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Mar 20, 2014 | Bob Kinney

Episcopal Peace Fellowship Young Adults Taking the Gospel to the Streets

Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF) young adults will take the Gospel to the Streets in New York City, Austin and Santa Paula, California during March.          

 

“The range of our Urban Pilgrimages this year speak to what is happening in our cities throughout our country,” said the Rev. Allison Liles, EPF executive director.

 

“The ecumenical aspect of Austin’s event is heartening. Exploring water issues in drought-stricken California is very timely. Training young adults to plan, organize and direct their own pilgrimages next year ensures the continued growth of our unique program. And, we thank the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council for granting us $10,000 that will certainly infuse this program,” she said.

 

Details of each program are on the EPF webpage

 

For the first time since EPF launched its Urban Pilgrimages in 2007, the March 21-26 event in New York City will enable participants to organize, plan or host their own Urban Pilgrimage in March of next year. The training will take place in a monastery where folks will be trained to serve as a site director or chaplain. Applicants should have taken part in one EPF event or completed at least one year of seminary, social work or law school.

 

Folks in the March 17-23 Austin Urban Pilgrimage will live in an intentional community patterned after the rule of life at Taize, an ecumenical Christian monastery in central France. In the spirit of love and reconciliation that characterize Taize, participants will spend time each day with persons who are homeless, undocumented immigrants, and/or living in poverty. During the last three days, EPF folks will join young people from across Texas and the U.S. for a “Gathering of Trust” organized and led by a pair of brothers from the Taize community.

 

“We hope folks taking part in our Austin UP will leave feeling they understand better God’s love for the poor instead of being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of poverty and injustice they will encounter in the fastest growing city for the past four years in the US,” said organizers Mary Ann Philbrook and Heather Strickland.

 

The March 22-26 Re-Place Yourself pilgrimage in Santa Paula, California, will focus on remembering your roots and giving value to place. This pilgrimage will play off the themes of permaculture, discuss human migration and how it affects our relationship to the land, and apply standards of watershed discipleship – that talks about natural borders versus political ones. The week will be filled with engaging discussion, theology and peace with other pilgrims and those affected by socio-economic policies of Southern California.

 

Celebrating its 75th anniversary year, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship has worked to promote peace since Armistice Day 1939.