Newsline: Districts close out hearings providing input to Special Response process

[CoBNews <CoBNews@brethren.org>]

Newsline: Church of the Brethren News Service, News Director Cheryl
Brumbaugh-Cayford, 800-323-8039 ext. 260, cobnews@brethren.org

Districts close out hearings providing input to Special Response process

(March 2, 2011) Elgin, IL -- In February the Church of the Brethren's 23 
districts closed out a series of hearings that invited church members to 
provide input to the denomination's Special Response process. 

This process for strongly controversial issues was entered into when two 
business items related to human sexuality came to the 2009 Annual 
Conference.

A total of 115 hearings were scheduled across the denomination, according 
to a listing held by the Conference Office. In a recent telephone interview, 
Annual Conference moderator Robert Alley expressed gratitude for all those 
who helped to make the hearings possible.

Alley characterized the hearing format as including the significant question, 
What would you like to say to the Standing Committee about the two items 
of business? "Of primary importance to keep people centered is that we are 
dealing with the query and Statement of Confession and Commitment," he 
said, "not the whole gamut of human sexuality."

Hearings have been organized and/or led by members of Standing Committee, 
the committee of district representatives. In many districts a number of 
additional facilitators and note takers were recruited to help lead hearings. 

Although each hearing was to conform to a recommended format, the number 
of hearings and the scheduling of hearings have varied widely in different 
districts. Districts began holding the hearings last August. In just a few 
districts, 
hearings continued through February.

Some hearings gathered large numbers of people, while others were held for 
very small groups. Western Plains District reported, for example, that a 
hearing 
in Haxtun, Colo., "involved just 14 people with an age range of 13 to 88." 
According to the listing in the Conference Office, Idaho and Western Montana 
District held only one hearing at a district board meeting on Nov. 1. Another 
much larger district, Shenandoah, reported in December--at a time when all but 
one of its five hearings had been completed--that "a total of 638 persons 
representing 43 congregations have participated thus far." 

The groupings of people in the hearings also varied. In Northern Ohio District, 
a total of 13 hearings were held, with six identified specifically for pastors. 
In 
Western Plains District, an open invitation encouraged each interested 
congregation or group to schedule its own hearing.

Report forms from each hearing have been collected by the Forms Reception 
Committee of Standing Committee, which will collate the information into a 
full report back to the district representatives. Moderator Alley noted that 
the 
members of the Forms Reception Committee have been asked not to talk about 
their work. In addition, the original materials coming out of the hearings will 
not be made public, he said.

The Forms Reception Committee has until the end of May to complete its report. 
The decision about whether or when to make that report public will be made by 
Standing Committee when it meets prior to the Church of the Brethren's 2011 
Annual Conference in Grand Rapids, Mich., on June 28-July 2, Alley said.

"We want to be careful that we don't create expectations we can't fulfill," the 
moderator said. "But also it's not intended to be a secretive process," he 
added. 
"The scheduling is meant to be helpful to the process, not to keep people out."

For more information about the denomination's Special Response process, and 
for background documents, go to www.cobannualconference.org and follow the 
link to "Special Response."

The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination committed to continuing 
the work of Jesus peacefully and simply, and to living out its faith in 
community. 
The denomination is based in the Anabaptist and Pietist faith traditions and is 
one 
of the three Historic Peace Churches. It celebrated its 300th anniversary in 
2008. 
It counts some 123,000 members across the United States and Puerto Rico, and 
has missions and sister churches in Nigeria, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, 
Haiti, 
and India.

># # #

>For more information contact:

>Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
>Director of News Services
>Church of the Brethren
>1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120
>800-323-8039 ext. 260
>cobnews@brethren.org