By Dava Hensley, moderator of the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference
Greetings as we enter this year of 2025. With these new beginnings, our thoughts bring memories of the past, evaluating our present, and looking forward to the newness of life where God is leading us as individuals and as the church. It is not an easy time, and loss and grief are a part of this process.
Theologian Howard Thurman shared in his book The Growing Edge these words. “All around us worlds are dying, and new worlds are being born. All around us life is dying, and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree. The roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against the time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge”
We in the Church of the Brethren find ourselves in this growing edge. I am a firm believer that all the loss and grief unnamed in the church could be the underlying cause of our inability to move forward into God’s continued mission, both now and in the future. In my travels as your moderator, I have listened to expressions of grief across the denomination.
Grief counselor Kenneth Doka shares in his book Disenfranchised Grief: New Directions, Challenges, and Strategies for Practice, “Grief work is the work that must be accomplished in order to move through the pain associated with the loss.” Grief is not only the process of mourning the death of loved ones, but the loss of the past or circumstances unfulfilled in their mission.
The losses in the church community are great. The loss of community through death and departure of churches is real. The loss of being and doing church like years past is our reality. There is much grief and sadness associated with these realities and grief does not have an end time. What we can do is learn how to better move through grief and loss. In the coming months, I am planning monthly sessions of one hour each to acknowledge our grief together and then share in small groups the grief we are experiencing. We will have an overview of grief, processing loss, and in this process learning ways to move forward in our mission which continues to be sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ!
This series of sessions will take place on Zoom once a month on Thursday evenings at 8 p.m. (Eastern time). Registration is required. The dates and registration links are:
- Grief Workshop #1 – Feb. 6 https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIofuCtrzssEtStr6wNc3fNN5uFLw5Rl_XU
- Grief Workshop #2 – March 13 https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/g3M9VOSNSDy1A_mTZ0EQsQ
- Grief Workshop #3 – April 10 https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/FxiBoFvBQ0yLTbZ-zOyWhA
- Grief Workshop #4 – May 15 https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/nj5YFttoTl6TQPRHnggtCw
- Grief Workshop #5 – June 5 https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/UfVKs1puTKy9xVn23qio0w
I look forward to our time together and pray Gods’ presence be with us in this difficult, but necessary work.
Peace,
Dava Hensley
Moderator of Annual Conference 2025
— Find out more about Annual Conference at www.brethren.org/ac
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Find more Church of the Brethren news:
- Church of the Brethren Inter-Agency Forum sends letter regarding multicultural commitments and welcome at Annual Conference
- Intercultural Ministries seeks volunteer ‘frontliners’ (in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole)
- Church of the Brethren staff and leaders meet in Uganda to plan for increased humanitarian needs in South Sudan
- Grants support increased humanitarian needs in South Sudan, among other responses to violence and war
- Messenger magazine receives three awards from the Associated Church Press