Sunday, July 13
Worship

[Highlights | Feature | Photo]

[Worship Bulletin | Sermon by Arden Gilmer | Sermon by Shanthi Edwin | Sermon by Chris Bowman]

One of three preachers for the Sunday morning service, Arden Gilmer represented the Brethren Church. Photo by Regina Roberts

Shanthi Edwin was the second preacher of the morning, also from the Brethren Church. Photo by Glenn Riegel

Chris Bowman preached in third and final spot at the service, representing the Church of the Brethren. Photo by Regina Roberts

BRETHREN DENOMINATIONS WORSHIP TOGETHER FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 1880s
It has been 125 years since the Brethren worshiped together like this at Annual Meeting. The last time this took place was at a field in Indiana, after which the Church of the Brethren and the Brethren Church experienced a split.

Since then a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, spilled over the dam, soaked into the fields, evaporated into the heavens, and rained down on the just and the unjust. From the perspective of God’s good earth, however, it has only been a moment from then until now.

The Church of the Brethren and the Brethren Church sang together this Sunday morning, “Brethren, we have met to worship and adore the Lord, our God!”

Arden Gilmer of Park Street Brethren Church, Ohio, was one of the three preachers representing a joint leadership team from the two denominations. He commented that the first Brethren were creating a new culture. “What motivated them to swim upstream at great cost to themselves?” Gilmer said the early Brethren held deeply held convictions on baptism, because of the great price they paid. His text, Romans 6:3-11, led him to ask whether modern Brethren would be content merely to critique our culture, or to create a new culture in Christ.

Shanthi Edwin from the Brush Valley Brethren Church, in Pennsylvania, focused on Psalm 133:1-3. In her message “Power in Unity” she said we are all family. “No Christian is an only child of God. We are a family of love and relationship.” Edwin invited Brethren to challenge Satan by recognizing “that disunity is not the solution of every problem. God used the Brethren Church and the Church of the Brethren to do great things for his glory.” She challenged all present to take the Spirit of Unity, symbolized by the oil of anointing, with them out into the world.

Matthew 13:3-9 and 18-23 provided grist for the message “Well Grounded Grain Brings Phenomenal Fruit,” preached by Chris Bowman of Oakton Church of the Brethren, in Virginia. Bowman noted that in Jesus’ day planting was backward. The seed was planted first and then the ground was cultivated to carry it. “With Jesus the seed comes first, and then the ground is cultivated to carry it. Just like the Good News. The word of the Kingdom has already arrived when the heart must decide how to hold it.”

Bowman added, “When we die in Christ we’re not getting buried. You’re getting planted.” In a message laced with good humor that called out laughter from a congregation that sat through a two-hour service, Bowman observed that asparagus does better when it is covered with manure. “We Brethren could learn something here,” he added after a pause. “When we get dumped on by the world, and we are fed up to here with life, we could remember that we weren’t buried, we were planted.”

Recalling examples from Brethren history, he reminded the congregation that over the years, “we have baptized over one million people into the body of Christ. This has been a phenomenal harvest.”
-- Frank Ramirez is pastor of Everett (Pa.) Church of the Brethren

The moderators of the two annual meetings welcomed worshippers to the historic occasion. Photo by Glenn Riegel	Leslie Lake serves as music coordinator for the conference, and also is one of the members of the 300th Anniversary Committee. Photo by Ken Wenger
The Richmond Coliseum was packed with thousands of Brethren worshipping together this Sunday morning. Photo by Ken Wenger	Water was carried in and poured into the worship center fountain representing all districts of the Church of the Brethren and the Brethren Church, along with water from the Eder River where the first eight Brethren were baptized. Photo by Glenn Riegel
Families enjoyed worship together. Photo by Regina Roberts	The worship leaders washed one another's feet, in a symbolic act of remembrance of Christ's instruction to his disciples. Photo by Regina Roberts