wfn.org | Newsline - Church of the Brethren news update

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Date: July 19, 2002
Contact: Walt Wiltschek
V: 847/742-5100 F: 847/742-6103
E-MAIL: CoBNews@AOL.Com

NEWS
 1) National Youth Conference 2002 begins in Fort Collins.
 2) BVS orientation unit 249 comes together in Colorado.
 3) Nancy Faus becomes Hymn Society president.
 4) Song & Story Fest provides "oasis" in Ohio.
 5) Dr. Tex Sample addresses Ministers' Association meeting.
 6) Brethren group travels to Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.
 7) Manchester hosts this year's Creative Church Leader program.
 8) Brethren bits: Brethren Press, school kits, and more.

RESOURCES
 9) Jubilee curriculum receives a rave review.

FEATURES
10) Modesto congregation helps out its German Baptist brethren.

****************************************************************

 1) Nearly 4,200 senior high youth, advisors, and staff have
gathered in Fort Collins, Colo., this week for the Church of the
Brethren National Youth Conference (NYC), making it the largest
gathering in the denomination this year.

The conference began this past Tuesday, with buses, cars, and vans
rolling in to Colorado State University from across the country
along with airport shuttles from Denver. National Youth Cabinet
adult advisors Dave Steele and Wendi Hutchinson received a big
cheer as they proclaimed, "Welcome to National Youth Conference
2002!" Tuesday evening.

Since then, participants have been taking part in twice-daily
worship celebrations, attending workshops, participating in service
projects, hiking in the Rockies, enjoying other recreation options,
and going to concerts and other late-night activities.

The conference continues through Sunday. A full report on NYC will
be included in the next edition of Newsline; daily coverage is
being posted at www.nyc2002.com/daily or via a link from
www.brethren.org.

NYC is held every four years and is sponsored by the General
Board's Youth/Young Adult Ministry office. Brethren Volunteer
Service workers Becky Ullom, Luke Croushorn, and David Young are
serving as this year's coordinating team. 

 2) Brethren Volunteer Service Unit 249 will meet July 14 to Aug.
3 at Camp Colorado, located south of Denver near Sedalia. This will
be the first time a BVS orientation has been held at this camp.
There will be 17 participants in the unit, including four young men
from Germany who are completing their alternative service.

Five volunteers come from Church of the Brethren congregations:
Henry Elsea III from the Cherry Grove congregation, Grantsville,
Md.; Bryan Hissong from Happy Corner, Clayton, Ohio; Emily Tulli
from West Richmond (Va.); Rebecca Tuttle from Quinter (Kan.); and
Elisa Wolf from Akron (Pa.).

A highlight of the orientation will be a day spent at National
Youth Conference in Fort Collins, with a commissioning service
during the evening worship celebration. There will also be a
three-day trip to Alamosa, Colo., to learn about the issues of this
depressed farm-worker community, and a day trip to Colorado Springs
to explore military realities and simplicity.

Leaders include Larry Leaman-Miller (speaking on Debt Relief and
Jubilee); Shirley Whiteside (Issues of Homelessness); David
Radcliff (Globalization and Our Response); Matt Guynn (Nonviolence
& Nonviolent Action); Jeff McAvoy (Trees for Life); Dean Johnson
(Conflict & Resolution); Sarah Leatherman Young (Living Church of
the Brethren Beliefs); Gail Erisman Valeta (Justice and Peace Tour
in Denver); Bill Sulzman (Military Realities); and Peter
Sprunger-Froese (Simplicity).

 
 3) After many years as a member of the Hymn Society in the United
States and Canada, Nancy Faus was installed as the organization's
new president July 17 in Winston-Salem, N.C.

A member of the Mack Memorial Church of the Brethren in Dayton,
Ohio, and a retired Bethany Theological Seminary professor, Faus is
one of numerous Brethren involved with the hymn society. It is an
interdenominational organization, with several thousand Catholics
and Protestants participating.

Faus was selected by members of the hymn society and installed at
its annual conference this past week. During her two-year term,
some of Faus' duties will include serving on the executive
committee and officiating society meetings.

"It's an awesome responsibility and a honor," Faus said.

During her term, Faus will participate in the hymn society's
international conference held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, next year.
The international hymn society includes members from the US,
Canada, Germany, Ireland, and England.

Along with the installation of a new president, the organization is
also celebrating its 80th anniversary. Through its years, the main
purpose of the society has been and still is to promote
congregational song in all denominations.

"The hymn society involves the nurturing of congregational song,"
Faus said. "It continues the wealth of our tradition in the
Christian faith."

The society also produces a journal, "The Hymn," for church
musicians, clergy, scholars, and poets. It is a journal of research
and opinion that includes practical and scholarly articles as well
as hymn texts and tunes.

 4) About 140 people attended this year's Song & Story Fest, held
at Woodland Altars in Ohio. Event director Ken Kline Smeltzer of
Modesto, Calif., said the group included "families of all sizes,
shapes, and ages."

Using the theme "A Woodland Gathering on the Path of Peace," the
June 23-29 event featured a long list of musicians and
storytellers. Many of them were returning from previous years.

The days began with a morning watch devotional time, followed by a
choice of a half-dozen workshops for various age groups, quiet time
and a period for free time and recreation (including optional
off-site trips), and an evening campfire. Ending the daily program
was a late-evening concert. Musical performers featured were Bill
and Jacob Jolliff, Kindling, Mike Stern, Joseph Helfrich, and Tim
Joseph.

The fest also received a special visit by Thuma Mina, a
Presbyterian touring "mission theater" group who did the campfire
one evening. The final night included a talent time for anyone to
share and a square dance.

"It's kind of an oasis in our busy lives," Smeltzer said of the
event. "The music and the stories build faith."

The 2003 Song & Story Fest will be held at Camp Wilbur Stover in
Idaho June 29 to July 5, the week before Annual Conference takes
place in Boise.

 5) Dr. Tex Sample, a popular lecturer, consultant, and author,
addressed this year's Church of the Brethren Ministers' Association
meeting July 3-4 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Louisville, Ky.,
immediately following Annual Conference. 

Sample--who is the Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor of
Church and Society emeritus at St. Paul School of Theology in
Kansas City, Mo.--used lecture and Powerpoint programs for his
presentation, titled "The Eucharist and Social Justice: A Christian
Approach."

Those in attendance said they enjoyed his "folksy Southern" style,
which made him approachable even when dealing with controversial
subjects. Sample encouraged the church to engage the world from a
uniquely Christian perspective. Christians know justice not from a
theoretical model of rights, he said, but from the very practical
enacting of justice in daily life.

Sample, who also spoke at an Annual Conference worship service,
noted that the Eucharist helps to form a community that practices
what it preaches. And in that sense, the Eucharist is social
justice as the church performs the supper with the many overtones
of open fellowship at the table, remembering the future (the
heavenly banquet), and the bounty of God in the feeding of the
multitudes.

The event is planned by the association's executive committee,
which each year arranges for scholars, teachers, or consultants to
provide leadership for the ministers on a variety of topics.

 6) Thirteen people participated in the first-ever Faith Expedition
to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, held June 1-8. Sponsored by
the General Board's Brethren Witness office, the group was hosted
for the majority of the visit by the Native American community of
Arctic Village, a 150-person village of Gwich'in people far north
of the Arctic Circle.

The purpose of the trip was to gain a better understanding of the
issues surrounding a controversial plan to drill for oil on the
coastal plain of the nearby Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
The group explored the environmental and human consequences of
drilling while learning about native culture from their Gwich'in
hosts. A special interest was the 10,000-year-old relationship
between the Gwich'in and the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which migrates
to the coastal plain of the refuge to calve each summer.

The delegation began its journey in Fairbanks with briefings from
environmental and government officials. Once in Arctic Village,
there were sessions with community leaders, including Sarah James,
a renowned leader of opposition to drilling in the refuge. The
group worshiped in the local Episcopal Church, and spent several
nights camped in the ANWR, upstream from Arctic Village.

The Brethren Witness office is preparing educational and advocacy
materials related to the situation of the Gwich'in people and the
efforts to drill in ANWR. Information is planned to be posted on
the Brethren Witness website at www.brethren.org by the end of
July. A second trip to the region is tentatively planned for next
year.

 7) Twenty-three people representing 10 districts participated in
the Creative Church Leader program at Manchester College in North
Manchester, Ind., June 17-21.

James P. "Pat" Carlisle, director of The Center for Creative Church
Leadership, served as the primary program leader. The majority of
the participants took the course to receive continuing education
credit, while three participants earned credit through the Brethren
Academy for Ministerial Leadership's Training in Ministry (TRIM)
program.

The event was sponsored through the Theological Explorations of
Vocation Lilly grant that was received by the consortium of Church
of the Brethren colleges. This program will be sponsored again next
summer, with dates being announced in early 2003.

 8) Brethren bits: Other brief news notes from around the
denomination and elsewhere.
 *Northern Ohio District executive minister Herman Kauffman was
elected as the new chairperson of the Council of District
Executives when the council met at Annual Conference in Louisville,
Ky. He fills the remaining term of Tom Zuercher, who is resigning
as Northern Ohio District executive to take a pastorate later this
year. Southern Pennsylvania associate executive Georgia Markey was
elected for a three-year term as vice-chair beginning in January
2003. She replaces Ron Beachley, whose three-year term expires.

 *The kit collection project at Annual Conference bore good fruit.
According to final figures from Emergency Response/Service
Ministries (ER/SM) a total of 1,021 school kits, 257 health kits,
and one baby kit were collected. Many were brought along to
Conference, and junior high youth created school kits during their
activities one afternoon. A large box holding the school kits in
the ER/SM booth in the exhibit hall was almost filled. Church World
Service co-sponsored the activity and will distribute the kits to
those in need.

 *Robert Webber and Martin Marty will be the featured speakers at
the next Anabaptist Evangelism Council meeting, Feb. 14-16, 2003,
at the Sheraton Gateway Suites O'Hare near Chicago. The theme of
the meeting, sponsored by New Life Ministries, will be on worship.

 *The Michigan District, which performed the denomination's first
known ordination of an openly gay minister with a service for
Matthew Smucker last month, is back in discussion following Annual
Conference's decision to not recognize such ordinations. District
executive Marie Willoughby says she doesn't expect any district
board action before next month's district conference and the
district remains "continuously in prayer" about the situation.

 9) After researching and comparing 150 children's Sunday school
curricula in the United States, Karen-Marie Yust, a teacher at
Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, said she highly
recommends "Jubilee: God's Good News."

Jubilee is a children's Sunday school curriculum that is published
jointly by the Church of the Brethren, the Mennonite Church, and
the Brethren in Christ. It was first issued in the fall of 1994 and
is scheduled to run through 2006.

Julie Garber, editor of study resources and books for Brethren
Press, spoke to Yust at a curriculum fair in Indianapolis this
spring. Yust was presenting her research to Sunday school
superintendents and church members, and in numerous individual
consultations she recommended Jubilee. 

"She raved about Jubilee, claiming that the combination of Bible
emphasis, opportunities for worship, opportunities for wondering
and thinking, and the variety of options that take into account the
abilities of different children made Jubilee unique in the field,"
Garber said.

Yust categorizes Sunday school curricula three ways: biblical
literacy, liturgy, and piety. She says Jubilee is strong in all
three areas by combining the teachings of the bible, the teachings
of the beliefs and values of the church, and the teachings of the
Christian way of life, thus integrating all dimensions of faith
development.   

Also, Yust liked that Jubilee is based on Bible stories, starting
by using Luke 4:18-19 as a theme text. She said Jubilee gives
children a good understanding of the Bible, but it also allows them
to wonder about the meaning of the story by not having the teacher
define exactly what it means. The curriculum gives the children
numerous activities that allow them to respond to the stories
musically, artistically, through talking, reading, acting, or by
serving.

Brethren Press staff have begun plans for the next children's
Sunday school curriculum, which they say will build on the success
of Jubilee.

 10) The Modesto (Calif.) Church of the Brethren experienced a
unique opportunity for service this past May. Over the May 18-21
weekend, the congregation served about 2,000 meals a day to the Old
Order German Baptist Brethren as they gathered for their annual
meeting. Modesto has been helping with the project every six or
seven years since 1976.

An estimated 3,000 to 3,200 German Baptists attended the meeting,
a larger crowd than expected. Modesto set up a large tent covering
a fully equipped kitchen and 800-seat dining room with tables and
benches. The German Baptists also set up another tent nearby where
simple meals were served for those who didn't want the full spread.

The project was headed up by a trio of chairmen, along with a team
of two couples who served as food organizers and head cooks. They
and others worked for months leading up to the big weekend. Many
other volunteers pitched in, as at least 50 people at a time were
needed for the effort.

In additions to cooks and servers, there were equipment gatherers
and movers, cashiers and money counters, people to wipe off tables
and gather and clean trays, and others to work in the beverage
stand and snack booth. Ages of those who worked in the church
kitchen during the setup and main event ranged from 6 to 93.

Modesto earned several thousand dollars for its work, but
congregation members said the best part was the fun of working
together and being able to serve Christian brothers and sisters.
The German Baptists also expressed their deep appreciation and gave
many good compliments on the food and efficient service. 

Newsline is produced by Walt Wiltschek, manager of news services
for the Church of the Brethren General Board, on the first, third
and fifth Friday of each month, with other editions as needed.
Newsline stories may be reprinted provided that Newsline is cited
as the source. Danielle Hart, David Radcliff, Sue Grubb, Michael
Hostetter, Mary Baucher, and Wendi Hutchinson contributed to this
report.

Newsline is a free service sent only to those requesting a
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