The Church of the Brethren Gun Violence Prevention Action Team would like to invite your congregation to remember gun violence victims who have passed away in 2024 by hosting a vigil or service in December as part of the Newtown Action Alliance’s 2024 Nationwide Vigils to #EndGunViolence initiative.
Are you ready to support the junior high youth in your congregation in planning and leading worship for National Junior High Sunday? Many congregations will observe National Junior High Sunday on Nov. 3, but encouraging junior high youth to step into worship leadership is more important than the particular Sunday. Work it into your congregation’s worship schedule sometime this fall.
Wish you could have attended more equipping sessions during Annual Conference? Recordings of the hybrid equipping sessions are still available to registered attendees on the Eventsquid platform (links are provided to those who registered for the Conference).
Following are resources for those wanting to report back from Annual Conference or to review and learn more about the 2024 annual meeting of the Church of the Brethren, which took place in Grand Rapids, Mich., on July 3-7.
Expertly designed using the Common English Bible translation, the Anabaptist Community Bible will connect you more deeply to the biblical story, the Anabaptist story, and your own story. More than 7,200 marginal notes alongside the biblical text feature commentary from Anabaptist scholars, historical notes from the tradition, and the insights of nearly 600 Bible study groups.
The FaithX office has shared commissioning resources for the 2024 FaithX season. These resources are available to be used by congregations for the sending out of their FaithX participants.
As part of developing our 2024 Earth Day Resource: “Plastic Jesus, Real Faith in a Synthetic World,” we commissioned six artists to gather in retreat and to collaboratively create songs for use in worship that reflect on caring for God’s creation in the face of the plastic pollution crisis. Sarah Macias was their host at Sister Grove Farm.
Plastic first started being created on a global scale in the 1950s. Since then, annual plastic production has exploded to an estimated 460 million tons as of 2019. While plastic has many beneficial uses, single-use plastics have become a real environmental threat.
The National Youth Cabinet met Feb. 2-4, 2024, to discern the theme for National Youth Sunday. The cabinet selected Jeremiah 29:11 as their focus scripture, with the theme “Your life; God’s direction.”
On Sunday, Nov. 5, Church of the Brethren congregations around the country will celebrate the leadership of their junior high youth in worship. The National Junior High Sunday theme is “Worried and Distracted,” from the story of Jesus’ visit with Martha and Mary.
