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.
On Aug. 19, attendees of the Open Circle and Common Spirit congregations in the Church of the Brethren’s Northern Plains District came together to begin their joint Jesus in the Neighborhood project.
In mid-summer, due to distressing weather conditions, the prospect for the 30 acres of corn that make up the 2023 Polo Growing Project appeared bleak. But at harvest in mid-October, the results were no less than astonishing, the crop yielding an average of 247.5 bushels per acre. Net proceeds for the project stand at $45,500, a notch above last year’s near-record earnings of $45,000.
The Brethren Faith in Action Fund (BFIA) has aided eight Church of the Brethren congregations with its latest round of grants, including a grant of $5,000 for a Gun Buy Back Program of Spirit of Peace Church in partnership with a local municipal program administered by the state police. The fund provides grants using money generated by the sale of the upper campus of the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Md.
As I stopped at the church building in Lynchburg, Va., to drop off some supplies from the church picnic, I saw two cars in the parking lot. The church doesn’t allow unauthorized parking, so I started to call the police. But before I got to the phone, police stepped out of the cars. They told me they wanted to know about any homeless men who had been staying in the woods behind the church building.
The Sing Me Home Festival returns to North Manchester, Ind., tomorrow–Saturday, Sept. 30– with a full-day event hosted by Manchester Church of the Brethren.
Sing Me Home 2023 is free and open to the public
I joined members of my congregation, Agape Church of the Brethren, in one of our many outreach projects on a recent Sunday evening. We put on dinner for the families staying at the Ronald McDonald House at the Parkview Regional Medical Center in Fort Wayne, Ind.
On July 22, Rummel Church of the Brethren had our fourth (fifth?) annual clothing giveaway. During the preceding week, we accepted donations of clothing and shoes from our small community. We experienced an amazing outpouring of generosity.
The Growing Hope Globally project in northern Virginia includes five Church of the Brethren congregations that are working with the organization to grow crops on 10 acres of farm property in Midland, Va., and then donate the income from the sale of the crops to food security and hunger relief.
At Brownsville Church of the Brethren we recently found a way to be good neighbors that we’re excited about and thought other churches might be interested in hearing about–an out-of-the-box means of being “Jesus in the Neighborhood.”