Newtown Interfaith Council (NIC) members convened in the library of Newtown Congregational Church on Tuesday, April 14 to discuss the group's potential future endeavors.

Before anything else, the group congratulated one of its members on achieving a big milestone. Leo McIlrath, Catholic ecumenical and interfaith pastor at The Lutheran Home in Southbury, is celebrating the 60th anniversary of his ordination this May.

Newtown Congregational Church Pastor and Reverend Matt Crebbin then kicked the meeting off by talking about an upcoming event at Sticks and Stones farm that Thursday, "A Culture of Respect" — A Morning with Miroslav Volf. The event had Volf, a Henry B. Wright professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and founder and director of Yale Center for Faith and Culture, leading others in a discussion of how to build a culture of respect in faith communities and the wider society.

Crebbin encouraged NIC members to attend if they were able to, but understood if they could not due to the short notice. He brought up the event because he felt like it aligned with NIC's goal of connecting the larger Newtown community.

"As we've talked about before, it's more about getting people to see each other as human beings," Crebbin said. "If we want to do things as a community and have conversations on topics like public policy, we first have to have human being conversations and common ground."

Newtown United Methodist Church Pastor Stephen Volpe agreed and said they should demonstrate and model what it means to have meaningful conversations, speaking without accusing and listening without judgment.

Building off that, Crebbin said his church's food ministry has resources available to help the community.

Newtown Congregational Church, he said, is strategizing ways to bring in some of the things they were talking about and hold a community meal.

They want to explore how they might go about these community meals, whether the interfaith council wants to do one or not.

Crebbin said they also thought about having a Thanksgiving community meal later this year that anybody could go to.

"It would be an offering and have no cost. We'd have to look at what we'd do food-wise, but it's certainly an idea," Crebbin explained.

He continued by saying that they want to try building "more community in the community" and maybe dovetail to something else in the summer. More specifically, Crebbin said they might do a couple community barbecues related to the Thursday night concert series at Dickinson Park.

His idea is that they could have everyone enjoy barbecue food under the pavilion while listening to music.

"Just as a means to promote community coming together on that level, and then also people knowing they could show up and just have a nice meal together and not have to worry about paying for it," Crebbin said.

He also said his church is thinking about other ways to support people, such as ways to provide funding, resources, and meals for groups that work with immigrants.

Volpe said he wanted to put out an idea, one he had after talking to Rob Sibley, the assistant chief of Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue.

Volpe said he asked Sibley if there are any paid fire personnel in Newtown, and learned that they are all volunteers. He then asked his fellow NIC members if they could put together an interfaith celebration for all the volunteer first responders in town, such as firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and divers.

"Just a service to thank them, pray for them, and ... maybe even afterwards, if there's a reception, have an opportunity to provide tables for people to ask questions or sign up to volunteer," Volpe said.

He continued by saying the event could be a chance for people who have needed those emergency services to thank local first responders.

Volpe added, "Because sometimes those people don't always get that chance."

He said they would want to make sure local first responder groups are on board with the idea before they would potentially do anything. Volpe also suggested that they could put a booklet together with a page for each department.

Crebbin said it was a great idea, especially when it comes to having all the first responders in one place and giving the public a chance to learn more about them. All of the NIC members agreed to talk about the idea more at a later date.

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Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.