musical anchor" of both services this Sunday as his jazz quartet will play for the hymns and choral music. He will be joined by bass, drum and saxophone.
Choral Music will be sung by Jubalate at 9:30 and The Foundry Choir at 11:00: "Come Sunday" by Duke Ellington; Patricia Caya, soloist.
Sunday, May 6
9:30 service – Jubalate and Greg Parker
11:00 service – Sue Dickson, organist, and the Foundry Choir
Michael Arichea, flutist, and Sean Cator, pianist, will play "Allegro" from Sonata in E Major, Op 167, "Undine," by Carl Reinecke.
Sunday, May 13
Mark Miller and Friends will lead our music, along with Jubalate at the 9:30 and the Foundry Choir at the 11:00 service. Mark currently serves on the faculty at both the Drew Theological School and the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University where he teaches music and worship. He also is Director of the Gospel and Youth Choirs at the Marble Collegiate Church, in New York City. From 1999 to 2001 he was Music Associate and Assistant Organist of The Riverside Church in New York City.
Mark is well known throughout the United Methodist Church as a worship leader, teacher, and performer of sacred music. Abingdon Press has written that he is a “rising star in the field of Protestant music.” Since 1997 Mark has performed concerts and directed conferences at churches both across the United States and internationally.
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When Methodists Give, We Touch the World
by Miguel Mairena and Nan McCurdy, U.M. Missionaries in Nicaragua, itinerating in the Baltimore-Washington Conference, in covenant with Foundry
Foundry’s VIM group first met Miguel and Nan in 2004, when they visited Managua and San Francisco Libre, Nicaragua. This life-changing experience led to the development of ongoing relationships with Women and Community (described below), establishment of a Covenant relationship with Miguel, and development of a relationship with Pastor Elmer Zavala (who visited Foundry last fall). When they were here in February, Miguel and Nan shared their personal stories and discussed their work to bring economic and social justice to Nicaragua. The following describes their vibrant and healing ministry to the people of this small rural community that many at Foundry have come to love.
Fatima's lovely dark eyes welled up with tears of joy. She wanted to make sure I knew how much it means to her and her family to have a nice, safe home. Her relief and appreciation overflowed after being without a home for nearly a year, and then without walls for another year and a half! Like thousands of other families in Nicaragua, Fatima's family of six lost her home to the rising waters of hurricane Mitch in October of 1998.
Rosa's family spent six days in a boat, tied to a tree and survived the river waters that rose and took the lives of many of her neighbors. On the fourth day Rosa, an illiterate midwife, helped her daughter-in-law give birth to a new baby girl. Like Fatima, Rosa and her family spent months living in a refugee center. More than 350 families like Fatima and Rosa’s in San Francisco Libre, Nicaragua now live in nice-sized cinder-block, anti-sysmic houses built with money donated by you to UMCOR. Because of your generous giving to UMCOR during "One Great Hour of Sharing" there was money for emergency food, medicines, chlorine, basic household items and then for homes, water projects, parks and latrines. UMCOR helped many organizations facilitate community reconstruction.
We are United Methodist Missionaries assigned to the Women and Community Association in San Francisco Libre, Nicaragua (we're bringing the good news to covenant churches in the U.S. this year). We are supported financially by your covenant relationship. Covenant relationships call for the church to participate in the work of the missionary through financial and prayer support and for the mission worker to share with the church firsthand experiences in mission. Foundry is part of the 15% of churches that support our missionaries around the world through the covenant program.
Jesenia bows and shakes her head as she covers her wet face and describes in fits and starts how her husband abuses her and her children. One of the children doesn't talk and she's convinced that it's because of the abuse. She tells Minerva, one of the legal advocates in Women and Community's "Popular Defender" program in San Francisco Libre that she's put up with the abuse for over 20 years. She recently learned about the program to prevent domestic violence from one of her neighbors who has been attending a workshop series to prepare women in ten villages to be able to educate family and neighbors about domestic violence. Jesenia wants to get a restraining order so her husband won’t be able to come to the house and abuse her. He is threatening to kick her and the kids out of the house. This program received a grant from the United Methodist Women's Offering, "Prayer and Self Denial".
The women in San Francisco Libre had never had a way to see a gynecologist. Seven years ago Women and Community started a Women's Clinic to combat the alarming levels of cervical and breast cancer. Since then thousands of women have been screened for cervical cancer and more than 400 women have received treatment to remove abnormal cells. United Methodists help fund the clinic by giving to ADVANCE # 013285-6 RA (Popular Defenders, SFL). All ADVANCE donations go to the project of your choice; nothing is taken out for administration. To give to an advance project, you can write a check to your own church and earmark it with the project name and number.
We are indeed a connectional church, connected to Jesus' mission in the world through our local church. We touch the world through our apportionments, covenant relationships, One Great Hour of Sharing, United Methodist Women's support of women and children around the world through Prayer and Self Denial or specific ADVANCE projects like the clinic. We help others know God's love and experience more of the abundant life that God wants for all of us.
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Foundry's Women: Tapping the Potential
by Sarah C. Stiles
The women’s retreat sponsored by COSROW is an annual reminder of the talent and love Foundry’s women embody. Last February’s weekend at PriestField Retreat Center in West Virginia was no exception. It is our auspicious responsibility to build on and channel that energy – to make the most of God’s gift of bringing us together. Over the next several months look for opportunities to contribute to the critical mass. All women are invited to take part in informal get-togethers to strengthen and create relationships that we might broaden our energy and love to an ever wider community.
COSROW aims to pull together a “Kitchen Cabinet” of sorts including women leaders from all the groups and missions of Foundry to coordinate our efforts and focus our love. (No need to have a title to be a leader!) Soon we will unveil a Foundry women’s webpage where you can get up to date information and fill out an informal survey designed to discover “what women want.” In the meantime, look for announcements in the Focus and via email. Let me know if you need to be added to the email list! Call or write: sarah.stiles@verizon.net; 202-393-2376.
For now, save the date! June 3 from 4:00 – 7:00 pm.
Celebrate the beginning of summer with sisters at Rev. Dee Lowman’s home in Alexandria!
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Is It Your Time to Join Foundry?
by Garrett Peck, Evangelism Committee Chair
Maybe you have been coming to Foundry for some time and just haven’t gotten around to joining. Or maybe you are very new to Foundry and have already found yourself “at home” spiritually. Perhaps June is your time to join!
The next orientation will be held on Sunday, June 10th. The meeting will start with a free lunch for new members and lay mentors at 12:30 p.m. in the Davenport Center, and the session will end by 4:00 p.m. Joining Sunday will be the following Sunday. Free child care will be provided during the orientation.
Anyone interested in joining Foundry is asked to complete a registration form prior to the orientation session. The registration form can be found on the Foundry website at www.foundryumc.org or at the church office.
We in Evangelism are happy to answer any questions about joining Foundry, and welcome new ideas on how we might reach out to our neighbors and the community around us. And we're always looking for more lay mentors to help with the new members! You can contact the Evangelism Committee Chair, Garrett Peck, at (703) 807-0249, or garrettpeck@comcast.net.
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Pre-Cana Weekend for Opposite-Sex and Same-Sex Couples: July 27-29
The Pre-Cana Weekend brings couples together with Foundry staff and other professionals to explore various aspects of your life together from spiritual, physical, psychological, sexual and behavioral perspectives. Our experience and feedback tells us that couples who have participated in the weekend benefit from a greater understanding of themselves and how they relate to one another, as well as developing connections and friendships with other couples
The Pre-Cana Weekend is designed for couples who are planning weddings, marriage, civil unions and commitment ceremonies. It is offered to both opposite sex and same sex couples.
Each participant is asked to complete a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® at least 10 days prior to the weekend. The results will be explored through much of the weekend, leading to an understanding of yourself, your partner, and how different types relate in various situations.
In addition, the following areas are included:
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Spirituality in your relationship
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Scripture study
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Understanding your partner
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Dealing with conflict
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Sexuality
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Financial issues
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Sharing your space
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Blending family and friends
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Planning your ceremony
Please register by contacting Robert McDonald at (202) 332-4010 or by email at rmcdonald@foundryumc.org.
We hope that you will be able to join us in July. Please register by Friday, July 6, 2007.
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Check out these Recently Added Books in the Foundry Library
by Chris Matthews, Librarian
Restoring Methodism: 10 Decisions for United Methodist Churches in America.
By Jim and Molly Scott, 2006.
Everybody Wants to Change the World: Practical Ideas for Social Justice.
By Tony Campolo, 2006.
Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense.
By N.T. Wright, 2006.
When True Simplicity Is Gained: Finding Spiritual Clarity in a Complex World.
By Martin & Micah Marty, 1998.
Board Members: Governing Roles and Responsibilities.
By Foundry’s very own Dr. Bill Kirk, 2007.
On Ma Journey Now: A Lenten Study Based on African American Spirituals.
By Gwendolyn Brown-Feder, 2005.
A Political Reading of the Life of Jesus.
George Baldwin, 2006.
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Recycling Returns to Foundry!
The Green Mission Group and Foundry staff are pleased to announce the reactivation of a recycling program. It begins with receptacles for paper in the Copier Room and the narthex (outside the sanctuary). Also, receptacles for commingled glass, plastic, aluminum containers are in Davenport Center, Fellowship Hall, and Helen Harris Parlor. Want to help expand Foundry’s recycling program, including looking at what we buy, and reduce the amount of trash produced? Join the Green Mission Group e-list with an email to T.C. Morrow at morrowtc@hotmail.com.
FACT: The aluminum can recycling process saves 95 percent of the energy needed to produce aluminum from bauxite ore, as well as natural resources. Source: Aluminum Association.
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Controversial West Bank Play, Songs, and Peace Forum at Jewish Community Center Theater
by Jim Vitarello (Sharing Jerusalem)
Sharing Jerusalem has been invited by the Jewish Community Center’s Theater J, to sing its theme song in English, Hebrew and Arabic (available on CD) following a controversial West Bank play along with a panel discussion of the play’s core issues: Religious extremism, sharing Jerusalem, and a two state solution. The panel will include Paul Scham, a Jewish scholar at the Middle East Institute, Phil Farah, a Palestinian-American Christian from Jerusalem, and Jim Vitarello. The play, Pangs of the Messiah, is a fictional depiction of an Israeli West Bank settlement in 2009, after the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine, where extremist Jewish settlers plan to blow up the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem to derail the new peace treaty. The play begins at 3:00 pm and the music begins around 5:00 pm on Sunday, June 24th. To reserve theater tickets, at $25, call (800) 494-8497. If you would only like to attend the Sharing Jerusalem event, please contact me at jim.vitarello@verizon.net or call (202) 234-5817. Seating is limited. The JCC is located across the street from Foundry at 16th and Q Streets.
Sharing Jerusalem is a nonprofit, grass-roots campaign that was launched in the Baltimore-Washington DC metro area in 2006 by a group that has been involved in Middle-East peace efforts for many years. Sharing Jerusalem’s goal is to educate, organize, and activate mainline churches in support of a two-state solution that would include a “shared” Jerusalem and would address the twin concerns of justice and security for both sides. Future plans include expansion to other parts of the country as interest in the campaign spreads. The Methodist Federation for Social Action has officially adopted Sharing Jerusalem as its Middle East Peace program.
Last October, we held our first event at Foundry by showing a balanced DVD entitled: Searching for Peace in the Middle East, a collection of interviews with Israelis and Palestinians representing all political and religious spectrums. We have organized a Sharing Jerusalem Planning Committee to explore future events at Foundry. Please contact me if you are interested in joining the committee.
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VIM will Travel to Nicaragua, the Ukraine, and the Gulf Coast in 2007
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Nicaragua
VIM is planning a return trip to Nicaragua this fall, from November 10th through the 17th. The main purpose of this visit is to reinforce and strengthen Foundry’s relationships with the Hialeah Methodist Church in Managua and the Women in Community organization in San Francisco Libre. In addition, participants will build upon Foundry’s collaboration with Nan McCurdy and Miguel Mareina, with whom we have an established covenant relationship. At this time, the estimated cost of the trip is around $1,300. If you are interested in traveling with us or would like additional information, please email Yadira Almodovar-Diaz at yadiraalmodovar@yahoo.com.
The Gulf Coast
VIM is planning a service trip to southwestern Alabama and northwestern Florida to help with Hurricane Katrina reconstruction. Anticipated projects include roof repair, sheetrock installation and light carpentry. Participants will arrive in Mobile, AL on Saturday, June 9th and depart on June 16th. Both experienced & inexperienced individuals are encouraged to join. The cost of the trip is estimated at $450, including both airfare and food. For more information please contact Jim Walker at 202-543-5837 or jim_walker@hotmail.com.
The Ukraine
A trip to Chervonograd to repair school facilities, teach ESL and lead Bible studies will take place from September 23rd – October 6th. Participants will stay in the homes of Grace Russian Church members. The estimated cost per person is between $1,500 and $1,600. Please contact Alex Karakcheyev, Pastor of the Grace Russian Church, at 202-491-5056 for more information or to sign up for the trip. Additional information can be found at www.russiandc.org/church/vim-ukr/.
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The Adventure Called Foundry: The Hanafi Siege
by Mary Jane Klipple
On March 12, 2007, a ceremony was held at the Wilson Building in the District of Columbia to dedicate the press room in memory of Maurice Williams, the WHUR-FM radio reporter who was shot and killed in the District Building (as it was then called) thirty years ago during the Hanafi Siege. One of the speakers was D.C. Council Member Marion Barry, who was also wounded during the take-over. Many who lived through those events, and other officials, newsmen, and citizens attended the ceremony.
Foundry UMC played a quiet, unpublicized, but vital role in the crisis.
Late in the morning on Wednesday, March 9, 1977, seven Hanafi Muslims, led by Hamas Abdul Khaalis, took over the headquarters of B’nai B’rith, the Jewish service organization, located at the corner of 17th Street and Rhode Island Ave., NW (now the headquarters of the Human Rights Campaign). More than 100 persons were taken captive – most of whom were herded into the eighth floor conference room and tied up.
As police arrived, thinking they were dealing with a failed hold-up, a second attack occurred at the Islamic Center on Massachusetts Avenue, NW. They were looking for the director, Dr. Muhammad Abdul Rauf, because Khaalis had accused him of supporting the Black Muslims, who were rivals of the Hanafi; also, members of the Black Muslims had killed Khaalis’ children and grand-child in 1973.
Then, in a third attack, two Hanafi raiders took over an office on the 5th floor of the District Building. These gunmen began shooting indiscriminately. One of the persons taken hostage at the District Building, George Porter, was a long-time member of Foundry.
With the city under siege, traffic was cleared from the streets around the three buildings, police were on high alert, and a negotiating team was assembled.
Ambassador Ashraf Ghorbal, of Egypt, called the State Department and offered to help (along with his counterparts from Pakistan and Iran). He agreed to talk to Khaalis on the phone from the police command center. Khaalis made several demands, some of which were complied with, but others were not, so the situation remained extremely tense, especially at B’nai B’rith where some of the hostages were threatened with beheading.
It was decided to appeal to Khaalis’ faith by citing verses from the Koran. When they spoke to him over the phone they made a plea for compassion. Khaalis responded by saying, “Don’t try to teach me, I know the Koran better than you.” However, one verse provided the central theme pervading all the talks: “And let not the hatred of some people in shutting you out of the Sacred Mosque lead you into transgression and hostility on your part; help ye one another in righteousness and piety, but judge ye not one another in sin and rancor.”
Negotiations continued through Thursday when Ambassador Ghorbal suggested to Khaalis that they “sit down and talk at a table of peace.” He agreed and the group assembled in B’nai Brith’s lobby. Khaalis finally confessed that he wanted to go home, not to jail, and the negotiators said that might be possible if he released the hostages. He agreed to do so, and the work of the ambassadors was over.
Foundry’s bells were rung twice on Friday: first, at 2:15 am when word was received that the hostages would be released, and again at 3:30 am when the first bus of hostages arrived at Foundry to be united with relatives.
Now for the part of the story that did not make the newspapers: About five hours into the siege, the Red Cross asked Foundry to provide shelter for worried relatives. Rev. Donald S. Stewart, Minister of the Parish, coordinated emergency food supplies, rest areas, and counseling services. It was also arranged with the hostage takers that persons who needed medications could get them. Two members of the Foundry staff, Thelma Matthews and Harold Quince, building superintendent, slept at the church for two nights and, together with about 12 volunteers, provided round-the-clock services. Cots were set up in a darkened room to permit relatives to rest during their long vigil.
Two Jewish prayer services were held in the Foundry chapel, and a Christian prayer service was held on Thursday night by Foundry’s pastor, Dr. Edward Bauman. Also, since many of the hostages in the B’nai B’rith building were African American, Washington Central District Superintendent Levi Miller recruited several black pastors to come to Foundry to offer spiritual counsel.
Over the following days and weeks, Foundry received letters of thanks and commendation from many of the city’s synagogues, as well as from the Episcopal Bishop of Washington and Muslim organizations, all expressing appreciation for the activities in our church. This was a time when people of all faiths came together, and politicians of diverse persuasion also cooperated with a city under siege.
Sources: We are fortunate that Rev. Stewart saved all the newspaper reports from The Washington Post and The Evening Star, as well as the accounts in Time and Newsweek. We also have clippings of the coverage from The Egyptian Gazette in Cairo, and the story as it appeared in The United Methodist Newscope, a weekly newsletter for United Methodists.
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"Thin Places" to be Available on CD
During this past season of Epiphany, Rev. Dean Snyder (along with Rev. DeeAnne Lowman and Rev. Michelle Bogue-Trost) delivered a six-part sermon series titled “Living in the Thin Places.” Due to many requests, Foundry is preparing a three-disc set of the sermons for an early summer release.
There is a Celtic saying that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places, that distance is even smaller. A thin place is where the veil that separates heaven and earth is lifted and one is able to receive a glimpse of the glory of God. A contemporary poet, Sharlande Sledge, gives this description:
“Thin places,” the Celts call this space,
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