A “Families Belong Together” candlelight vigil sponsored by the Office of Peacebuilding and Policy gathered outside the main doors of the convention center in Cincinnati, where Annual Conference is taking place this week.
Several unusual attempts to open the Standing Committee agenda to new business led to lengthy discussions of a situation in Michigan District and led to action to begin to address “gaps” in the Standing Committee appeals processes.
An overview of the first day of the 2018 Annual Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio.
In this issue: Job openings, Brethren Service Center partnership with IMA World Health ends, offerings at National Youth Conference, Ministry Summer Service orientation, moderator-elect attends advocacy summit of Churches for Middle East Peace, prayer request for violence and suffering in Yemen, Mission Advancement insight session at Annual Conference, Brethren Disaster Ministries “Meet & Greet” at Annual Conference, and more news by, for, and about Brethren.
NEWS
1) Bethany Seminary president takes part in ecumenical meeting with Pope Francis
2) Resilience amidst staggering needs in Nigeria
3) Young Adult Conference: Teaching with our lives
4) Young adult workcamp goes to Burundi
5) Bethany Seminary receives ATS Peer Group Grant
RESOURCES
6) ‘Inglenook Desserts,’ Joseph Bible study, children’s Advent devotional now available from Brethren Press
7) Church World Service provides online ‘Interfaith Toolkit to End Family Separation’
REFLECTIONS
8) Christ on the run
9) ‘The most challenging letters I’ve ever written’
10) Brethren bits
Church of the Brethren Newsline June 25, 2018Three new Brethren Press books are now available: “Inglenook Desserts,” the latest in the Inglenook cookbooks series offering recipes from Brethren kitchens; “25 Days to Jesus: A Children’s Advent Devotional” written by Christy Waltersdorff and illustrated by Mitch Miller; and “Joseph,” a Covenant Bible Study written by Eugene F. Roop.Inglenook
Bethany Seminary president Jeff Carter attended World Council of Churches (WCC) biennial meetings in Geneva, Switzerland, June 15-21. He is the Church of the Brethren representative to the WCC Central Committee, a group of 150 people who represent nearly 40 percent of the WCC’s 348 member churches.
Church World Service (CWS) has put together an extensive online resource titled “Interfaith Toolkit to End Family Separation and Keep Families Together.” The Church of the Brethren is a member denomination of Church World Service, and partners with CWS through Brethren Disaster Ministries. CWS has worked for decades with refugee resettlement and support for migrants.
Church of the Brethren general secretary David Steele is recommending to the Church of the Brethren a blogpost from Office of Peacebuilding and Policy associate Victoria Bateman. The post, dated Friday, June 15, reaffirms the longstanding stance of the Church of the Brethren on immigration, outlined in 1982 Annual Conference statement on “Undocumented Persons and Refugees in the United States” ( www.brethren.org/ac/statements/1982refugees.html), and the biblical basis for extending welcome to refugees and immigrants.
Scam email messages have been received by some Church of the Brethren members recently, asking for donations to help with refugee resettlement. These are scam messages and should be deleted.
