School of Mission Draws a Crowd, Dates Set for 2012

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The 2011 Western PA Cooperative School of Christian Mission (CSCM) drew more than 200 people of all ages to the four-day or weekend session in mid-July at Grove City College.  Others watched the spiritual growth study and other plenary sessions online. At the close of the School, leaders announced dates for the 2012 CSCM, which again will be held at Grove City.

Dara Sterling of First UMC in Warren, who serves as dean, said the 2012 CSCM will start with a Weekend Mission Education Event, beginning the afternoon of Friday, July 6 and continuing through noon, Sunday, July 8. The four-day Weekday School will begin Sunday, July  8 and end Thursday, July 12. Participants may  choose to attend either the weekend or four-day session. 

Haiti will continue to be a geographic  focus at the 2012 school, which will also examine issues related to poverty. The 2012 Spiritual Growth emphasis will be titled Living Sacramentally and Walking Justly.

The 2011 CSCM offered a variety of opportunities to learn, grow spiritually and do some hands-on mission work.  

“Participants were sometimes moved to tears and sometimes to laughter by the spiritual growth leader Pat Callbeck Harper,” said Sterling. She offered the 125 full-time weekday and 55 weekend session participants, online viewers, and visitors a better way of understanding how to engage in forgiveness, restorative justice, and reconciliation – with ourselves and our neighbors.

 Harper was the project manager for the Council of Bishops as they prepared a new pastoral letter, God’s Renewed Creation: A Call to Hope and Action. (Visit hopeandaction.org for details.) She explained that forgiveness, restorative justice, and reconciliation include all of creation, not just the human creatures.

 The beautiful country of Haiti and its people were the focus of a geographic study, with sessions led by  Donna Burkhart of Erie, the Rev. Rick Nelson, pastor of White Chapel UMC, and Dr. Jacques E. Pierre, the author of the study material and a native Haitian currently serving as a pastor in the Florida Conference.

More than $2000 was received during the closing worship services for VIM teams traveling to Haiti to use to match UMCOR funds for building Haitian churches and schools.

Those attending the Children’s School of Mission received more than $200 in donations for painted seashells that Haitian children sell to earn money.

The Rev. Kenneth Haines, Conference Secretary for Global Ministries, led a study focused on the unique opportunities for mission in the context of global Christianity.

Twenty-one youth and eight adult leaders were engaged in direct mission work throughout Mercer County during the day – weeding and gleaning in Boaz Fields, teaching VBS, preparing and building ramps. After a long work day, they also learned about Haiti in their evening class time.

More than $1200 dollars was raised by the Youth for Imagine No Malaria as they shot more than 350 baskets one afternoon in the gym.

Participants also had a chance to learn about a variety of mission opportunities in Western Pennsylvania.  They experienced Worship Jam from music/worship leader the Rev. Gail Ransom, Christian Education Director at First UMC in Shadyside.  A number of people helped to assemble UMCOR emergency kits for the Mission Barn. They used items donated by CSCM participants to put together Layette Kits. Many were also seen busily knitting or crocheting the required sweaters to complete the kit.

Among those at the school were:

• Dan Randall, a missionary to Latvia, currently serving as the Northeast Jurisdiction Mission Interpreter in Residence
• Michael Airgood, previous youth missionary to Ukraine now awaiting a decision by the General Board of Global Ministries regarding his return to the Ukraine as a missionary
•  Bishop Tom Bickerton, who spent an afternoon and evening
• The Rev. Greg Cox,  Director of Connectional Ministries, spent a few hours one day
• Johnstown District Superintendent Alice Weaver Dunn took time off from serving as a dean at Wesley Woods to speak about her mission adventure to Zimbabwe along with Kane District Superintendent Tom Strandburg and Washington District Superintendent Eric Park
• Sandra Matoushaya, Western PA’s Zimbabwe Partnership coordinator. 

Sterling noted these additional  highlights and stats from the 2011 CSCM:

• Twenty-four men and women participated in the first Hands-On Mission in Western Pennsylvania class led by Conference Mission/VIM Coordinator Diane Miller.
• Sampler days on Tuesday and Saturday drew 45 people.
  
• $100 was raised from the sale of Fair Trade coffee/tea at the Hospitality Hub for scholarship funds to help a non-United Methodist Woman to attend the School of Mission in 2012.