In this issue: Remembering Emma Jean Woodard, service information for Ken Holderread, new CWS kit video features Material Resources, prayer concern from BVS for Ecuador, related FaithX announcement, Rick Gardner authors Passion of Jesus, Camp La Verne celebrates 100 years, and more.
In November 2023, the executive directors of the Church of the Brethren’s Service Ministries and Global Mission departments, Roy Winter and Eric Miller respectively, visited South Sudan for six days. During that time, they met with Athanasus Ungang, who is country director of Brethren Global Services, the Church of the Brethren mission project there.
Founa Badet has been hired by the Church of the Brethren as the director of Intercultural Ministry, which is part of the Discipleship and Leadership Formation department.
The Church of the Brethren’s Office of Peacebuilding and Policy was one of more than 80 religious, humanitarian, and peace and justice organizations and groups to sign on to a letter to President Biden calling for progress towards responsibly closing the Guantánamo detention center.
The first Brethren baptisms in America were held on Christmas Day 1723 in the Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia. On the 300th anniversary of that event, West Shore Church of the Brethren held a baptism in the Conodoguinet Creek in Silver Spring Township, Cumberland County, Pa.
The February online offering from the Ventures in Christian Discipleship program at McPherson (Kan.) College will be “Divine Creativity and Holy Imagination: Cultivating a Creative Church” to be presented by Liz Ullery Swenson. The course will be held online in two Tuesday evening sessions, Feb. 13 and 20, both at 7:30 to 9 p.m. (central time).
As part of Bethany Theological Seminary’s initiative to “Build Bridges Across Ideological Divides,” the Brethren Academy for Ministerial Leadership is offering a series of TRIM-level courses to help clergy recognize and meaningfully address division in their congregations and communities. First up is “Polarization as an Opportunity for Ministry,” a course with Russell Haitch, professor of Theology and Human Science at Bethany.
The Church of the Brethren’s Discipleship and Leadership Formation department is sponsoring a webinar to be held Feb. 8 with Stuart Murray Williams and colleagues Alexandra Ellish, Judith Kilpin, and Karen Sethuraman centered around the forthcoming book The New Anabaptists: Practices for Emerging Communities. The book is to be released in late January.
In this issue: Germantown Church of the Brethren’s 300th anniversary gets great media coverage; remembering Phoebe Hayes; happy 75th to SERRV; job opening at Camp Bethel; “Palestine Power Hour” hosted by On Earth Peace; ceasefire prayer vigil hosted by CMEP; Church of the Brethren pastor arrested calling for ceasefire; Bethany Seminary professor to lead Academy of Homiletics
The Part-Time Pastor; Full-Time Church program of the Church of the Brethren’s Office of Ministry is planning events for the next few months. Multi-vocational pastors are invited to a study of the book Flourishing in Ministry by Matt Bloom. Multi-vocational clergywomen are particularly invited to join Erin Matteson for “Soul Sisters…Connecting and Deepening Together.”