By Walt Wiltschek; office coordinator of Brethren Volunteer Service, at-large editor of Messenger magazine, and district executive for Illinois and Wisconsin District

When I was a youth pastor in Maryland fresh out of seminary, I was fortunate to have in the congregation a retired pastor who became a trusted and invaluable mentor for me. He said many wise things to me over the time I knew him, but one I most remember involved his grandchildren, who also attended the congregation. The family was going through a lot while I was there, so I had tried my best to get to know them and connect.

“You know,” this retired pastor said one day, “no matter how good a preacher you become (and I wasn’t a very good one then), or how many good sermons you preach, or how many Sunday school classes or youth activities you lead, that’s not what my grandkids are going to remember. They’re going to remember when you came to their house and shot basketball with them on their driveway. They love basketball, and when you came and shared that with them, that’s when you became real.”

It seemed a rather routine thing at the time–and I’m not very good at basketball, either—but that’s stuck with me ever since, and something I’ve tried to make part of the youth ministry I do, and the other ministry, as well. Woody Allen once famously said that “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” And while I’m not sure that Woody Allen is the best model for anything theological, in this case I think he might have gotten it right. It’s amazing how much of ministry is simply showing up—being there—accompanying people on the journey of life and faith.

In an article I encountered recently, author Rich Anderson noted that “The life of Jesus is the blueprint for just showing up.” Every miraculous and ordinary thing he did and said in his ministry exemplified showing up for people in need. Anderson goes on to give some contemporary examples of showing up, including a nurse who proved to be a great help to his nervous 100-year-old mother during an emergency hospital stay and even brought her flowers to help her smile—a nurse who hadn’t been scheduled to work that evening but came in for overtime because he felt it was important to show up that day.

In Matthew 10:40-42, in The Message translation, Jesus says, “Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father who sent me. Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God’s messenger. Accepting someone’s help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice.”

Mother Teresa once famously said that we can do “small things with great love.” As we in the Church of the Brethren and other denominations sometimes bemoan our shrinking numbers, perhaps we can also do loving things with our great smallness. Whatever our size, we can still show up and let God use us. Sometimes just showing up itself and being there is enough. Sometimes that’s the first step to listening or responding or taking action. But it begins with being there.

Thank you for showing up in the ministries of your congregation, community, district, and the larger denomination. Thank you for responding to people in crises, connecting across cultures, volunteering, stewarding resources, equipping fellow believers, supporting pastors and churches leaders, or doing the behind-the-scenes work that keeps everything going smoothly. However you participate in the ministry of showing up, you’re doing holy work.

Learn more about the work of the Church of the Brethren that provides opportunities to carry out the ministry of showing up at www.brethren.org/greatthings or support our ministries at www.brethren.org/give.

(Read this issue of eBrethren.)

Worship resources for the 2023 Pentecost Offering of the Church of the Brethren

By Kathy Hackleman, public relations coordinator at Annville (Pa.) Church of the Brethren

A successful fundraising effort requires multiple things: a product or service people are willing to pay to obtain and volunteers who are willing to organize, set up, and carry out the efforts involved in the fundraising event. In the case of Annville Church of the Brethren, the product is chicken pot pie and the volunteers who have organized the fundraiser for the past 10 years are church members Kathy Schrader and Kate Wentling.

The most recent annual fundraising sale of Pennsylvania Dutch chicken pot pie (most accurately described as a thick noodle soup) sold by the quart raised approximately $4,000 in March 2023. The recipient of the funds raised this year has not yet been selected but in past years, the fundraiser has benefited denominational ministries, church outreach projects, expenses for church youth to attend church camp or National Youth Conference, church kitchen renovations, or a need of the community.

Originally started as a dinner at the church where tickets were sold, over the years the annual fundraising dinner transitioned into its current form where quarts of pot pie are pre-sold. In a typical year, between 625 and 650 quarts of chicken pot pie are bought. Due to the rising cost of ingredients, the cost increased slightly this year to $8.50 per quart.

Held annually in March, the exact dates for preparing the pot pie varies from year to year as Kathy and Kate work around Easter and their own schedules to set the date. The final product is always put together and finished on a Friday and Saturday. Kathy and Kate begin working behind the scenes soon after the start of each new year. “We begin watching for good deals on ingredients in January,” Kathy explains. Of course, the main ingredient of chicken pot pie is chicken, and for 625-650 quarts of finished pot pie, that means about 60 chickens. Church members volunteer to cook down the chickens, sometimes at their homes and other times in small groups in the church kitchen.

Once the chickens are cooked and the meat removed from the bones, other ingredients are weighed and measured in preparation for a small group of volunteers who gather in the church kitchen to complete the pot pie. Those volunteers spend two days on tasks like peeling potatoes, working and rolling dough, stirring the pot pie as it cooks, and filling the containers.

Volunteers are recruited through announcements at church and individual contacts. People can sign up for the day or days they want to volunteer and for the specific job they wish to do. Volunteers are rewarded with doughnuts and breakfast casseroles on the days they work. Each of the two-day shifts is between two and five hours.

The specific recipe used for the chicken pot pie is a secret. The recipe originated decades ago from church members Charlotte and Gladys Wampler. It has been tweaked only slightly over the years, most often when ingredients have increased significantly in price or are no longer available. The original recipe called for specific brands of ingredients, which became problematic as the years passed. Also, the recipe has been changed to reflect precise measurements (Kate reports the original version called for the “white mug full of onions” and a specific number of eggs, which Kathy and Kate have found is more accurately measured by cups, not number since the size of eggs can vary widely). Even with the recipe and years of experience, Kathy and Kate say some years they need to adjust on the fly—like adding additional broth to make the finished pot pie “just right.”

Once all of the containers filled with pot pie are out the door, the work continues. Kathy and Kate write notes to include in the decades-old chicken pot pie folder, which includes details from each year’s fundraiser: the amount of money raised, cost of ingredients, where the funds were distributed, and any suggestions they have for the following year.

The annual spring chicken pot pie sale is only one of a number of kitchen projects Kathy and Kate coordinate at Annville Church of the Brethren. Another major effort is making chicken pot pie for the annual Brethren Disaster Relief Auction in Lebanon, Pa. For that, volunteers prepare about 100 quarts of the pot pie and deliver it to the auction where it is sold as part of a meal or by the bowl.

Although dozens of volunteers put in hundreds of hours to prepare the pot pie, Kathy and Kate contribute the lion’s share of work. However, it’s an effort they clearly enjoy, although both say they wish there was an easier, faster way to get the chickens cooked and prepared. Pot pie is not a difficult dish to prepare, Kathy notes, but it does take quite a bit of time since it involves multiple steps and quite a few ingredients. It’s continuing a decades-long tradition that propels Kate to do the work each year. “Annville is known locally for its pot pie, and I enjoy being a part of that,” she says. Kathy explains, “I enjoy the fellowship and I like it when people compliment the final product. There are some years where I feel like I can’t do it again, but then people tell me how much they look forward to it and how they wait all year for it, and I decide to do it again.”

The Office of Mission Advancement of the Church of the Brethren is grateful for this reflection from Kathy Hackleman. It represents the creativity and passion we strive to nurture together as followers of Jesus. For more inspirational stories about congregations being “Jesus in the neighborhood” visit www.brethren.org/church/#church-stories. Learn more about the missions and ministries of the Church of the Brethren at www.brethren.org/greatthings.

(Read this issue of eBrethren.)

By Nancy McCrickard, Mission Advancement advocate

We hear in Psalm 66:9, “He holds our lives in his hands, and he holds our feet to the path” (TLB).

Take a moment and look at your feet. What shoes are you wearing today? Take one off and hold it up. Are you wearing heels? Or flats? Tennis shoes? Or work boots?

At the end of October 2022, I donned my tennis shoes–and my apron–to volunteer for a week (in between the Church of the Brethren District Conference schedule) at the Brethren Disaster Ministries project site in Waverly, Tenn.

This was an incredible opportunity to show that love is more than a word–to demonstrate love in action. It was eye-opening to live in the disaster-affected neighborhood, inspiring to hear firsthand survivor stories, moving to witness firsthand the devastation, and exciting to connect “around the table” with fellow volunteers. It was hard work. Daily I helped prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the volunteers, and cleaned our living space, common bathrooms, and showers. I came away knowing that it truly takes everyone–with all abilities (and who wear varying types of shoes during their “day jobs”)–to be of service to our neighbors!

I’d like to share with you a glimpse of this experience:

“I hear…(on the television news)…and I forget.”
“I see…(in the newspaper)…and I remember.”
“I do…and I understand (better).”
– Confucius

A quote by Cathy Allen causes me to pause: “Life brings simple pleasures to us every day. It is up to us to make them wonderful memories.”

My week serving on this project brings so many cherished memories to mind: after dinner conversations with fellow volunteers, walking to local stores to purchase last-minute grocery items, and, my highlight, meal preparation with Doretta (simple tasks, yet now cherished memories). I realize, now more than ever before, that it is all about the people–the people we serve and those we serve with!

We are a people of service. May we be ever watchful for how we can “hold our feet to the path” and make Christ’s footprints more visible in neighborhoods across the country and around the world!

So let’s put on our shoes and enjoy the day!

Learn more about the ministries of the Church of the Brethren that make the footprints of Jesus visible in the neighborhood at www.brethren.org/greatthings or support them today at www.brethren.org/give.

(Read this issue of eBrethren.)

By David Steele, general secretary

“Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.” -Acts 4:32

After more than two years of pandemic-related limitations, I have returned to a more robust travel schedule. I share the sentiment of many that it is good to be gathered together again. Yet amid the celebratory spirit, there are also undertones of uncertainty, loss, and even trauma. It has been a difficult several years for the Church of the Brethren and its members.

As I was called into my first congregation as a pastor 30 years ago, I would have never imagined the church as it is today. Declining attendance, membership, and a waning commitment to the church were evident and real in the two congregations where I served those many years ago, but not the significant challenges I see the church is experiencing: the significant need for pastors and district executives and leaders; the distrust of the denomination and really anyone outside our local congregation that compounds a growing sense of isolation; the sharpening theological divide fueled by assumptions, social media, and political or social agendas; the diminishing ability to articulate a language of faith and discipleship; the vanishing of our distinctive Brethren witness; and the splintering of the larger church as local congregations withdraw, resulting in some instances of split congregations and families. Our current challenges didn’t just spring up overnight or recently—they have been in the making for years.

Much of my time and the church’s focus during my tenure as General Secretary has been on soul-sapping conflict. Along with other denominational and district leaders, I have spent countless hours prayerfully discussing, researching, discerning, and editing many, many emails and letters. I have met with numerous individuals, groups, and congregations to discuss the typical topics of concern in the Church of the Brethren (sexuality, authority of scripture, accountability, and fracturing of the church). There are other issues, but by far, these have dominated my denominational focus, time, and emotional energy.

There is an illustration in Robert J. Miller’s Lectio Divina series “Fire in the Deep,” of a man stuck in a cave who became so narrowly focused on a hole in the roof that he missed the opportunity to find the true freedom that was hidden in the darkness. I resonate with this story because I believe that we, like other denominations, have convinced ourselves that there is only one way out of our disagreements; therefore, we have been so narrowly focused on solving, addressing, and working to unify the whole of the church around a singular definitive answer that we have missed the freedom hidden in the darkness.

The book of Acts provides a glimpse of a church with a clear sense of unity and purpose–communal sharing that leads to the needs of all being met. Luke, the writer of Acts, emphasizes this sense of togetherness and common ownership at the conclusion of the Pentecost story. This glimpse of the early church is provocative and is less about selling all of our possessions and goods, and more about the radical generosity that was fueled by a love of God and neighbor, and a passionate responsibility to care for those in need.

Have we been so focused on our small holes that we avoided facing the shadows of crisis? I’m convinced we see the decline in membership—and have for 30 years—because of our waning commitments to adapt in ministry and love our neighbors radically. In recent years we have been so preoccupied with scrutinizing every word and action of nearby churches and pastors—or those of other communities and districts—and with seeking ways to hold others accountable that we have neglected our responsibility to care for our neighborhoods and invite people to life-changing conversion. This is about loving all of our brothers and sisters, not limited to those in our own congregations or those we agree with—a love without boundaries. The church in Act shows us that the simple expression of loving our neighbors becomes a radical generosity that unifies us and becomes a tangible sign that authenticates the message of Jesus.

Friends, we need to face the crisis before us together. The hope of God’s community is found when lives are changed. Quite simply, our communities need Jesus. The program and instructions are simple, radical generosity that is born out of love—our love of God, our loving commitment to Christ, and our love of neighbor. The early church had an intense sense of responsibility for each other. It is time that we reclaim that responsibility as we approach the darkness together. May we together find the freedom awaiting us as we encounter and serve as Jesus in our neighborhoods.

Learn more about the faith-building and life-changing ministries of the Church of the Brethren at www.brethren.org/greatthings or support them today at www.brethren.org/give.

(Read this issue of eBrethren.)