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A UMNS Feature
By Barbara Dunlap-Berg*

1:00 P.M. EST Nov. 22, 2010

Norma Hurt (left), a United Methodist, and Muna Al-Aseer, a Palestinian Muslim, light candles during a 2004 interfaith worship service. A UMNS file photo by Mike DuBose.
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Kim Moldofsky attended an ecumenical Thanksgiving service in Chicago last year only because her synagogue was hosting it and her son was singing in the choir.

In the process, however, she learned a lot about hospitality. The guest speaker — representing a homeless ministry — reminded worshippers that hospitality is mostly about opening one’s heart, Moldofsky said. “She dared us to care about those who might be so different from us as to make us a bit uncomfortable.”

The result? Though attending the service, Moldofsky admitted in her blog, was something of a forced choice, it marked the start of a new family holiday tradition.

Across the United States — and the United Methodist connection — interfaith Thanksgiving services are gaining popularity. In Manchester, Mich., First United Methodist Church has been involved in ecumenical Thanksgiving worship for almost four decades, but the concept is new to the folks in Vashon, Wash.

“This is the first year for what we hope will become a tradition,” said the Rev. Darryn Hewson, Vashon United Methodist Church. “This may be the first interfaith worship service on this scale ever to happen here.”

The Rev. John E. Harnish is looking forward to his congregation’s participation in the ecumenical service in Birmingham, Mich.

“This is the first year we have tried an interfaith service,” the pastor of Birmingham First United Methodist Church said. “But since the Detroit metropolitan area has the largest Arab population anywhere outside of the Middle East, and since we are surrounded by a large Jewish population, it seemed fitting that we do so, especially in the light of some of the hostile rhetoric that gets heard all too often.”

Many of the ecumenical services began because area clergy already were working together to deal with specific concerns.

An expression of solidarity

In Elgin, Ill., for example, the Coalition of Elgin Religious Leaders began more than 10 years ago to bring faith communities together to address local spiritual and social issues.

“Having an interfaith Thanksgiving service was one expression of solidarity that emerged, especially around providing services to the homeless,” said the Rev. David Newhouse, Epworth United Methodist Church.

Hosting and preaching responsibilities rotate from year to year. Often, choristers and musicians join for a mass choir. In most, if not all, of the ecumenical services, participants share an offering of money or goods.

“We live in a part of the country where people are very skeptical of religion to the point of being even anti-religious, but we begin to break down some of the stigma when we cooperate like this.”
–The Rev. Darryn Hewson, Vashon United Methodist Church

In Ventura, Calif., said Ellen Pearson, secretary at First United Methodist Church, the offering goes to a local nonprofit agency such as “a food pantry, a program helping people get into permanent housing or a program assisting people facing eviction.”

The ecumenical services have been well received.

“The sense of solidarity and the expression of faith communities partnering in worship have all been positives,” Newhouse said. “The negative has been the clear absence of more conservative faith bodies (especially Christian), including at least three very large churches in the area.”

“Most of the comments have been positive,” Hewson agreed. “We live in a part of the country where people are very skeptical of religion to the point of being even anti-religious, but we begin to break down some of the stigma when we cooperate like this. There is a good buzz about it in general, and the other leaders are all feeling good about it. If you can get 11 of the 15 worshiping communities together for a service, it feels pretty good.”

In this time of opposition to growing divisiveness in both religious and secular arenas, what role does the community interfaith Thanksgiving service play?

A powerful witness

“We have much more to be thankful about in common than to be disagreeing about,” Newhouse asserted. This year’s focus is on Micah 6:8, he noted, and “coming to the table to find ways of bridging for justice, mercy and humility in our walk with God.”

“It is a huge symbol for everyone that the faith communities are recognizing that we live in a diverse world and that we can’t just stay in our pretty buildings all safe,” Hewson said. “We need to be out in the world reaching out to other people of faith and showing that we are neighbors together.

“We are not trying to say we are all the same; we are trying to say that despite our differences, we can work together and even honor each other’s traditions without having to diminish our own.”

Proselytizing is not the purpose, the congregations said.

“We are not trying to draw people from other churches,” said Harnish, “nor are we trying to convert Jews and Muslims. (The service) is evangelistic only in the sense that there might be people who would see what we are doing and want to be part of congregations which celebrate and respect the diversity of religions in America.”

The interfaith service, Hewson added, can be a powerful witness to people who see religion as exclusionary. It “may make the doors of all our faith communities appear a little more open than they did before and might help some people feel they can come see what we are all about. It gives us all a chance to dispel some of the misconceptions that people have.

“If we can share something about our faith,” he continued, “it is always an opportunity for evangelism. We are careful to be sensitive, but every faith community involved agrees that we do not want to water down our faiths to some acceptable level. We want every group to be authentic as to how they offer their thanksgiving.”

“Our purpose,” Harnish concluded, “is to witness to our common life as Americans sharing in this national holiday. As Americans, we all celebrate the freedom of worship and the diversity of our nation.”

*Dunlap-Berg is internal content editor for United Methodist Communications.

News media contact: Barbara Dunlap-Berg, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5489 or newsdesk@umcom.org.