Friday, July 11
Highlights of the Day

[Business | Photo]

The 300th Anniversary Conference will be held in the Greater Richmond (Va.) Convention Center and Coliseum. Photo by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

A cupola in the convention center. Photo by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

The Exhibit Hall will offer a variety of booths and exhibits including a Brethren Press bookstore featuring 300th Anniversary t-shirts. Photo by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

A new feature of the General Board exhibit is the Cross Cultural Ministries booth. Photo by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

QUOTES OF THE DAY

“I figure any time you get attacked by the right and the left you might be doing the right thing.”
-- Kathy Reid, executive director of the Association of Brethren Caregivers, speaking to Standing Committee about the Resolution Urging Forbearance.

“We really need to do something, because this is the elephant in the room.”
-- Standing Committee member Glenn Bollinger, speaking about the request from Program and Arrangements Committee asking the denomination to revisit the 1983 Annual Conference statement “Human Sexuality from a Christian Perspective.”

OVERVIEW OF THE DAY
On the day before the 300th Anniversary Conference of the Church of the Brethren and the Brethren Church begins, Richmond has already been the site of a number of Brethren meetings. Pre-Conference meetings have included the Annual Conference officers and Program and Arrangements Committee, the Standing Committee of district delegates, the Council of District Executives, the General Board’s Executive Committee, and the Ministers’ Association.

PREVIEW OF MAIN EVENTS
The 300th Anniversary Conference of the Church of the Brethren and of the Brethren Church will be held as a joint meeting between the two denominations. This will mark a historic occasion as the first joint annual meeting of the two Brethren denominations since a schism of the Brethren movement in the 1880s.

The Church of the Brethren and the Brethren Church both stem from the Brethren movement that began in 1708 in the village of Schwarzenau, Germany, where the eight founders of the movement were first baptized in the Eder River.

Onsite registration for the Conference began in mid-afternoon today. Photo by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

The Conference also will be the Church of the Brethren’s 222nd recorded Annual Conference. The event is expected to bring up to 6,000 people to Richmond, Va. The theme is “Surrendered to God--Transformed in Christ--Empowered by the Spirit” (John 12:24-26a).

Brethren will attend from across the US and Puerto Rico, along with international guests and members of Brethren denominations outside the US. Participants will include individual church members and families, pastors and delegates from congregations and church districts, and denominational officers and staff. People of all ages will attend, and special activities for children, youth, and young adults will be offered along with the main events.

The Conference will convene at the Greater Richmond Convention Center, with worship services and business sessions at the Richmond Coliseum. Some events will be at the Richmond Marriott.

A “Service Blitz”--two days of service projects in a variety of locations around Richmond--is planned for July 12 and 14, and a Food Drive also will be held to benefit the Central Virginia Food Bank. Organizers hope several hundred church members will participate in the food drive and part or all of the two days of service work as a way to “shower the Richmond community with loving acts of service,” in the words of the 300th Anniversary Committee.

Other highlights:

-- Opening worship Saturday evening, July 12, followed by a worship concert by the National Christian Choir.

-- A major Sunday morning worship event on July 13, marking a high point as the Church of the Brethren and the Brethren Church join together officially in worship for the first time since the 1880s.

-- Arrival after worship Sunday of the John Kline Riders, a horseback riding group that commemorates the life of John Kline, a Brethren peacemaker and martyr of the Civil War era.

-- An afternoon of “Jubilee Events” on Sunday, focused on Brethren history and heritage.

-- A “Global Celebration” of Brethren in mission around the world, on Sunday evening.

-- A Monday evening concert with Christian musician Ken Medema.

The Conference also includes separate business meetings of the Church of the Brethren and the Brethren Church, as well as worship services for each denomination. Church of the Brethren business meetings will be led by James Beckwith, pastor of Annville (Pa.) Church of the Brethren, who is serving as moderator of the Annual Conference.

A BIT OF BRETHREN HISTORY: THE FIRST ANNUAL MEETING OF THE BRETHREN. MAYBE.
The first Annual Meeting of the Church of the Brethren took place on Pentecost, June 7, 1742, at the home of Martin Urner of Coventry. Maybe.

It seems clear that from the beginning of the Brethren movement we settled our disputes democratically, in joint study of the Bible, with all members having an equal voice. And initially all Brethren were able to gather together at the same Love Feast to discuss the issues that faced them.

However, the clearest indication for when the Annual Meeting as we know it first took place comes from the pen of Georg Adam Martin (1715-1794), elder and author, who was later excommunicated by the Brethren on a charge of immoral behavior, and who therefore regarded the Brethren with some disdain.

In 1741 the charismatic Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf, a leader of the Renewed Moravian Church, tried to unite the German-speaking Christians into one body through a series of conferences. Brethren sent delegates, but later abandoned the movement, believing the Count was taking too large a role and that the doctrinal disagreements were too great. According to Martin, the Brethren decided they would hold conferences of their own on an annual basis.

Martin did not think much of the tone of the discussion that went on at these meetings. He later recalled, “After this general meeting had been established, the opportunity was offered to speak of various matters whenever we met, and since most of the (Brethren) who had laid the foundation of their Congregation in Schwarzenau, were uneducated arch-idiots and ignoramuses, their followers, of course, brought their absurd nothings also to this meeting, always appealing to their predecessors, saying the Old Brethren in Germany did so, and we must not depart from their ways.”

After Martin was expelled in 1760 from the Brethren he was appointed as a leader to the Ephrata community by the Superintendent Conrad Beissel. He later went on to found congregations in Bermudian, York County, and Stony Creek in what was then Bedford County, Pa. Both of those congregations later became Brethren.

The historian Martin Grove Brumbaugh recorded the date and place of the first conference but there is no clear record of this. Hence the maybe. No matter. At some point during this period the pattern was established for the Annual Conferences which take place to this day.

-- Frank Ramirez’ “Tercentennial Minute” for June 1. Ramirez pastors Everett (Pa.) Church of the Brethren, which has offered the weekly Tercentennial Minutes through 2008 as a celebration of the 300th Anniversary of the Brethren.