{"id":5089,"date":"2025-06-26T20:23:27","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T20:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/?p=5089"},"modified":"2025-06-26T20:23:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T20:23:27","slug":"a-peek-into-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/from-the-publisher\/a-peek-into-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"A peek into the past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This issue kicks off a year of celebrating the 175th anniversary of Messenger<\/em> magazine. The anniversary is coming up in April 2026, since the first issue of the Gospel Visitor<\/em>, forerunner to Messenger, was published in April 1851.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While anniversaries were on my mind, I happened onto a booklet celebrating the Golden Jubilee (1899-1949) of Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren. The congregation was founded shortly after the Brethren Publishing House moved to Elgin, Ill. The first church service was held in the \u201csoutheast room\u201d of the publishing house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those years, denominational staff all worshiped at Highland Avenue, and this commemorative booklet contains many names from Church of the Brethren history. The opening letter\u2014on Gospel Messenger<\/em> letterhead\u2014is written by Desmond Bittinger, who in 1949 was both editor of the magazine and moderator of the congregation. (Later, in 1951 and 1958, he served as moderator of Annual Conference.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the brief entries for each year, one sees that the congregation responded to World Wars and the Great Depression, submitted queries to Annual Conference, called women to leadership, sent members around the world as missionaries and denominational staff, and encouraged ecumenical relationships both locally and nationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between larger matters are small activities\u2014some listed below\u2014that speak to the everyday life of the church. Perhaps these notes will inspire you to dig into your own congregation\u2019s history to see what treasures the historical record holds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1900:<\/strong> \u201cThe Thanksgiving offering was used in sending the Gospel Messenger to the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1907:<\/strong> \u201cDecided that the advertising fans be withdrawn from the church and each one bring their own fan if they so desire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1909:<\/strong> Decided to \u201cinstruct the trustees to look into the advisability of putting up sheds for sheltering horses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1912:<\/strong> \u201cThe first piano made its furtive appearance in the prayer meeting room under the shadow of night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1916:<\/strong> \u201cThe trustees were asked to arrange a cabinet to be used by the sisters for their prayer veils.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1922:<\/strong> \u201cThe basketball team led the 12 team church league with 10 wins and 1 loss.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1932:<\/strong> \u201cThe church voted to incorporate under the name First Church of the Brethren, Elgin, Illinois.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1933:<\/strong> \u201cThe Church authorized the purchase of a used grand piano at the cost of $545.00.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1936:<\/strong> \u201cIt was decided to have the cleaning of the inside woodwork done and not ask the women to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1938:<\/strong> On the question of robes for the choir, \u201ca vote of sentiment was taken evenly divided for, against, and neutral.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1945:<\/strong> \u201cRobes were purchased for the choir . . . and the minister began wearing a Geneva robe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1945:<\/strong> \u201cThe children of the church bought a heifer proudly named \u2018Lady Elgin,\u2019 and sent her to Puerto Rico.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1949:<\/strong> \u201cVoted that the church purchase an organ.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps these notes will inspire you to dig into your own congregation\u2019s history<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[37,49,675,530,676,38],"class_list":["post-5089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-publisher","tag-church-of-the-brethren","tag-from-the-publisher","tag-highland-avenue-church-of-the-brethren","tag-history","tag-messenger-anniversary","tag-wendy-mcfadden"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5089"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5094,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5089\/revisions\/5094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}