Roll Over Menno

Recently, the MB Herald promoted the Mark Centre, a discipleship training centre that focuses on training for young adults (MBMS Trek Training) and offers and facilitates leadership retreats. This same retreat centre (http://www.markcentre.org/) is also endorsed by the BC MB Conference (here).

At first glance, this inviting place seems very Christ centered, as their mission is ‘to lead people to intimate places with God where his voice can be heard’. If you look closer, it soon becomes apparent that those who spend time there may be given a heavy dose of contemplative spirituality.

Besides offering various retreats and spiritual direction sessions with qualified spiritual directors, there is also a romantic getaway for married couples that features “an informal chocolate fondue upon arrival, breakfast in bed, a group spiritual listening exercise.” As well as monthly spiritual direction, the Mark Centre offers a complimentary 30 minute listening experience; “a session with a …staff member who leads you through a “Lectio Devina”, a scripture reading practice that invites you to meet God personally and receive from him.”

One recent offer was this silent retreat:

Silent Retreat

Invitations from God are still going out to his leaders, “Come away by yourselves to a quiet place…”
“Be still and know that I am God…” “Taste and see
that the Lord is good…”

This retreat is designed to enable you to find some sacred space for rest and reflection, renewal and restoration. You will be guided into silence over 3 days and invited to experience the still, small voice of God. Individual spiritual direction sessions will be available each day. Facilitators will provide daily suggestions to guide your silent experience. You will be hosted by Cathy Hardy and MARK Centre staff.

We invite you to enjoy this weekend at the MARK Centre in a peaceful and inspiring setting;

* Slowing down to listen, reflect and receive

* Giving attention to God’s active presence

* Being renewed and energized thru the practice of silence

* Experiencing Spiritual Direction as a tool for opening up the inner journey of the heart

Additional Opportunities

* Taizé Service at St. ________ Anglican Church on Sunday evening (8-9pm)

(ROM note: You may or may not have noticed the labyrinth here on Cathy Hardy’s blog. To find out more about the labyrinth see HERE.)

Here is another retreat offered at the Mark Centre:

Presence

Increasing your awareness of God…

Invitations from God are still going out to his leaders, “Come away by yourselves to a quiet place…”
“Be still and know that I am God…” “Taste and see that the Lord is good…”

This retreat is designed to help you discover, celebrate and practice the presence of God in your every day life. Trained facilitators will coordinate individual and group listening experiences. You will hear stories of how people are growing in their awareness of God’s presence and activity in their lives.

We invite you to spend a weekend at the MARK Centre in a peaceful and inspiring setting:

* Slowing down to listen, reflect and receive
* Giving attention to God’s active presence
* Being renewed and energized with others
* Learning about spiritual direction

Additional Opportunities:

* Spiritual direction sessions with qualified spiritual directors…

Also on the Mark Centre website is a quote by Thomas Kelly (here: http://www.markcentre.org/Retreats.html):

“The sooner we stop thinking that we are the energetic operators of religion and discover that God is at work, as the Aggressor, the Invader, the Initiator, so much the sooner do we discover that our task is to call people to be still and know, listen, hearken in quiet invitation to the promptings of the Divine. Our task is to encourage others first to let go, to cease striving, to give over this fevered effort of the self-sufficient religionist trying to please an external deity. Count on God knocking on the doors of time. God is the Seeker, and not we alone…I am persuaded that religious people do not with sufficient seriousness count on God as an active factor in the affairs of the world. “Behold I stand at the door and knock,” but too many well-intentioned people are so preoccupied with the clatter of effort to do something for God that they don’t hear Him asking that He might do something through them.” - Thomas Kelly

Not mentioned on the website is the fact that Thomas Kelly was a devout Quaker who was heavily influenced by the mysticism of Catholic saints (as seen here: www.quaker.org/pamphlets/wpl1939a.html). It was Kelly who said that within every human being is a divine center, a holy sanctuary (from A Testament of Devotion). See The Light Within by Thomas Kelly.

While the Mark Centre does not mention on their website that they teach contemplative spirituality, they use many contemplative terms, such as Lectio Divina, Taize, silence, spiritual direction, practicing the presence, awareness, and so on. These are signs that they are indeed teaching this form of ancient spirituality to the young and the tired who may not be discerning enough to recognize that error. While the directors of this beautiful centre, and many like it, may be sincerely trying to do the right thing, they may be completely unaware that this belief system, clothed in Christian words, is deeply rooted in mysticism, pantheism and the occult, and is all part of the interfaith bridge that leads to Rome.

However, the leaders in the BC Mennonite Brethren Conference should know better. By promoting this contemplative centre, are they supporting contemplative spirituality? If so, this is not an isolated occurence (see HERE).

Roll Over Menno will have more concerns to share regarding this subject in the new year. For now, we hope nothing else will cause Menno to roll over in his grave so that he might have a peaceful Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht this Christmas.

ROM Index: silently retreating

Regarding today’s topic, the following links are recommended ROM reading:

Contemplative Prayer and the Evangelical Church
Ray Yungen
http://www.inplainsite.org/html/contemplative_evangelicals.html

Mysticsm by Gary Gilley Part 1-5
http://www.svchapel.org/Resources/Articles/read_articles.asp?ID=106

What is Contemplative Spirituality and why is it Dangerous by John Caddock
http://www.faithalone.org/journal/1997ii/Caddock.html

The Altered State of Silence - Promoted by Both New Agers and Christian Leaders
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/thesilence.htm

Lectio Divina
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/lectiodivina.htm

About being still:
Meditation and Contemplative Prayer: Test the Spirits by Warren Smith
http://www.reinventingjesuschrist.com/updates/5.html

The following are excerpts from the latest MB Herald (Volume 46, No. 12 December 2007):

Here is a quote from a News article that has caused Menno to roll over in his grave:

Pope greets Mennonites: a first in church history
http://www.mbherald.com/46/12/news-1.en.html

“My impression of the whole four days was that they have a high regard for our theology,” added Canadian delegate Ron Penner, from the Evangelical Mennonite Conference.

How deluded have these Mennonites become when they believe that the head of the Catholic church, who has just declared Mary as the Road to Peace (not Jesus), has a ‘high regard’ for their Mennonite theology? How quickly they have forgotten that Menno Simons renounced the Catholic church. Do they have any understanding about the Pope’s plan for peace?

Here is a quote from a People and Events article in the same MB Herald issue:

What I learned from my 7-year Mennonite–Catholic dialogue
http://www.mbherald.com/46/12/people-8.en.html

“But I’ve come to appreciate what Roman Catholics have to give evangelicals. Perhaps the most important has come to be the richness of its teaching and the far greater role that the teaching tradition plays in maintaining consistency with the past. With our enormous desire to fit into the culture, evangelicals are susceptible to great winds of change. Some clearly do so to their detriment. Roman Catholics are far less likely to change and that is going to help all Christians. Some might think of that as a drag on world Christianity, but I would like to think of it as an anchor.” -Harold Jantz

One wonders what exactly it is that Harold Jantz has come to appreciate about Roman Catholicism. Is it their idolatry of Mary? Or perhaps the ‘infallibility’ of a papal system that can end the state of limbo after 800 years of this false doctrine, and offer a shortcut to heaven apart from Christ, by visiting a shrine in France at the drop of a pontiff hat? Is this bondage to superstition and chains of traditions of men what Mr. Jantz calls an unchanging ‘anchor’?

And finally, in the article Mother Teresa, the “Mennonite”, James Toews writes that “Mother Theresa, like pious Mennonites, never uses the personal pronoun in a positive context.” Unfortunately, no mention is made that she also never used the truth of the gospel to bring salvation to the sick, lost and dying she so humbly served on the streets of Calcutta. Was Mother Theresa herself a lost soul?

Some of Mother Theresa’s quotes can be read here:

Deeds, Creeds, and Mother Teresa’s Despair
By Berit Kjos
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/007/pluralism-4-teresa.htm

It is apparent, once again, by this latest MB Herald, that the Mennonites are dialoguing their way accross the bridge to Rome. Perhaps this magazine should change it’s name to something more appropriate, like the RMB (Roman Mennonite Bridge) Herald.

To understand more about this subject, see Evangelicals and Catholics Together by Dr. Brian Green.

ROM Index: High

It is no longer only the Catholics with whom the Mennonites desire dialogue…

In a November 5th letter to the Muslim religious leaders who signed A Common Word Between Us and You (http://www.acommonword.com/), the Executive Director of Mennonite Church USA stated the following:

“As one of the historic peace churches, we in Mennonite Church USA heartily thank the signatories of “A Common Word between Us and You” for recognizing that Christians worship one God and take Jesus’ commands to love God and love our neighbors as central to our lives of faith. We appreciate the affirmation that Muslims and Christians hold important theological and ethical foundations in common, and we welcome the call for sincere dialogue between Christians and Muslims wherever we meet around the world.”

Read the rest of this letter here:

Mennonite Church USA sends response to Muslim letter
http://www.mennoniteusa.org/news/news/oct-dec07/11_20_07.htm#2

ROM Index: uncommonly high - shaking the foundations