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

[Church of the Brethren News Services]

Date:      Dec. 23, 1997
Contact:  Nevin Dulabaum
V:  847/742-5100   F:  847/742-6103
E-MAIL:   CoBNews@AOL.Com

Newsline                                          Dec. 23, 1997 

News 
1) Annual Conference moderator Elaine Sollenberger appeals to 
     congregations to send delegates to next year's Annual 
     Conference in Orlando. 
2) Worship services resume at the former Pleasant Dale Church of
     the Brethren, near  Fincastle, Va. 
3) Virlina District holds its annual conference. 
4) A new Brethren study/action guide for congregations, written 
     by Shantilal Bhagat, links the environment with human health
     from a faith perspective. 
5) A collection of essays detailing the NCC's response to the
     burning of African American churches is available for 
     purchase. Also, an update on the Orangeburg, S.C.,     
     African American church rebuilt by the Church of the 
     Brethren. 
6) Children from across the Church of the Brethren are encouraged
     to send care packages to North Korean children. 
7) The search for a half-time Area 1 Congregational Life Team
     member has been extended. 
8) Two EDF grants exceeding $25,000 were allocated this week. 
9) After seven weeks and more than 1,100 hours of work, the 
     Pawnee Creek Watershed Relief Project in Colorado has 
     officially been closed.  
10) Two television programs produced for the National Council of
     Churches are scheduled to air on the ABC television network
     within the next week. 
11) A director of Ministries in Christian Education is being
     sought by the National Council of Churches.  
12) The Bridgewater (Va.) Retirement Community celebrates the
     remodeling of its nursing facility. 
13) Christian Peacemaker Teams begins a campaign to stop the
     demolition of Palestinian homes. 
14) Though no one with Brethren roots is known to have perished
     in the sinking of the Titanic, there is such a connection in
     the blockbuster movie that opened nationwide last Friday.
15) The next issue of Newsline will be sent Jan. 7.  

Feature 
16) Excerpt from "Your Health and the Environment: A Christian
     Perspective," by Shantilal Bhagat.   

1) An appeal for congregations to send delegates to this year's
Annual Conference in Orlando was made Dec. 9 by moderator Elaine
Sollenberger. Only an estimated 600 churches sent representatives
to last summer's Conference in Long Beach, Calif., fewer than
half of the 1,400 delegate seats that represent the
denomination's 1,116 congregations.  

"Each congregation has the opportunity, as well as the
responsibility, to help with the decision-making of the church by
sending one or more delegatesdepending on membership sizeto
Annual Conference," Sollenberger wrote. She added, "I would like
to think that every congregation would make every effort to have
a delegate in Orlando to be their representative and to be one
among those who will consider the business of this year's Annual
Conference and make significant decisions. Delegates are key to
helping us feel and understand the connection between the
congregations and the larger church body."  

Annual Conference delegate registrations are due March 1.   

2) Regularly-scheduled worship services resumed Dec. 14at the
site of the former Pleasant Dale Church of the Brethren, located
five miles west of Fincastle, Va. This congregation, which was
disorganized at the 1996 Virlina District Conference, had not
held regular worship services for nearly one year before it
closed.  

"Please place this as a prayer request in your church bulletin
and mention prominently in your sharing time prior to prayer,
wrote District executive David Shumate Dec. 10 to Virlina
pastors. He added, "The coming of new life to this group is a
precious Advent event!"   

3) Over 550 people attended the 26th annual Virlina District,
Nov. 14-15, at Bonsack Baptist Church near Roanoke, Va. This
included 258 delegates representing 76 congregations. Marianne
Pittman served as moderator and Roger Schrock, former executive
of the World Ministries Commission of the General Board; Ted and
Lee, a Mennonite comedy team from Harrisonburg, Va.; and Dan
Ulrich, professor at Bethany Theological Seminary in Richmond,
Ind., provided leadership.  Among the business items addressed
during the conference, delegates:       
     *elected Richard Gottshall to serve as moderator-elect for
          1997-1998.     
*elected James McKinnell to serve as District Board chair.  
*heard that 23 congregations and fellowships (25 percent of the
     district) had been in the pastoral placement process for the
     year ending Sept. 30.    
*approved next year's budget of $249,500.    
*heard that Harry Rhodes will serve as moderator of the 1998
     conference, which will convene under the theme, "Come and
     See!"     

4) Is there a correlation between the world's environment and
human health? If there is, how should people of faith, as
stewards of all of God's gifts, respond?   

Answers to these and related questions are included in "Your
Health and the Environment: A Christian Perspective," a new
64-page study/action guide for congregations, produced by General
Board staff Shantilal Bhagat on behalf of the National Council of
Churches.  

"As I looked more into this, I discovered that there seems to be
a connection between health and the toxics that people are
exposed to," Bhagat said. "This is a unique resource because
there aren't any resources that we know of that comprehensively
link human health, the environment and the affect of toxics."  

Developed as a 13-part study series, the guide can also be
adapted for use in six or four sessions. Each chapter includes a
biblical anchor, background information, a "What you can do"
section, questions for group discussion and additional suggested
reading.   

"This is a very serious issue that we need to pay more attention
to," said Bhagat. "There are certain things that we can do to
take better care of our health. But if we don't know about it, we
won't know what to do about it."   

Ten thousand copies were produced and will be distributed
throughout the Church of the Brethren and other NCC-member
congregations. Cost is $7.50; order from Brethren Press at 800
441-3712.   

5) "Out of the Ashes: Burned Churches and the Community of
Faith," a book by the National Council of Churches detailing its
response to the burning of African American churches, is
available for purchase. This book, a collection of essays, is "an
attempt to tell the story of the NCC's response to the burning of
African American churches, and then to reflect on the story of
what all this means in terms of our quest for the unity in the
church."  

Since June 1996, the NCC has raised over $10 million to rebuild
more than 120 burned churches. Thirty of those have been
completed and dedicated.   

The Church of the Brethren has rebuilt one burned church, in
Orangeburg, S.C. The dedication service for that new facility is
scheduled for Jan. 10-11. This event will be covered by Newsline
and will also be covered on the web at
http://WWW.Brethren.Org/GenBd/Rebuild.htm. That page will become
active with a variety of information relating to the rebuilding
project by Jan. 7.   

6) Children from across the Church of the Brethren are encouraged
to send care packages to the children of North Korea in an
initiative sponsored by the General Board's Brethren Witness
office.    

"North Korean children are in need of the simple necessities of
life," said Brethren Witness director David Radcliff. "This is a
chance for our children to respond to this need."  

Children and their church school classes are asked to send a
variety of much-needed items. According to reports from Dr. Kim
Joo, Korean-born consultant to Brethren relief efforts, children
in North Korea have "almost nothing." Two years of flooding, a
summer of drought and a rapidly deteriorating economy have left
the country and its people reeling. The child care initiative is
being coupled with Brethren efforts to raise $100,000 in
additional funds for food relief through the Global Food Crisis
Fund (GFCF). This money will provide seed, fertilizer and other
necessities for the coming growing season.   

The first GFCF initiative for North Korea, which occurred earlier
this year, raised about $125,000. Some of that money was used
this week to send four containers with more than $4,300 in
medical supplies to the troubled Asian nation. Items included
vitamins, gauze pads and antibiotics. Also included were oral
rehydration packets, designed to enable children to survive
potentially deadly bouts of diarrhea.  

Brethren children are being asked to enclose several of the
following items in ziplock bags -- nail clippers, vitamins,
gloves, adhesive bandages, toothbrushes, combs and brushes,
underclothes, vaseline, lotion, soap, crayons and paper, and pens
and pencils. The parcels are to be sent to the Brethren Witness
office in Elgin, Ill., by Feb. 13. Some of the parcels will be
taken by a Brethren delegation to North Korea in late February.
The remaining parcels will be shipped. For more information, call
Radcliff at 800 323-8039.   

7) The search for a half-time Area 1 Congregational Life Team
member has been extended until Jan. 15. The function of this
General Board position will be to work in partnership with
districts to resource congregations, to provide leadership
development opportunities, to consult with district and
congregational groups, and to network with individuals and
congregations. Area 1 includes Atlantic Northeast, Mid-Atlantic,
Middle Pennsylvania, Southern Pennsylvania and Western
Pennsylvania districts. For more information, contact Elsie
Holderread at 800 323-8039.   

8) Two grants from the Emergency Disaster Fund exceeding $25,000
were allocated this week by the General Board's Disaster
Response/Service Ministries.  

Severe flooding in East Africa, possibly due to El Nino, has
covered parts of Ethiopia and Kenya, and also threatens Somalia.
These funds will help provide blankets, antimalarial drugs, food
and tents for 110,570 flood survivors as part of a $100,000
Church World Service appeal.  

Miller Davis, coordinator of Disaster Response/Service
Ministries, also requested $12,761.26 to close five disaster
projects that exceeded their original allocations but are now
finished and inactive. This money was disbursed as follows --
Yugoslavia (Balkans), $6,421.70; flooding in the northeast United
States, $221.01; humanitarian aid to Cuba, $550.00; Long Beach
Annual Conference Habitat for Humanity project, $1,862.04; and
West Coast flooding, $3,706.51.   

9) After seven weeks and more than 1,100 hours of work, the
Pawnee Creek Watershed Relief Project in Logan County, Colo.,
directed by Disaster Response Service Ministries, has officially
been closed. Thirty-seven volunteers from 15 Church of the
Brethren and Baptist congregations provided labor for the
project.   

Brethren participants included -- Gail, Creta and Royce Borden;
Homer Hill; Dale, Dean and Earl Saffer; Keith Saffer; and Alan
Traxler, Bethel Church of the Brethren, Arriba, Colo. Duane and
Susan Carter of the Deepwater Church of the Brethren in Missouri.
Lois and Marline Wine of Enders (Neb.) Church of the Brethren.
Ken Frantz (coordinator of Logan County's Flood Recovery Task
Force) and Nathan Frantz of Haxtun (Colo.) Church of the
Brethren. Mike Goering, Alan Wagoner, Bruce Wagoner and Paul
Wagoner of McPherson (Kan.) Church of the Brethren. Don Brooks of
the New Beginnings congregation, Warrensburg, Mo. John Carlson
and Byron Frantz of the Northern Colorado congregation, Windsor.
Sid and Martha Bosch of Olympic View Church of the Brethren,
Seattle, Wash. Maurice Bosserman of Peace Valley (Mo.) Church of
the Brethren. Ernie Stutzman, Ordo Stutzman and Grant Verbeck of
Sunnyslope Church of the Brethren, Wenatchee, Wash. James Boyer,
John Carroll, Bradley Nell and George Weigle of Upper Conewago
Church of the Brethren, East Berlin, Pa. Roscoe Switzer (project
director) of Wichita (Kan.) Church of Brethren. And Bill Frey of
Wiley (Colo.) Church of the Brethren.  

Although the seven weeks of intensive work is over, Western
Plains District has agreed to continue scheduling workdays as
needed over the next three months.   

10) Two television shows, produced for the National Council of
Churches, are scheduled to air within the next week on the ABC
television network.  

"Welcome in the Child," scheduled to air Wednesday, is a
Christmas Eve worship program that takes place in three
Detroit-area churches. On Sunday, ABC affiliates will have the
opportunity to to broadcast "Finding God in our Time," a one-hour
documentary on changing congregations in the United States and
Canada.  

For more information, contact Gloria Maxwell of the NCC at 212
870-2574.   

11) A director of Ministries in Christian Education is being
sought by the National Council of Churches. Application deadline
is Feb. 13. Contact Laura Williams, the NCC's manager of
Recruitment and Employee Relations, at 212 870-2088.   

12) The Bridgewater Retirement Community celebrated the
renovation of its nursing facility on Nov. 13. with an open house
and renaming ceremony. The facility is now called the Huffman
Health Center, in honor of Jacob Huffman, who is considered the
"father" of the home. The renovated center consists of 150 beds
on three floors that serve nursing care residents.   

13) On Dec. 9, Christian Peacemaker Teams began a campaign to
stop the demolition Palestinian homes. Building on minor
successes that Palestinians, CPT and members of Israeli peace
groups have had interfering with Israeli policy that promotes
these demolitions, the Campaign for Secure Dwellings (CSD) will
involve churches from all over North America.  

Those wishing to participate may become partners with Palestinian
families facing demolition and with Israelis working to stop
these demolitions. Partnerships will involve North Americans and
Palestinians in the Hebron area exchanging family pictures and
profiles. CPT expects North American partners to keep in touch
with their Palestinian partners, to hold that family in their
prayers and to advocate for that family on a monthly basis with
their legislators and through means. North American partners will
involve local churches and other peace and justice groups in
their advocacy efforts.  

CPT also encourages North American partners to send someone to
Hebron on a CPT Rebuilders Against Bulldozers delegation, or to
support a member of the Hebron Christian Peacemaker Team. Team
and delegation members will visit both the Palestinian partner
family and Israelis working on the issue of home demolitions.  

People seeking more information on the Campaign for Secure
Dwellings may request a CSD packet that contains letters of
invitation from Harriet Lewis, an Israeli human rights worker,
and Atta Jaber, a Palestinian homeowner; background information;
e-mail addresses; fax and phone numbers of Israeli and North
American officials; and liturgies that tie the issue of home
demolition into the church year.  

Call 312 455-1199 or write cpt@igc.org.   

14) "It won't be long now."  

Those chilling words, spoken by a young Irish mother in the new
movie, "Titanic," are said as the women is about to perish with
the ship. Those words, captured on celluloid, are spoken by
Rebecca Jane Klingler, an actress who grew up in the Manchester
Church of the Brethren, North Manchester, Ind.  

According to her father -- Charles Klingler, a long-time member
of the Manchester congregation and former English professor at
Manchester College -- Klingler is shown in the movie trying in
vain to hold on to her young daughter. Her character and her
character's daughter eventually become two of the more than 1,000
passengers who drown with the ship.  

Klingler, who for many years lived in San Francisco and performed
with the San Francisco Mime Troupe -- known for its loud delivery
of lines, exaggerated gestures and political and social content
-- has appeared in several other movies. She currently can also
be seen as a police clerk in "L.A. Confidential."  

A practicing Buddhist, Klingler still attends the Manchester
congregation with her parents when vising North Manchester from
her Southern California home.   

15) The next issue of Newsline will be sent Jan. 7. Have a
blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year.   

16) The following is an excerpt of the introduction from
Shantilal Bhagat's new 64-page study/action guide titled, "Your
Health and the Environment: A Christian Perspective" --  

What a beautiful world we've been given! It's ours to live in and
to care for. Yet we've made the devastating choice to take our
own courseto go our own way. Dissatisfied with the fruits  of
creation, we have chosen to press creation to our own ends. We
arrogantly and greedily defy its God-ordained boundaries,
trampling and polluting it. We seem to have chosen the path to
death. Yet the Bible invites us to the path of life.  

In the past decade, new, serious threats to human health and to
the natural environment have emerged. The juggernaut of toxic
technologies, combined with growing human populations and the
"development" mentality (which views the Earth and all its
inhabitants, including humans, merely as objects to be
manipulated for private gain), threaten the fundamental bases of
life as we know it.  

One response to these growing problems is the emerging social
movement confronting toxic technologies. It is a youthful
movement, but in the past decade it has had phenomenal successes.
The movement now acknowledges that the most important issues are
justice, power and control. There is no more important question
than: Who gets to decide? And it's becoming quite clear that
women, along with other minorities, have had little chance to
respond.  

The ultimate health challenge confronting us today is to reverse
the Earth's continuing ecological deterioration. Environmental
health specialists report that we are all immersed in what is
becoming a deadly toxic stew. The ecocrisis is potentially the
most disastrous health crisis of all human history and
prehistory. In order to save our planet we must move to
ecologically sustainable lifestyles and a just global economy.  

While the nuclear threats to health are ever-present, in the
sixties the possibility of a nuclear war threatened human health
and survival. Planet Earth now faces a similar threat from
changes to the global environmentstratospheric ozone depletion,
habitat destruction, species extinction, global warming, and the
poisoning of air, water, and soil by toxic substances. We've
clearly failed to recognize the serious consequences of these
environmental dangers. We've paid little attention to their
effects on human health. And unfortunately, tackling
environmental degradation is, in many ways, a more difficult task
than avoiding nuclear war. The problem is more complex, and its
solution will demand much greater changes in the way we all lead
our lives. Will we take up the challenge?  

Perhaps we'll be motivated to do so, once we have grasped the
full dimensions of the environmental crisisnamely that our health
and lives are at stake. Yet the subject is wide in scope. And it
is difficult to present all of the aspects in a comprehensive and
manageable form within the limited space of this booklet. So
we've selected our topics carefully, realizing that no arguments
for the environment are more persuasive than those made from the
perspective of health and healing.   

The topics and issues presented in this study resource are
weighty and at times overwhelming. We are dealing with complex
issues that are interconnected and offer no easy solutions. Yet
these issues touch all living beings and concern the future of
planet Earth. You'll discover some overlap and duplication,
especially in action suggestions, but that is to be expected in a
holistic approach to the issue under study. We hope these
materials will help you become more informed about
environmentally induced illnesses. That knowledge, in turn,
should move you to a more effective advocacy for a healthier
environment.  

Humankind has the power and the intelligence to save the Earth,
but we need the will to do it. Unless our species rises to the
challenge and devises innovative ways to heal and protect our
planet, the future of all living beings may be short. Therefore,
nothing is more important for health than our learning to live
with more love for this planet and all of God's creation. Only
thus can we save it as a healthful place for all of us.    

Newsline is produced by Nevin Dulabaum, manager of the General
Board's News and Information Services.   

To receive Newsline by e-mail or fax, call 800 323-8039, ext.
263, or write CoBNews@AOL.Com. Newsline is archived with an index
at http://www.cob-net.org/news.htm and at http://www.wfn.org.