Bridging The Gap in the City of Bridges

Bob and I recently returned from a successful conference for our nonprofit, Building Bridges Together. ™  Our visit to Pittsburgh, the “City of Bridges,” began with a welcome lunch for first time attendees at the Annual Conference of the Association of Partners in Christian Education (APCE).  The theme of this conference was “Bridging the Gap – Love God, Love Self, Love Neighbor” and the APCE made big efforts to honor that theme!  We found ourselves in a room with more than 200 people, sitting by serendipity next to the outgoing APCE President, Tori Smit, and the music leader for the conference, Daniel Heath!

Centerpiece for Our APCE Welcome Luncheon On Brand for BBT!

The room was full of energy, and our table companions were intrigued by our Interfaith Bridges program. Unexpectedly, Bob won a prize because it was his birthday! A lovely way to celebrate this milestone!

Bob Frankle, Co-Founder of BBT, with his prize!

Several folks advised us to visit the Marketplace and see the baby Nubian goats! Of course we did, and we also found a booth for SHIM, a south Pittsburgh interfaith outreach group, two different affinity and welcome ministries for LGBTQ folks, and lots of friendly people.

Baby Nubian Goats at APCE Marketplace

That afternoon’s main event was a plenary worship service where Theresa Cho, Senior Pastor at St. John’s Presbyterian in San Francisco, gave a rousing sermon with many references to our very own Golden Gate Bridge (did you know that the fog around the Golden Gate Bridge has a name, Karl, and its own Instagram account – check out karlthefog on Instagram!). We enjoyed the gorgeous singing and piano music of our lunch companion at this service too!  We got to see many of the 700 attendees at this large worship service and felt the love of God.

Our workshop, “Techniques in Building Interfaith Bridges” was among the first group of workshops offered Thursday morning! With expert and timely help from the APCE staff, our easels were up, markers were out, seats were arranged around our round tables with lots of chocolate candy to be enjoyed, and all the slides and the video ran according to plan! Fifteen highly engaged participants enjoyed a collaborative art project and a small group discussion during our 90 minute workshop and made new friends from strangers!

We observed to our group that churches can achieve important goals by launching an interfaith project with neighboring mosques and synagogues. Reaching out to Jews and Muslims fulfills Christ’s commandment to “love your neighbor” and makes Christians peacemakers by modeling bridging across difference to a fractured society.

We also shared how participants might reach out to their Jewish and Muslim neighbors. Most of our attendees had mosques and/or synagogues within a 30-minute drive from their churches and many were interested in offering our program.  Our workshop participants were diverse, with Native American, Asian American and Black Puerto Rican participants. Many participants complimented us on the thoughtful organization of the workshop and our timely message. They understood that our techniques can also be used to bridge across other differences beyond the Abrahamic faiths.

Of course, we also attended other workshops at the conference, including a discussion of living out the “Shema” [the Jewish sources for love God and love your neighbor taught by a rabbi], a session on effectively welcoming LGBTQ folks into churches, and a workshop on how to talk about antisemitism and Israel with Jewish neighbors [taught by another rabbi].  It was good to see that APCE works with Jewish clergy to provide an authentic Jewish voice for the Christians attending the conference. One strong message of the workshop on discussing antisemitism and Israel was that we should elevate “humanity over headlines.”  This resonates with us - sharing personal stories is how we develop relationships and dispel stereotypes and bias. During our three days at the conference, we passed out dozens of business cards to interested attendees and made many new friends for Building Bridges Together!

Meanwhile we enjoyed Pittsburgh’s many bridges, as our hotel was at the meeting point of the three great rivers – the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers meet there to form the mighty Ohio River. 

A View of One of the Icy Rivers and Bridges From our Pittsburgh Hotel Room

Pittsburgh's Famous Incline Across the River

We also had a view of the famous Pittsburgh Incline [but it was way too cold to ride it while we were there!] and managed to escape frostbite while taking photos of the many bridges – did you see some on Facebook or Instagram? We saw dear friends and family both at the conference and during some chilly but fun Pittsburgh outings!  

Diane and Bob Frankle with BBT Friends Mary Lee Talbot and Anne Wilson at APCE Pittsburgh

We escaped the big storm, leaving early Saturday morning, richer for having spent quality time with so many engaged and interested Christian educators and clergy.  We look forward to pursuing these new bridges to relationship across the United States!

We are working to introduce our Interfaith Bridges™ program across the United States. If you support our work, please consider donating through our website. Thanks for your interest and support! Let’s keep building bridges together!

Diane and Bob Frankle, Co-Founders, Building Bridges Together