Anniversary Committee meets with the Brethren Church.

The Annual Conference Anniversary Committee met Oct. 14-17 in Ashland, Ohio, spending an afternoon with the Brethren Church Tercentennial Committee to plan joint activities at Annual Conference 2008 in Richmond, Va. The Anniversary Committee is developing events, activities, and resources to help the Church of the Brethren celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Brethren movement in 2008.

Plans for the joint 2008 Annual Conference were announced by the committee's recorder, Rhonda Pittman Gingrich: The Church of the Brethren and the Brethren Church will open the conference with separate worship services on Saturday evening. The groups will join together for celebratory events on Sunday including morning worship, interpretive activities in the afternoon, and a global celebration in the evening. The denominations will conduct business separately on Monday and Tuesday, and close the conference with a joint worship service Wednesday morning. The conference will include joint interpretive displays related to the anniversary. A subcommittee has been named to plan the Sunday afternoon activities: Leslie Lake of the Church of the Brethren, Dean Garrett of the Church of the Brethren, Brad Weidenhamer of the Brethren Church, and Dale Stoffer of the Brethren Church. Another subcommittee will be named to plan the joint worship experiences, including members from both anniversary committees and the Annual Conference Program and Arrangements Committee.

A kick-off celebration at Germantown Church of the Brethren in Philadelphia, Pa., in Sept. 2007 is being planned. Members of all the denominations that trace their roots to the first Brethren baptisms in 1708 in Schwarzenau, Germany, will be invited. Initial ideas for the event include lectures, a Sunday morning worship service, a neighborhood service project, ethnic food booths, and a marketplace. The committee will collaborate with the Germantown congregation in planning the event and consult the Brethren Encyclopedia Board and the Germantown Trust.

The committee spent a significant amount of time planning events and activities specific to the Church of the Brethren. Planning continued to engage children and youth in the anniversary celebration, to distribute anniversary resources to congregations and districts, and to develop heritage tours. Gingrich reported that the committee has held conversations with a variety of groups about how to include them and their constituents in the celebration: the Association for the Arts in the Church of the Brethren, the Cross-Cultural Ministries Team, Womaen's Caucus, the Annual Conference Program and Arrangements Committee, and the Brethren Encyclopedia Board planning an anniversary event in Schwarzenau in Aug. 2008.

Calls for submissions of anniversary-related music and dramas have been made and a call for worship resources is forthcoming; details are at www.churchofthebrethrenanniversary.org. Resources will be distributed in late 2006 so that congregations and districts can prepare for 2007-08 celebrations. The anniversary logo will be made available to download from the website. Congregations and districts are encouraged to use the logo for worship, publicity, and anniversary-related events, but may not use it for unauthorized commercial purposes.

Committee members are chair Jeff Bach, Don Durnbaugh, Dean Garrett, Rhonda Pittman Gingrich, Leslie Lake, Lorele Yager, and Annual Conference executive director Lerry Fogle, ex-officio.

Source: 11/05/2004 Newsline