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CRES is a 501(c)(3) organization promoting understanding of all faiths through teaching, writing, and consulting. |
 
At the Nelson-Atkins Museum
of Art Vern gave a tour of art illustrating how different peoples have
understood the sacred differently for members at the international conference
of the Alliance of Divine held in Kansas City. Love Apr 24. Another
photo of the tour following lunch in Rozelle Court, including organizer
Mary McCoy, .courtesy of Nancy Ash of New Mexico.
 New
York City storyteller Diane Wolkstein visits with Vern after a workshop
Apr 18 here Apr 18 and a performance of “Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth”
the day before. Vern's column and his interview with her begin with this
link.
  Gift
of Life Partrons' Party -- Vern, here with Adele Hall, is grateful
to serve on the board of a truly life-giving foundation, Gift of Life,
which thanked its wonderful supporters at a gathering April 1 before
its fun GoSeeDo fundraiser.
Ethnic Enrichment Commission officer Marti Wilson and Ahmed El-Sherif at the Diplomatic Ball March 21 at which Vern offered the invocation.  
Vern and Hema Sharma visit after a March 19 preview of the astonishing exhibit of Mughal art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.  Vern was MC for a reception Feb 19 honoring
civic leader Bill Hall, president of the Hall Family Foundation, joining
a list of Distinguished Alumns of the Kansas City Tomorrow leadership training
program sponsored by the Civic Council.
  For next month's book, click here.  CRES
assocate minister, the Rev David E Nelson, DMin, congratulates Alvin Sykes
on his work writing and obtaining passage of the Till Bill, enacted by
Congress and signed by President Bush, a landmark in the movement toward
American justice. Sykes was feted for his work Feb. 20 at the Bruce Watkins
Cultural Center.
 Composer/singer/guitarist Barclay Martin, of the Barclay Matin Ensemble greets internationally known "green" arrchitect Bob Berekbile following a Jan 26 lecture by Newsweek editor John Meacham on religion in American history. Martin is completing a special commission from CRES. Click here.  FRONT: Judy McEachen (Festival of Faiths), Mary McCoy (Cultural Crossroads and GKCIC), Shannon Clark (GKCIC), Priscilla Wilson (Festival of Faiths), Vern Barnet (CRES, KC Star columnist), BACK: Larry Guillot (GKCIC), Donnie Morehouse (ACLU), David Nelson (The Human Agenda, CRES), Dan Winter (ACLU), Fatih Ozcan (Institute for Interfaith Dialogue), Murat Tatli (Raindrop Turkish House and Cultural Center), NOT PICTURED: Oguz Kan - The Raindrop Turkish House & Cultural Center, Bill Tammeus (author and retired columnist for The KC Star), Mahnaz Shabbir (CRES, Crescent Peace Society, and GKCIC). The Greater Kansas City Interfaith Roundtable, convened by CRES, The Human Agenda, and the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council, met for its third quarterly meeting 2009 April 9. The session was movingly led by David Nelson and graciously hosted by the Raindrop Turkish House & Cultural Center. Shanon Clark took excellent minutes. The Roundtable enables folks from different organizations working in the interfaith field to learn about each other's programs and provide mutual support. The next meeting is July 8. Click here for the "Faith Matters" blog by Bill Tammeus following the meeting. 
Sister Donna Ryan and CRES community chaplain Josef Walker together lead the Spirit at Work breakfast invocation March 6 where Embarq's CEO Tom Gerke was the speaker. NEWS CONTINUES in the
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June 2 BME Jardine's June 10 Vital Conversation June 21 Sun 9:30
Vern on Peacemaking
June 25-28 NAIN conference  June 28 Film presentation, Tivoli July 8 Vital Conversation July 11 Holy Union
S U M M E R S T U D Y
Aug 21-22 Health Ministries Workshop Sep 13 "Veils and Revelations" sermon
at
Sep 25 Wedding Sep 30 "KC:
World Religions" with Vern
Nov 22 Sunday 6-8
pm 25th Annual Interfaith Thanksgiving
Sunday Family Ritual Meal -- Our host this year is the Islamic School
of Kansas City, 10515 Grandview Road -- click
for map.
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CAPSTONE CONCERT 
Pianist Mark Lowrey, composer-singer-guitarist Barclay Martin, drummer-percussionist
Giuliano Mingucci, bassist-vocalist Rick Willoughby rehearse before the
doors are opened.
A full house was astonished and moved by the Barclay Martin Ensemble April 18 in the concert-conversation concluding with a standing ovation for the world premiere of "Suite" commissioned by CRES. See our report page and other links therefrom.  "At the Pluralism Project, we consider
Kansas City to be truly at the forefront of interfaith relations.This is
— in no small part — due to the tireless efforts of Vern Barnet, whose
work and writings have been an inspiration to all of us at the Pluralism
Project."
—Ellie Pierce,
principal researcher for The Pluralism Project at Harvard University BUILDING COMMUNITY
CONGRATULATIONS Interfaith Thanksgiving Sunday Family Ritual Meal! click on photos for biographical sketches.
For a description of the event, click here.
LEADERS OF TWO GROUPS WITH 50 YEARS OF SERVICE TO KC ENRICHING THE SPIRIT:
The Kansas
City Interfaith Council, 1989-2004 (CRES founded and hosted it as a program
and arranged its independence in 2005).
Our color journal, Many Paths. Our extensive web site, www.cres.org. Our annual Thanksgiving Sunday Interfaith Family Ritual Meal, now in its 25th year. Our Passportcongregational visitation program. Sparking efforts like The Hindu and the Cowboy and Other Kansas City Stories and interfaith book clubs. Other programs, consultations, teaching, writing, networking, and resources requested by international and community groups. The nation’s first "Interfaith Academies" (with Harvard’s Pluralism Project, etc) and the metro Festival of Faiths. The services of a professional staff that includes Dr Vern Barnet, who writes The Kansas City Star “Faiths and Beliefs” column each Wednesday. The staff provides
rites of passage such as weddings and funerals to those without religious
communities.
CRES VALUES Mutuality. For CRES, mutuality means fully embracing both differences and similarities, both distinct traditions and universal kinship. We understand ourselves better by understanding others. Exploration. For CRES, exploring one another’s faiths leads neither to conversion nor syncretism, but rather to mutual purification and the deepening of our own traditions. Service.
CRES offers multi-faith resources and processes to the community for interfaith
encounter and service to the secular world. We need each other’s insights
and aid to respond to the crises of secularism.
While CRES continues to offer teaching, writing, ceremonies, and consulting to the community, we are asking other organizations growing in the interfaith climate we had a part in nurturing, to assume networking and other services we previously provided. Accordingly, we have taken these multi-year graded steps carefully as Vern moves more fully into retirement. 2003 Dec 31, Vern ended leadership of the Interfaith Council. 2004 Dec 31, CRES ended its support for the Council's administrative assistant. 2007 Apr 23, Vern concluded over 20 years of night classes at Ottawa University - Kansas City. 2007 Sep 12, Vern concluded the last regular evening lecture in a many-year occasional series at the Rime Buddhist Center. 2007 Dec 31, the position of administrative assistant was ended. 2008 Feb 11, By requiest, Vern, still carrying duties he had hoped to relinquish, appears before the Interfaith Council and recommends the Council retain professional leadership, which it does by July 1. 2008 July 25, Vern ends activities for which transportation is not arranged. 2009 Jan 1, MANY PATHS became a quarterly rather than monthly publication. 2009 Feb 1, CRES ended its on-line calendar for community groups announcing events of interfaih interest. 2009 Mar 3, CRES modified its 913 area phone service to outgoing message only. 2009 Mar 25, CRES discontinuted its bulk mailing permit. 2009 Apr 18, CRES offered the last special program it initiated,* a concert with the Barclay Martin Ensemble with a new song commissioned for the occasion with the message embedded in the chart below. 2009 Apr 23, Vern resigns from the board of the Friends of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas. 2009 June 30, Vern concludes his service on the board of the Kansas City Tomorrow Alumni Association. 2009 Nov 22, CRES concludes its initation* of programs with the 25th annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Sunday Family Ritual Meal. *CRES continues some program involvement initated by others. |
COPYRIGHT 2005, Vern Barnet at CRES, Box
4165, Overland Park, KS 66204.
This chart may be reproduced without charge
by educational and non-profit organizations
so long as credit and contact information
is included. Please inform us of your intent to use. Thank you.
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IN FURTHERING INTERFAITH UNDERSTANDING CRES may be the most connected interfaith effort in Kansas City, and the only one wedding academic competence with practical activities, but many groups are involved one way or another in promoting interfaith understanding. An increasing number of organizations bring interfaith awareness to their work. For a list, please see our report, KC Interfaith Opportunities, and let us know about the groups we missed. And you as an individual, you can encourage America’s tradition of pluralism by
* supporting these organizations,
and specifically, working through CRES, you can *
use our INTERFAITH PASSPORT to visit various religious groups and build
relationships
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| CRES
is a 501(c)(3) charity as determined by the IRS in its 1985
July 17 letter. It is a Kansas not-for-profit
also registered in Missouri. It is
operated by a Board of Directors and
led by the Rev Vern Barnet, DMin and a volunteer
staff.
CRES, with its scholarly capacities and practical networking, has been central tothe development of interfaith work in Kansas City and has been nationally recognized by CBS-TV, Harvard University's Pluralism Project, and in other ways. |
Because
of our professional volunteer staff, your gift to CRES provides an enormous
"bang for the buck."
If you are not already on our mailing list, you will received Many Paths regularly with our thanks. |
| CRES is pleased to have largely
achieved its first objective of helping the community become aware and
appreciate its religious diversity through such programs as
*founding, hosting, and encouraging the independence of the KC Interfaith Council *working with the KC Press Club to improve accuracy of media attention to religion *arranging the 2001 “Gifts of Pluralism” conference *involving all faiths in a city-wide observance of the first anniversary of 9/11 *arranging for the nation’s first Interfaith Academies in cooperation with Harvard University, Religions for Peace-USA, the Saint Paul School of Theology, and the Interfaith Council *monthly reporting on interfaith activities through Many Paths *maintaining the area’s most complete web calendar of interfaith programs *inspiring and supporting other efforts such as The Hindu and the Cowboy and Other Kansas City Stories, the Interfaith Passports, the Festival of Faiths, and the Interfaith Roundtable *informing the city about interfaith issues through over 750 “Faiths and Beliefs” columns in The Kansas City Star *providing research and enumerating resources about faiths in Kansas City in Many Paths and on the web *offering and arranging countless programs to community groups, professional organizations, adult classes and youth events, to build interfaith relationships and improve understanding of religious diversity; and offering credit classes for colleges, universities, and seminaries; and providing training opportunities for clergy and lay religious leaders through conferences and consultations *establishing a sound working relationship with the Council *fostering an environment in which new groups have emerged to further interfaith understanding, and existing groups are amplified.
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But now, in view of the limited
resources available to CRES and the finite energy of its volunteer staff,
the leader of which should devote more time to completing several writing
projects and other efforts, CRES assumes a glide path forward with its
major focus on the second part of its vision, to wit:
To bring the wisdom of the many faiths to address the crises of our desacralized culture with its crises *in the environment, * in personhood, and * in society, through > writing projects, including major papers and books > a CD with reference materials on our website and in our files > exploring the possibility of a Gifts of Pluralism II conference >arranging a spring concert with a commissioned song to highlight the theme italicized above in red >focusing speaking engagements on the unfulfilled part of our vision. >arranging for archival storage of CRES materials, perhaps at the DT KC library or historical society >articulating long-term projects for the city, such as the formation of a Council of Congregations and an interfaith chapel at KCI >adding boilerplate responses to frequently asked questions to our website at www.cres.org/team/0.htm. This means that some of the functions CRES has performed are ready to be assumed by one or more of the more than two dozen organizations in our area now doing interfaith work, such as * handing off the annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Sunday Family Ritual Meal following the 25th anniversary meal in 2009 November 22 * handing off networking responsibilities (such as arranging for speakers other than CRES staff) * applauding new publications and websites and reducing the frequency of Many Paths to four from 12 issues during 2009 year, and seeking placement for some of features elsewhere including the printed and web-calendar event lists and holiday calendars. |
In
the evening of Apr 24, Vern was recognized as founder of the Greater Kansas
City Interfaith Council and given roses at the interfaith concert produced
by the Rev Kara Hawkins for the Council and the international conference
of the Alliance of Divine Love .
After
his lecture March 4 at St Francis Xavier, Vern congratulates Dan Fine on
identifying Shiva when Vern asked the Lenten dinner group if anyone could
name the god.
CRES
associate minister David Nelson and Interfaith Council executive director
Shannon Clark visit before the Feb 26 National Council of Jewish Women,
Greater Kansas City Section, luncheon program, “Healing in a Fractured
World.” 
