Local Council Promotes A Culture Of Service

spiritual organizations in the area to share resources, support each other and build community.”

Representing one of those organizations is Sue Anderson, from the First Church of Christ, Scientist, on Bainbridge. She established Spotlight on Faith at IFC. With its advent, meetings now start with someone sharing the essence of their faith through prayer, a poem, a reading or a song.

During IFC’s Community Thanksgiving Service, faith groups and affiliates gather to show their gratitude through music, poetry, prayers, readings or interpretive expression. Singers, drummers, choirs and dancers all take part. “It is an important way to say thank you for all the bounty that has come to us and our community and show gratitude for our country and the principles on which it was founded,” Anderson said.

IFC works each spring with Bainbridge High School students to plan a baccalaureate service for the weekend before graduation. Faculty, seniors and IFC leaders develop a theme and contribute readings, art and music, with a guest speaker from the religious community.

Then there is the Good Neighbor Committee. IFC members carefully pool their thoughts on a current topic and write a unified letter of support to effect change or provide encouragement. They’ve written letters to support the Suquamish Tribe after a devastating 4,800-gallon oil spill in

2003, to support a school after a shooting and recently they wrote to the City of Poulsbo about the new roundabout construction on Highway 305 and Johnson Road that was to feature only Nordic themes. IFC requested that the city also consider honoring the Suquamish people and culture. Their idea was heard, and the roundabout’s features are being revised.

IFC also established Helpline House on Bainbridge Island, which provides free social services and a food bank, and started the local CROP Walk, an event to raise money to help end hunger. CROP (Christian Rural Overseas Program) is a national, faith-based program responding to hunger, poverty, displacement and disaster.

Other noteworthy programs include IFC’s Spring Music Festival, celebrating the new season with a wide variety of music in a worshipful setting; The Bob Satterwhite Memorial Scholarship, which supports graduating high school seniors, and Super Suppers, a council-sponsored program for more than 20 years that helps ensure anyone can get free supper on the last seven days of every month, served at different churches in or near Winslow.

“The IFC is but one local example of a worldwide movement of dialogue and companionship between persons of many different faith traditions,” said the Reverend Stephen Crippen from Grace Episcopal Church. “IFC gives me hope that even in this highly nonsectarian corner of the world, people of faith flourish and grow together, strengthened by their differences and united by their common purpose.”

IFC currently includes 21 faith groups and affiliates. Crippen added that the Council is not a network of religious professionals, but an opportunity for lay and clergy leaders to come together and do valuable work, where people from all walks of life and all vocations are empowered to lead.

More at binkinterfaith.org