The Church of the Brethren’s every-other-year conference on new church development has a new name and a new focus: “New and Renew: Revitalize Plant Grow.” Sponsored by Congregational Life Ministries and held at Bethany Theological Seminary in Richmond, Ind., the conference is planned for May 16-19. “The Risk and Reward of Embodying Jesus Locally” is the theme.
The ballot that will be presented to the 2018 Annual Conference of the Church of the Brethren has been released. Topping the ballot are two nominees for Annual Conference moderator-elect: Paul Mundey and Pam Reist. Other offices to be filled by election of the delegate body are positions on the Program and Arrangements Committee, Pastoral Compensation and Benefits Advisory Committee, Mission and Ministry Board, and the boards of Bethany Theological Seminary, Brethren Benefit Trust, and On Earth Peace.
In July of 1978, Church of the Brethren women gathered at Manchester College in North Manchester, Ind., to share our stories and our concerns as women to live and serve responsibly in the church and in the world. It was a time when as a nation we had just lived through the Vietnam War and the tensions of the civil rights movement, and now it seemed we were moving precariously closer to a nuclear holocaust.
The Global Women’s Project (GWP) provided financial help to women members of Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria) participate in courses at the new Bethany Seminary technology center in Jos, Nigeria. The GWP is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. It is a Church of the Brethren-related nonprofit working for women’s empowerment and economic justice and provides grants to a variety of projects for economic empowerment of women all around the world.
NEWS
1) Brethren from Dominican Republic and Spain start house churches in Europe
2) EDF gives grants to Brethren Disaster Ministries projects
3) GFI grants support gardens and gardeners, aquaponics, feeding program
PERSONNEL
4) Amy Gall Ritchie to resign from Bethany Seminary
UPCOMING EVENTS
5) Children’s Disaster Services offers spring training workshops
6) SVMC celebrates 25 years, offers continuing education events
7) Ventures in Christian Discipleship offers courses to empower small churches
REFLECTION
8) Emergency alert! Being in Hawaii on Jan. 13
9) Brethren bits
In this issue: Remembering Roger Forry, Owen Stultz, and Claude Hess; QSEHRA extended to February; prayers of thanksgiving for the rescue of a Chibok girl; Mission Alive 2018; a Seminar on Christian Minority Communities; Lindsay (New Harvest) Church of the Brethren closes; and more news by, for, and about Brethren.
The Susquehanna Valley Ministry Center (SVMC) is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2018. “To commemorate this milestone, we will be sharing devotions on the 25th day of each month,” said an announcement. The first devotion is written by the center’s executive director Donna Rhodes. In related news, SVMC is publicizing several upcoming continuing education events.
The Global Food Initiative (GFI) of the Church of the Brethren has made several grants in recent months. The grants support a Going to the Garden retreat, an aquaponics system in Haiti, two community gardens in Spain, and a feeding ministry in Mexico.
Brethren Disaster Ministries has directed grants from the Church of the Brethren’s Emergency Disaster Fund (EDF) to the Disaster Recovery Support Initiative and the task of developing new project sites following the 2017 hurricane and fire season. In addition, a grant has been given to assist families displaced by violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In the 1990s, a wave of Dominicans began leaving their home country to look for a better life in Spain. Members of Iglesia de los Hermanos (the Church of the Brethren in the Dominican Republic) were among them. In time they established the Church of the Brethren in Spain and continue to plant new fellowships across the country.
