The Shepherd  
Issue Sept/Oct, 2001   BIMONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF SHALOM COMMUNITY CHURCH

Paul’s Prayer:
    “In the wake of the awful attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon we ask [pray]
that world leaders ensure that justice be served by protection innocent citizens of all nations.
We call [pray] for PEACE and JUSTICE, not revenge."
We pray that those who lead will proceed with care by way of law to lead us toward peace, that
they will abstain from words or actions  that lead us toward war.  We pray that God would change
the hearts of those who craft  violence, that if they do not change that God would "cut them do
wn" [Ps 94] and bring them to justice for "God hates those who love violence." We pray for the
victims of these acts of violence, that God would comfort all who mourn.      Jesus, you have
taught us that we do not overcome evil with evil, that we overcome evil with good. Show us what
this means in our time and place. Give us powerful but peaceful actions to take that lead us on
paths of righteousness. Dear One, We need your grace to respond with gentleness. We need your
hope to believe that love will find a way. We need your faith to move such large mountains of
hatred and revenge. We need your wisdom to choose a path that will lead in the way of Christ.
We need your power to protect us and encourage us to speak out in fragile places. We need "an
island of peace" in our own souls to "tame the wildness and the anxiety and the fear that
surrounds us. We are ready to report for active duty. Sign us up, we are willing
and ready to continue the work of Christ. In the name of Jesus we stand together against spirit
ual powers of evil; violence, hatred, greed, destruction, war, revenge,
misunderstandings and in the power of the resurrection we proclaim the victory of Christ over
powers of evil.  

MORE ON THE CONFERENCE: THE OLD ORDERS AND THE MEDIA
Don and Sherry T
           
    In the last Shepherd, we gave a report of our attendance at a conference held last June at
Elizabethtown, PA. Here are a few impressions about the substance of the conference.              
Gus Niebuhr, the religion editor of the New York Times, gave one of the keynote addresses.
His was entitled “The Challenge of Religious Minorities in the Mainstream Media.” Niebuhr, who
has been covering religion for 15 years, asserts that religion is deeply interwoven with other
aspects of life in America. Gallup polls report that 19 out of 20 Americans claim to believe
in God, and this statistic has remained constant for 30 years.  Thus reporting on religion is
not, as one might suppose, confined to a small corner of experience in America but can lead a
reporter into the most intense social and political conflicts. Niebuhr named the Trinity of
American interests as Politics, Business, and Sports. Religion, he said, stands outside this
Trinity (!), but is nevertheless a formidable force affecting everything in America.  
    Covering minority religious groups is made especially difficult for a reporter by the
simultaneous pressure of  media deadlines and the paucity of the reporter’s knowledge about
most minority groups.  There is no time to learn what one must learn to cover a story affecting
a religious minority fairly and sensitively.  Stories on the Amish, for instance, are often
woefully superficial and inaccurate. Reporters without time to educate themselves, rely on
platitudes and misconceptions gathered from earlier media stories and then, in turn, reinforce
these half-truths and trivialities by writing a story to be passed along for later parroting by
other media persons.
    The other keynote speech was by  sociologist Donald Kraybill, Dean of Scholarship at
Messiah College in PA.  Kraybill is widely regarded as an authority on the Amish and is often
sought by media folks for his opinion or guidance on issues affecting the Amish, especially
those in Pennsylvania.  In his speech, “Culture Clashes:  Conflicting Values, Interests, and
Images,” one point  that particularly interested us was about the actors in the communication  
between the two cultures.  The Old Order people and the worldly public have almost no direct
interaction or even contact.  The indirect interaction is mediated by various types of
go-betweens.  These include fence-sitters (for example, Amish folks who remain Amish but
develop an atypical interest in “the world” and often become spokesmen for the Amish),
gate-keepers (tour guides, information centers), scholarly interpreters (researchers, writers,
academics  ), and journalists, who are the worldly folks’ chief source of information about the
Old Orders and also a source for the Old Orders people to learn what is  happening in the wider
world, to the extent they have any interest in it.
    Kraybill pointed out how all these go-betweens have various self-interests, biases, and
agenda that may distort their perceptions and presentations. This issue that Kraybill devoted
some attention to also cropped up in many of the lectures and discussion sessions.  Several
people emphasized that the “true,” or typical Old Order people never attend academic
conferences. The few Amish or other Old Order representatives present at this conference were
those used to talking with the outside world and comfortable with that world.  They do not
represent the points of view or habits of mind of most members of Old Order communities.  
Someone pointed out that no Old Order ministers or others who speak with authority for the Old
Orders were present at the conference.  Someone else pointed out that a considerable part of
our information about the Old Orders comes from ex-members, persons by definition not a typical
member of  an Amish community, and, moreover, persons often with a grievance and perhaps an
eagerness to talk to anyone who will listen about whatever dark side of life they have
experienced.  In any case, our images of the Amish and the other Old Orders, as Kraybill
mentioned, are likely to say more about us than about the Old Orders. These images reflect our
biases, preferences, and backgrounds.  We should remind ourselves, Kraybill observed, that our
images of the Old Orders, are social constructions, not necessarily reality.
    A printed record of this conference will likely be produced eventually, which we would
certainly welcome.  We could attend less than a third of the lectures and panel discussions,
all of which had interesting titles and teaser notes.  The presentations we did attend were
instructive and absorbing, and we’re sure most of the others were also.
      This report is the merest tidbit.  When future conferences of this type come along at any
of the Anabaptist academic centers, we recommend that Shalom folks attend, whenever the rest
of life permits.
 
October/November  LECTIONARY:

Oct. 7:  Lam. 1:1-6, Lam. 3:19-26, 2 Tim. 1:1-14, Luke 17:5-10.  
Oct. 14: Jer. 29:1,4-7, Psa. 66;1-12, 2 Tim. 2:8-15, Luke 17:11-19.  
Oct. 21:  Jer. 31:27-34, Psa. 119:97-104, 2 Tim. 3:14-4:5, Luke 18:1-8.  
Oct. 28: Joel 2:23-32, Psa. 65, 2 Tim. 4;76-8, 16-18, Luke 18:1-8.   
Nov. 4:   Hab. 1:1-4, 2:1-4, Psa. 119:137-144,  2 Tim. 4:6-8, 16-18, Luke 18:9-14. 
Nov.11:  Hag. 1:15b-2:9, Psa. 145:1-5, 17-21, 2 Th. 2:1-5, 13-17, Luke 20:27-38.
Nov. 18:  Isa. 65:17-25, Isa. 12, 2 Th. 3:6-13, Luke 21:5-19.  

The Shepherd here provides for posterity a copy of the e-mail sent to the Versluis' by the
Pastoral Search Committee, following the  meetings of 22 July:  "We the undersigned Elders,
Freeholders, and other constituents of the Abbott School fellowship of Ann Arbor in the County
of Washtenaw in Michigan, and members of the Shalom Community Church Congregation, there
having been for a long time as sheep without a Shepherd and destitute of any minister of our Lord
Jesus Christ to break the Bread of Life and dispense Gospel ordinances amongst us in a fixed way,
not-withstanding of many Essays for obtaining such an invaluable blessing, which in the Holy
Providence of God proved  ineffectual, taking into our most serious consideration the  
melancholy circumstances that we and our little ones are in and in great danger of perishing for
lack of knowledge, after humbling ourselves before the Lord, and asking His counsel in this so
important affair, being fully persuaded from good information and from our own experience, in as far
as we are capable to judge of the Piety, Prudence, literature and other ministerial endowments of
you, the Rev. Paul V, of The State of Oregon, we do hereby most heartily Call, Beseech
and Entreat you, the said Mr. Versluis, to come over to us, to be our pastor in the
congregation, and to take the pastoral charge and oversight of our Persons, and immortal souls
as a Watchman upon this Watchtower of Zion Wall and to dispense the Gospel and the solemn
ordinances thereof among us."

[In sooth, t'is (minimal) paraphrase from an item in the 27 Feb '01 issue The Mennonite.   
"The Observer, magazine of the United Church of Canada, nominates the following as the longest
sentence in church history, written in 1770 by settlers in Nova Scotia back to Scotland.."]
    Humbly     Submitted by Tom B

                                          AND THEN THE TREK
     Approximately one hundred fifty years ago, people traveled from Independence, Missouri to the
Northwest along the Oregon Trail. Approximately one month ago, people named Versluis completed
a reverse Oregon Trail. (Point of order: To pronounce the State name as they do in Oregon,
think "organ" more than "Oregon.") With our precision packed U-Haul, we left Albany,
Oregon on a sunny Saturday morning. Unlike the settlers, we made a last minute stop at an
Oregon version of Meijers, (coincidentally named Fred Meyers) for double A batteries and donuts.
We made a brief stop at a rest area and sat by the Santiam River to pray for safety and to
offer gratitude to God for being our Trailblazer.  Paul led with the truck and Joy, Paul, and
Rachel followed in the car. We made it to Boise, ID the first day, noticing the smoke and  fire
on the Washington side of the Columbia River as we drove through the gorge.
    The next morning we learned our first lesson on the road: park the truck so it isn't hemmed
in by cars. Our attempts at an early start were thwarted until two of the car owners left the
motel, and we scooted out. We drove through Idaho and into Wyoming, losing count of how many
times we crossed the Snake River. We traveled along mountains, high  desert, and irrigated
fields. Rachel became co-pilot in the U-Haul while Pauly did the same in the car. Neither of
the kids wanted to take advantage of this great parent-child quality, quantity time, so we
listened to lots of CD music. We used our walkie-talkie radios primarily for conveying
information ‘pit stop needed NOW’! Our second night found us in Jackson, WY. The kids swam in
the pool even though the mountain air was cool. Anna and Sara arrived safely at the motel late
that night as they had stayed in Corvallis till Sunday morning.
    The next day we again tried for an early start only to have the Voyager make the
unwelcome sounds of a dead battery. Lesson two: don’t turn in your motel keys unless you are
really able to leave. Both days we had checked out before the vehicles could. After installing
a new battery, we confidently took off to savor the majesty of the Tetons. That day we drove
through the Teton and Yellowstone Parks with our caravan. We got an early welcome to Michigan
as the Ranger giving us the park pass was from St. Joe.
    We weren’t able to take in Old Faithful, but we did visit the acrid mud pools, which reminded
Paul and Joy of all those sulfuric acid experiments in chem class. (Apologies to all you
chemists; we know there are pleasant smells too in your field.) Our treat in Yellowstone was to
catch sight of, no,not bears, but the Heggen family from Oregon. That was more exciting than
seeing all the bison. Richard and Carolyn Heggen were accompanying their son Mark to Goshen
College, and it was so good to have our paths cross. We continued on to Cody, WY and ate at the
Irma Restaurant founded by Bill Cody and named after his youngest daughter. Surprisingly
enough, it being one of those "tourist" places, the food and service were great. Outside the
restaurant some folk staged a "shoot out" complete with sheriff, bad guys, and gunshots. It
might have been more convincing if we hadn’t seen "Bill Cody" pull up behind our car in his red
Ford Expedition.  We had our last look at big mountains as we wove our way through Wyoming and
into South Dakota. Joy has great admiration for those who live in North and South Dakota and
she wished she had her copy of Kathleen Norris’ Dakota as our family drove through that state.
We could picture Ma, Pa, Laura, and Mary walking the prairie with the sun bearing down on them.
Though we didn’t quite get the full benefit of the sunset in the Badlands, we drove through the
park on our way to the motel. Sara wished she could have stayed to backpack in this place of
great extremes.
    We finished out South Dakota and landed in Des Moines on our fourth day of traveling. While
enjoying a scrumptious dinner (one of the children is erroneously claiming the parents limited
them to a meal and a half per day; parents claim the children did not want to stop), Joy
casually asked Anna if she had her passport since Anna would be visiting Haiti before returning to
Oregon. Imagine the surprise when she answered "no." To complicate matters, Anna had just
moved that previous Saturday and merely dropped off all boxes at her new house, so she had no
clue as to where it would be located. After considering who would be courageous and capable
enough to take on this mission, we called upon our friends Cathy and  Tim. They went through
everything in Anna's room, but didn't find the passport. Anna had locked some things in her
truck that she parked near the university for when she gets off the airport shuttle. She sent
the detectives the truck key, they found the passport, and we awaited its arrival. Of course,
we had given the wrong address which meant we got to meet our neighbor Diane sooner than we
thought, and we alerted our postman who conveniently lives on our block. Increased heart
palpitations ceased when the passport arrived a day later than priority express promises.
Throughout the trip, Nellie, our Border collie, did well as a traveler. No barf bags needed.
We jumped the Mississippi and were in the home stretch when we ran into road construction with
bumper to bumper traffic for about twenty minutes. Just as we were able to hit the open road,
those of us in the cars noticed white smoke puffing out of the truck. Rachel radioed back:
"Houston, we have a problem." Paul was able to pull over to the side while the Illinois traffic
whizzed by. A lady stopped to call on her cell phone, but it didn’t work. Someone must have
reported a truck on fire because all of a sudden, men in boots and medic gear were there. We
looked around for injured people and realized they were there for us. The emergency people
left with the understanding that they would call  someone for roadside repair. Our location was
outside of Chicago,  perhaps thirty-five miles from the Indiana state line. Our Good Samaritan
came in the form of a tow truck guy named Bud. He  was on his way home from work and saw
distress. We weren't sure if he could tow the truck, but he did and knew exactly where the
U-Haul repair place was because he had just been there about twenty miles away. Fortunately,
the place was still open and a nice guy named Larry was in charge.
    Our dilemma was that Paul and Joy had to be in Ann Arbor the next day to close on the house,
but Paul also wanted to supervise the unloading and reloading of the U-Haul truck. Since it was
time for the kid’s meal and a half, we ate at Applebee;s and tried to determine our next move,
no pun intended. In the end, we all went to Bethany Beach, the family cottage near Warren Dunes,
and collapsed into familiar beds. Joyce’s dad and brother-in-law Dan were there to  hear our
woes. Paul and Joy completed the house closing on Friday  and joined the kids in Grand Rapids,
MI where Paul’s folks live.
    On Monday, Paul and Joy returned to Chicago; the truck was finally reloaded by six o’clock that
evening. But not as efficiently as Paul had packed, so we added a trailer. Larry teased the  
"professional hired packers" by saying, "Are you going to let an amateur show you up?" This
next truck did not emit black smoke like the first, but the battery was "low" so we weren’t
surprised it needed a jump the next morning. After watching the U-Haul bounce around with our
worldly possessions poorly packed and Paul pulling  away with the gas nozzle dangling from the
truck tank, we were more  than relieved to pull into the driveway at 1346 Ravenwood. Lesson
three: U-Haul’s motto "moving made easier" just doesn’t adequately capture the full potential
of that goal.  
                 JOY

TIME FOR SERVICE UPDATE:
Shalom Community Church has been involved in 3 service projects during the summer. 
The Interim Housing Network (IHN) is now housed in a structure on Jackson Rd that was formerly a resident
drug  rehabilitation resident.  This structure is ideal for IHN in that there are individual
rooms for the guests as well as living space, conference space and office space for the program.
Shalom’s involvement this summer was primarily to provide food and volunteers to assist the
guests.  Many different individuals, pairs of youth, youth - mentor pairs, family grouping
pitched in to assist providing this coverage.  A total of  24 individuals were involved with a
total time commitment of 121 hours.
Adopt-A-Highway allows Shalom to show our commitment to the environment  as well as giving back
to the community.  This is especially true for those who drive I-94 to Chelsea as they see the
 results of our efforts. We are responsible for picking up trash from Baker Rd. to Zeeb Rd. on
I-94.  This usually involves around 30 individual work sessions and 100 total hours of effort
per time.   We are responsible for doing this 3 times a year.  In return the State of Michigan
has put our name on a sign at each end of the stretch.   Go to the following webpage for pictures
http://shalomcommunitychurch.mi.us.mennonite.net/AdoptHigh.html
The last major project we were involved in is Parable House.  This is a Habitat for Humanity
House that we are sponsoring along with four other churches in Ann Arbor. It has been going up
all summer and more work remains to be done.  27 people have gone at various times for
approximately 100 hours of  time. We have also provided the noon meal on three Saturdays this
summer.   Go to the following webpage for pictures of this project:
http://shalomcommunitychurch.mi.us.mennonite.net/ParableHouse.html
 
WORSHIP :
The Fall Worship series will explore the Biblical concept/ command of Sabbath.   It will be a
four-part series. On Oct. 14, Pastor Paul will present the Biblical basis of Sabbath.  On Oct
21,  Dave P will focus the Sunday Worship on the modern need for Sabbath".   Nov 4, the
congregation will be hearing personal stories from 3 - 4 members who have had significant
Sabbaths. The series will conclude with Pastor Paul discussing ractical ways to bring Sabbath
into our everyday lives.   
    Dave P for Worship Cte.
--------------------
CONSIDER THIS: Looking for an outlet for your creative energy? Have some ideas for visually
enhancing our Sunday morning worship space? Worship committee is looking for volunteers to
design, arrange, or organize the visual center of worship. The volunteers will be in contact
 with those leading worship to brainstorm ideas and develop the theme of the morning. Scheduling
 is flexible--you can try it out once, or go for once a month, or more. Direct your questions
and expressions of interest to Laurie Y.