Breaking Down Barriers study committee’s four recommendations are adopted

By Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

The four recommendations brought by the Breaking Down Barriers study committee (known at this Conference as unfinished business item two), were adopted by the delegate body.

The committee’s full report, including interim reports from previous years, offers extensive research and identification of the multiple barriers to full and equal participation in Church of the Brethren events such as Annual Conference. (Find a link to a pdf document of the study committee’s report and recommendations at www.brethren.org/ac2025/business.)

Members of the study committee–Jeanne Davies, Brandon Grady, and Dan Poole (chair)–were named by Annual Conference in 2022 when the study was initiated by a query from the Living Stream Church (a fully online congregation) and Pacific Northwest District. The study committee’s mandate included “issues related to broad accessibility; virtual/hybrid meetings and/or webcasting” and examination of ‘the theological, philosophical, and radical implications…along with a feasibility study.”

Its work has included seeking input through surveys, listening sessions, and consultations with a wide variety of groups and people from across the denomination. The study committee also held meetings with the denomination’s Feasibility Committee, a body that includes members from the Standing Committee of district delegates and representatives of the Mission and Ministry Board and the three Conference agencies.

The study committee’s four recommendations fall within three categories: 1. Issues related to Conference business practices that the committee recommends be referred to the new Review and Evaluation Committee; 2. Named barriers to participation that already have been addressed in some fashion or are in the process of being addressed; 3. A set of concerns to carry to the Feasibility Committee for advice and consideration.

The second recommendation is that all Conference planners continue to uphold statements and policies that remove barriers to participation, and offers a lengthy list of additional suggestions for consideration.

The third recommendation is to revise the calculation used for the Annual Conference Travel Scholarship so that instead of eligibility for attendees from west of the Mississippi River the scholarship is provided to attendees traveling a distance of 1,200 miles or more.

The fourth recommendation is that the Mission and Ministry Board and other denominational leadership consider two options for Annual Conference including

Option 1: a biennial conference with a different staffing arrangement in order to decrease cost for attendees; or

Option 2: holding Conference in-person and online in alternating years, with the fully online year for business only, and the year of in-person events for fellowship and worship and the additional events of a Conference without business sessions, in order to make each year a shorter event.