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

[COBNews@aol.com]

Date: Sept. 19, 2003
Contact: Walt Wiltschek
V: 847/742-5100 F: 847/742-6103
E-MAIL: CoBNews@AOL.Com

NEWS
1) Hurricane Isabel creates busy week for Brethren Service 
Center, others.
2) Youth prepare to observe national Youth Day of Prayer
3) Annual Conference announces 2004 theme, music 
leadership.
4) Emergency Disaster Fund, Global Food Crisis Fund make 
new grants.
5) District conference reports: Missouri/Arkansas.
6) Brethren bits: Camps, colleges, and more.

PERSONNEL
7) Brethren Academy calls Greg Bidgood Enders to temporary 
EFSM position.

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

 1) The Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Md., was 
abuzz with activity this week as Hurricane Isabel made its 
way toward the United States' Eastern seaboard.

General Board Emergency Response/Service Ministries (ER/SM) 
staff members joined in conference calls with other 
response organizations and contacted Disaster Child Care 
volunteers, who were put on alert. Other Brethren Service 
Center staff prepared the center itself for the coming 
storm.

Center executive director Roy Winter said Thursday that he 
hoped for "business as usual" at the center today, but New 
Windsor was without power this morning. Flooding wasn't a 
problem in the area, but numerous downed trees and branches 
and power lines caused power outages throughout the region.

Isabel made landfall along the North Carolina coast 
Thursday afternoon before moving northwestward, bringing 
heavy rains and wind to North Carolina and Virginia and 
lesser amounts farther north. Virlina District appeared to 
be the hardest struck. No immediate reports were available 
on damage to any Church of the Brethren congregations. A 
new fellowship, the New Vision Church of the Carolinas, was 
opened on the southeast North Carolina coast last year.

ER/SM offered its assistance for any cleanup needed 
following the storm. Church World Service put out an 
initial $100,000 appeal for the hurricane response; 
donations can be sent to the General Board's Emergency 
Disaster Fund.

 2) The Annual Conference Program & Arrangements Committee 
has announced "Loving God and Neighbor," based on Jesus' 
discussion of the "greatest commandment" in the gospel of 
Mark, as the theme for the 2004 Annual Conference in 
Charleston, W.Va.

Dr. Jesse Hopkins, recently retired from the faculty of 
Bridgewater (Va.) College, will serve as choir director for 
the Conference, and Westminster (Md.) Church of the 
Brethren pastor Scott Duffey as music coordinator.

There will be no logo contest for the 2004 Conference. 
Moderator Chris Bowman plans to work with Program & 
Arrangements Committee to create the logo to help 
illustrate the theme.

 3) The National Youth Cabinet is inviting youth around the 
denomination to put a special emphasis on prayer next 
Sunday, Sept. 28.

The cabinet -- sponsored by the General Board Youth/Young 
Adult Ministries office -- came up with the idea at its 
spring meeting after being aware of the "Call to Prayer" 
adopted by Annual Conference delegates in 2002. They 
decided to designate a Youth Day of Prayer when Church of 
the Brethren youth could be more intentional about praying 
for one another, for the denomination, and for the world.

Cabinet member Caitlyn Haynes of Mid-Atlantic District says 
the time the cabinet itself spent in prayer during its 
meeting also had a deep impact. They wanted other youth to 
have that opportunity, too.

"All of us were affected by the fact that prayer had been 
so powerful for us," Haynes says. "We thought it would be a 
really unifying and powerful experience for youth, and it 
just kind of rolled on from there." 

Cabinet members pitched in to draft a cover letter, compile 
resources, and get the word out. A list of resources, 
available at www.brethren.org/genbd/yya, provides 
suggestions such as prayers using art, using newspapers as 
a way to pray for current events, and creating prayer 
cards.

Youth/Young Adult Ministry coordinator Chris Douglas says 
the cabinet's enthusiasm for the idea didn't surprise her. 
She says she is "experiencing that level of interest and 
energy" for spiritual depth from youth throughout the 
denomination.

Youth groups are being invited to send via e-mail 
(cdouglas_gb@brethren.org) the ways in which they observed 
the day of prayer. 

 4) The Church of the Brethren General Board's special-
purpose funds continued a busy stretch this month, making 
two more grants in the past two weeks.

The Global Food Crisis Fund will send $15,000 to Angola, in 
support of an appeal by Church World Service (CWS). The 
southeast African nation is recovering from a long civil 
war, when many people were displaced. The funds will help 
to provide seeds and tools for about 6,000 rural farming 
families who are trying to rebuild their lives. It is the 
fifth grant from the Global Food Crisis Fund this year.

The other new grant comes from the Emergency Disaster Fund, 
sending $5,000 in aid to Ohio and Indiana. The two states 
were hit by heavy rains and flooding in July. CWS is now 
working at long-term recovery efforts by providing 
coordination of response efforts and seed grants to new 
recovery organizations. The fund has made 19 grants this 
year.

 
 5) Report from a recent district conference:
*Missouri/Arkansas: Held Sept. 5-7 on the Lake of the 
Ozarks in Roach, Mo., with the theme "That They All May Be 
One." Roger Schrock, pastor of the Cabool congregation, 
served as moderator. Annual Conference moderator Chris 
Bowman led a pre-conference ministry workshop and preached 
at two worship services, while Schrock and General Board 
Congregational Life Teams member Jim Kinsey spoke at other 
worship times. District congregations brought 
representative tiles that were fitted into a cross in the 
worship center. Agencies were involved in several ways: 
General Board Brethren Identity director Walt Wiltschek and 
Kim Stuckey of On Earth Peace led sessions with the youth, 
and Wiltschek provided several humor segments; Lowell Flory 
of Bethany Theological Seminary led an insight session; and 
various agency representatives participated in a Sunday 
morning panel. In business, delegates elected leadership 
(including Gene Sappington as moderator-elect), officially 
voted to close the Mineral Creek congregation, approved a 
$34,296 district budget, decided to move the 2004 district 
conference location to Bolivar, Mo.; and heard a variety of 
reports. Delegates also approved district board 
recommendations on two queries from the Carthage 
congregation. A query asking to affirm the denomination's 
current name was answered by suggesting that input on the 
name be given through the Annual Conference committee 
currently studying that subject. A query asking for 
affirmation of the 2002 Annual Conference decision against 
licensing or ordaining homosexuals and for discipline of 
"open and affirming" churches was returned, with the 
understanding that ministers and congregations are already 
expected to abide by all Annual Conference decisions. A 
collection of baby quilts resulted in 455 quilts being 
gathered from 18 congregations for a project in Chicago.

 *To clarify an item in the Michigan District conference 
report included in the Sept. 5 Newsline: The petition 
approved this summer affirms the 2002 Annual Conference 
action against licensing or ordaining homosexuals and does 
not require further district board action to affirm the 
Annual Conference decision. The board is directed to cease 
licensing or ordaining homosexuals to the ministry and to 
discontinue any such licensings or ordinations already 
granted.

 6) Brethren bits: Other brief news notes from around the 
denomination and elsewhere.
 *Virlina District's Camp Bethel is seeking a full-time 
maintenance manager. It is a salaried position, and housing 
is negotiable. Responsibilities include grounds upkeep and 
landscaping, maintenance and repair of facilities and 
equipment, and custodial needs. Some related experience is 
required. Interested applicants should send resume' and 
cover letter to Barry LeNoir, managing director, Camp 
Bethel, 328 Bethel Rd., Fincastle, Va. 24090, or via e-mail 
at camp.bethel@juno.com and ABLeNoir@aol.com. 

 *Smith Mountain Lake Community Church of the Brethren, 
Wirtz, Va., will hold a reception for recently retired 
Church of the Brethren General Board general secretary Judy 
Mills Reimer during the afternoon of Oct. 12. Reimer was 
the founding pastor of Smith Mountain Lake.

 *Next weekend is a busy one in the denomination, with the 
Association of Brethren Caregivers and On Earth Peace 
holding board meetings, and the mammoth Brethren Disaster 
Auction taking place near Lebanon, Pa.

 *Thomas Kepple, president of Juniata College (Huntingdon, 
Pa.), has been elected chair of the Brethren Colleges 
Abroad (BCA) board of directors for a two-year term that 
will end in June 2005. Kepple has been president at Juniata 
since July 1998. . . . Henry Brubaker has been named chief 
financial officer of BCA, succeeding Stephen Pierre. . . . 
BCA is launching its new Peace and Justice Lecture Series 
this month as aboriginal Australians Anita Heiss and 
Michael McDaniel do a speaking tour of the six Brethren 
colleges and Bethany Theological Seminary. BCA began a new 
program in Sydney, Australia, this year. 

 *Enrollment at Manchester College (North Manchester, Ind.) 
surged this fall, rising to 1,170 students. It marks the 
school's highest enrollment since 1981. A 335-member 
incoming freshman class helped to boost the total. Seventy-
five international students are on the campus this fall.

 *The Church of the Brethren Washington Office this week 
issued an action alert that asks Brethren to support 
efforts to create a Department of Peace. Legislation to 
create such an entity is before Congress. Brethren are 
asked to contact their congressional representatives and 
note support of the legislation.

 *Robert Zigler, son of 20th century Brethren leader M.R. 
Zigler, died Sept. 15 in Washington, D.C. Robert Zigler 
worked with International Voluntary Service in Laos in the 
1960s and was later a member of the United States Agency 
for International Development (USAID) staff and worked with 
On Earth Peace to organize annual Civilian Public Service 
reunions. A memorial service was planned for this Sunday in 
Virginia.

 *A Brethren group visited the Gwichi'in community of 
Arctic Village, Alaska, Sept. 2-11 to learn about human 
rights and environmental concerns in the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge. The 11-member delegation heard from church 
and environmental leaders in Fairbanks before traveling to 
the far-northern village. The trip was sponsored by New 
Community Project, a Brethren-related nonprofit 
organization, and led by David Radcliff. A similar trip is 
scheduled for 2004.

 7) The Brethren Academy for Ministerial Leadership has 
announced the appointment of Greg Bidgood Enders to a 10-
month assignment as coordinator of the Education for a 
Shared Ministry (EFSM) program.

Enders, a 2000 graduate of Bethany Theological Seminary--
which coordinates the Academy along with the General Board-
-currently co-pastors Mack Memorial Church of the Brethren 
in Dayton, Ohio, and serves as a part-time hospital 
chaplain.

His responsibilities will include the full range of 
oversight for EFSM. That will include making contact with 
current EFSM ministers-in-training, supervisors, and 
congregations to assess progress and participation in the 
EFSM program. Enders will also work with the March 2004 
EFSM orientation, make a variety of congregational visits 
(including "kickoff" weekends and graduations), set up 
Bethany weekends, and help to strengthen the process.

Enders' work with the Academy will continue through June 
2004. Questions related to EFSM should be directed to 
Enders via Bethany, at 765-983-1824 or 
EFSM@bethanyseminary.edu, or at his home office, at 937-
725-3841.  

Newsline is produced by Walt Wiltschek, director 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. 

Newsline is a free service sent only to those requesting a 
subscription. To receive it by e-mail or to unsubscribe, 
call 800-323-8039, ext. 263, write cobnews@aol.com. 
Newsline is available at www.brethren.org and is archived 
with an index at www.wfn.org. Also see Photo Journal at 
www.brethren.org/pjournal/index.htm for photo coverage of 
events.