NEWSLINE

• A newly formed Standing with People of Color Committee met via Zoom on Sept. 13 and 21 to begin work delegated by the 2022 Annual Conference, which affirmed the “Standing with Persons of Color” query sent by Southern Ohio and Kentucky District. That district and On Earth Peace were tasked to collaborate in developing a plan and resources to help the Church of the Brethren denomination study and act on issues of racial justice. The two-year study/action process will run from Annual Conference 2023 to Annual Conference 2025. Over the next few months, the committee will clarify objectives for the process and connect with many people and groups in the denomination to learn what’s already happening related to racial justice learning and action in the Church of the Brethren. Representatives of the Southern Ohio and Kentucky District’s Racial Justice Team including Robert Jackson, Christy Schaub, Lucas Keller, and Bruce Rosenberger, along with Matt Guynn of On Earth Peace, LaDonna Sanders Nkosi as director of Intercultural Ministries for the Church of the Brethren, Jennifer Quijano West of the Standing Committee of district delegates to Annual Conference, and Rhonda Pittman Gingrich as director of Annual Conference were in attendance at the first meeting.
• The Fellowship of Brethren Homes met for its Annual Forum at West View Healthy Living in Wooster, Ohio, on Aug. 10-12. After a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19 concerns, the forum offered a welcome opportunity to gather with like-minded friends and colleagues from Church of the Brethren-affiliated senior living communities. In attendance were representatives of Hillcrest and Casa de Modesto in California; Garden Terrace in Washington; the Cedars in Kansas; Pinecrest in Illinois; Londonderry Village in Pennsylvania; and Good Shepherd, the Brethren Retirement Community, and West View Healthy Living in Ohio. The keynote presentation was provided by Courtney Malengo, founder of Buzz + Smart Communications, who shared insights about effective storytelling, especially stories about the traditions, values, and philosophies of the Church of the Brethren upon which our communities were founded and continue to operate. The group also heard from David Sollenberger, Church of the Brethren videographer and immediate past moderator of Annual Conference, who led a discussion about successful storytelling through video.
• Scott Holland has been awarded professor emeritus status at Bethany Theological Seminary in Richmond, Ind., as of July 1. Now in semi-retirement, he is continuing to teach the core courses in the seminary’s groundbreaking theopoetics program that he helped to develop. He also continues to represent the seminary and the theopoetics program “on the road” as a preacher and guest lecturer. Holland has served as Slabaugh Professor of Theology and Culture at Bethany and spent 23 years directing the seminary’s Peace Studies program, in a position endowed by the Baker Peace Studies Endowment. In the latter role, he has organized the Jennie Calhoun Baker Peace Essay Contest for many years, and he has worked with the World Council of Churches as drafting editor of the Ecumenical Call to Just Peace, published in 2011. He first joined the Bethany faculty in 1999 with an invitation to focus on public theology.
• The annual Dunker Church Service at the Dunker Meetinghouse on the Antietam National Battlefield, a Civil War battlefield site in Maryland, took place Sunday, Sept. 18. The speaker for this year’s service was Brethren sociologist Carl Bowman, with sponsorship from Church of the Brethren congregations and pastors in the area, and Mid-Atlantic District.
• Work has begun on a first-ever Anabaptist Bible, according to a release from MennoMedia. Brethren Press publisher Wendy McFadden, who attended an Aug. 26-28 event gathering some 45 “Bible ambassadors” from various Anabaptist communities, confirmed Church of the Brethren participation in the project. Also at the event was Josh Brockway, co-coordinator of Discipleship Ministries for the Church of the Brethren. The gathering in Des Plaines, Ill., kicked off the historic project, convened by John Roth, director of the “Anabaptism at 500” project of MennoMedia. The Anabaptist groups represented at the meeting included Mennonite Church Canada, Mennonite Church USA, Brethren in Christ, Evana, Lancaster Mennonite Conference, the Bruderhof, and the Church of the Brethren. Participants worked in table groups to review the plan for inviting 500 Bible study groups from across the Anabaptist community in North America to participate in the project and to consider what other components might be included in the Bible. These study groups will be assigned portions of scripture and asked to share their insights with the project. Volunteers can register their study groups at www.mennomedia.org/reading-scripture-together.
• The World Council of Churches (WCC) 11th Assembly, meeting in Karlsruhe, Germany from Aug. 31 to Sept. 8, met under the theme “Christ’s Love Moves the World to Reconciliation and Unity.” This was the first WCC Assembly in Europe since 1968, when an assembly was hosted in Uppsala, Sweden. The Church of the Brethren has been a member denomination of the WCC since its start in 1948, when the first assembly was held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. As a founding communion, the Church of the Brethren has sent delegates, observers, staff, and/or communicators to each of the assemblies that are held about every eight years in different parts of the world. This year’s US Church of the Brethren delegation included Elizabeth Bidgood Enders, pastor of Ridgeway Community Church of the Brethren in Harrisburg, Pa.; Nathan Hosler, director of the Office of Peacebuilding and Policy in Washington, D.C.; Jeffrey Carter, president of Bethany Theological Seminary, who has been serving a term on the WCC Central Committee; general secretary David Steele; and news director Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford. A delegation from Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (Church of the Brethren in Nigeria) also attended.