eBrethren

True treasure

Posted on February 26, 2014 by eBrethren

“They rejoiced in what came alive in them as they worshiped in this place.”
Photo by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

by Duane Grady

“Therefore every scribe of heaven is like the master of the household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old”
(Matthew 13:52).

Jesus discourages us from thinking of heaven and its joys as a thing to be obtained. Instead, Jesus points to what heaven is like rather than what it is. If we reduce Jesus’ teachings to a pearl or a field or a net full of fish we will despair, because the chase is over, the celebration has ended. True treasure eludes us; there is always more to discover.

The newly married couple was looking for a church in the town where they had just moved. The town provided numerous options, and they were surprised by how drawn they were to a small congregation—a church that had none of the bells and whistles their college church had provided. There was something illogical yet so right in their attraction to this church. They hungered to know more.

By worshiping there the couple discovered people who blessed them with holy conversations. Their hearts were warmed by the love that embraced them, and their minds were guided by the Holy Spirit to consider new treasures of biblical wisdom. This place looked timid and shabby at first, but now felt strong and vibrant. It was hard for them to explain, but they rejoiced in what came alive in them as they worshiped in this place. They saw the face of Jesus in the ministry that surrounded them. Soon, they began contributing themselves by sharing their ideas and enthusiasm. For the very first time, they gave without worry and received a hundred blessings.

It was like finding the best Christmas gift still under the tree. After opening it once, they realized the gift kept on giving and surprising them along the way. The joy of discovering it sustained them.

This excerpt is from this year’s Lenten devotional Real Rest produced by Brethren Press. Order it at www.brethrenpress.com today.

(Read this issue of eBrethren)

Devotional

Brethren Voice: A Litany for Worship

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

A sunset over the snow at the Church of the Brethren General Offices

by Mandy Garcia

Written for the Church of the Brethren staff gathering, February 2014

Reader 1: God of the Bible:

Reader 2: We come to you this day asking that Christ will be at the center of all we do–the very heartbeat of our work, our conversation, and our thinking. We ask that we would be able to discern your yearnings for our ministries–your ministries–as we gather around your Word.

Reader 3: We ask that your Word be our word, and that we would speak with a voice that is grounded in scripture.

All: For your Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. (Psalm 119:105)

Reader 1: Creator, our Great Physician:

Reader 2: We ask that you would inspire us to creatively imagine and live out your vision for reconciliation and healing.

Reader 3: We pray that our Anabaptist values would be strengthened, and that you would use them to heal hurts in our world.

All: Fill us with all joy and peace in believing, so that we may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)

Reader 1: Holy One:

Reader 2: We ask that you will guide us as we help Brethren express their faith through humble service, simple words, and courageous proclamation.

Reader 3: Be in our words as we inform church members about the activities and values of the Church of the Brethren.

All: Let no evil talk come out of our mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that our words may give grace to those who hear. (Ephesians 4:29)

Reader 1: God of the Nations:

Reader 2: We pray that you will bind us together into a community that more fully reflects all your people.

Reader 3: Cultivate diversity among us, yet give us the boldness to maintain our distinct Brethren voice.

All: For there is one body and one Spirit, just as we were called to the one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. (Ephesians 4:4-5)

Reader 1: Divine Servant:

Reader 2: We ask that you would help us to embody you example of servant leadership,

Reader 3: Even as we ask that you would give us courage to communicate broadly and amplify our public voice.

All: May you, the God of steadfastness and encouragement, grant us to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together we may with one voice glorify you, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:5-6)

Reader 1: Sovereign God

Reader 2: We ask that you would show us how to provide opportunities for Brethren to be involved in hands-on ministry, so that your transforming energy is released.

Reader 3: We pray that you would equip up as we equip congregations to speak publicly with their Brethren voice, through word and action.

All: Renew us in the spirit of our minds, and clothe us with the new self, which was created according to your likeness in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:23-24)

Reader 1: Prince of Peace

Reader 2: We pray that our dedication to peace, simplicity, and community will undergird all aspects of our life and work.

Reader 3: And we ask that you would show us new ways of witnessing to Christ’s peace.

All: To give light to those who sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:79).

(Light a candle.)

Reader 1: Holy Spirit:

Reader 2: Empower us as we do our best to respond to God’s yearning.

Reader 3: In the name of Jesus Christ, the Holy One, our Lord, Savior, and Friend,

All: Amen

General

Top Brethren things to do on a snow day

Posted on February 13, 2014 by janfb

snowy day from a window 6. Watch a video recording of a webinar or event you missed. It’s free! What could be more Brethren than that?

5. Sew on buttons. Sure, your winter coat still works with one button and a belt (speaking from personal experience), but maybe you will be warmer being able to close all those holes.

4. Plan your garden. Order seeds or plants after you make a few decisions. Will you clear a new spot? Rotate what grows where? Create raised beds? Put in a rain barrel or drip hose? (How did simple living get so complicated?!)

3. Lay out a small four square court with masking tape on a countertop. If you can’t find a little rubber bouncy ball, try making a ball. You had to be saving those rubber bands from the newspaper—and the broccoli—for something!

2. Make snow ice cream: canned milk, vanilla and sugar mixed with a bowl of the cleanest snow you can find. Yes, we Brethren believe in a land flowing with milk and honey… it’s just that the milk and honey have to be below the freezing point.

1. Shovel for a neighbor… or a stranger… or even your dog. You know, whatever you do for the least of these, you do for Jesus!

What would you add to this list?

–Jan Fischer Bachman

eBrethren

Not alone

Posted on February 12, 2014 by eBrethren

“Being together is reason enough to be together.”
Photos by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

By Dana Cassell

Being a pastor is a lonely gig. Just ask your own pastor, if you dare. It’s a big job to be present for so many people’s every spiritual and emotional need, and at the same time, be unable to share openly with them about your own.

So it was refreshing to gather with 43 others at last month’s Church of the Brethren Clergy Women’s Retreat. We laughed, prayed, played in the Pacific, and thought intentionally about friendship, fellowship… and the lack thereof.

But pastors aren’t alone in loneliness. Melissa Wiginton guided our conversation about togetherness, and she shared a study by UCLA that says 30 percent of Americans self-identify as lonely at any given moment. Even more striking? Three out of every five American adults over the age of 45 feel consistently lonely.

What does this mean for ministry, for the church, for our own discipleship?

A couple of things. First, as I watch my own congregation delight in simple fellowship—sharing a meal, or conversation after worship—I am convinced that the church’s mission is, at base, to provide space and invitation for people to enter into deep, Christ-centered relationship.

And second, I’m struck by how restorative it was to spend time with other clergy women. The opportunity to simply be with others who are also out there, doing this lonely, beautiful work of ministry was a blessing.

Part of the gift of our Brethren tradition is the assumption that being together is reason enough to be together. This is a gift that we can share, a ministry in itself.

So next time you go to church, take a minute to thank your pastor or another leader in your congregation. And then take a step further and bring that blessing to the streets. Sometimes all it takes is eye contact and a smile for the cashier across the counter, or a classmate in the hall, to feel less alone. Imagine the blessing that a church on this kind of mission could be to a culture so filled with lonely people.

Dana Cassell is minister for Youth Formation at Manassas Church of the Brethren in Virginia. She was one of several participants in the Clergy Women’s Retreat last month, which was sponsored by the Church of the Brethren’s Office of Ministry. To support this and other uplifting denominational ministries, visit www.brethren.org/give .

(Read this issue of eBrethren)

eBrethren

Blessings

Posted on January 29, 2014 by eBrethren

Photos by Kendra Johnson, Katie Cummings, and Ron Lubungo.

An excerpt from a sermon by Christy Waltersdorff, based on Matthew 5:1-12.

“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God.”

Somewhere along the way I started signing letters with the word, “Blessings.” It is a meaningful word that wishes all good things to whomever I am writing. It has the fragrance of grace—that promise of a gift undeserved.

In Matthew’s Gospel we find a list of blessings in the Sermon on the Mount. But more than that, we find a call for action, a teaching that is counter-intuitive, counter-cultural, radical, subversive—just like Jesus, himself. It is not concerned with what is practical or possible, but calls us to turn the values of the world upside down.

“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”

Matthew helps us to see that we can believe these impossible things because of what we know about Jesus and the God who sent him. God blesses us and asks us to bless others.

“You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.”

One of my Sunday school teachers used to say that the best way to think of the Beatitudes is as “be-attitudes.” They are ways of being—nine blessings that speak the language of grace, proclaiming truth that is the opposite of truth as the world knows it.

“You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family” (The Message).

In his hilltop sermon Jesus addressed those who were, right then, dealing with difficult and painful realities. “Blessed are you who are poor in spirit, at this very moment, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.” Not after you die, not two hundred years from now, but right now.

That promise remains true today. God is with you no matter what happens. You are blessed right now, and you are never alone. God is a God who cares about the meek, the mourners, the peacemakers, those who suffer.

And even as they assure us, the Beatitudes call us to live as the people God created us to be, right here and right now. They encourage us to bless each other as we have been blessed by God, as an act of grace. A blessing is a prayer. It is a gift from God. Blessed are you… Amen.

Christy Waltersdorff is pastor of the York Center Church of the Brethren in Lombard, Ill., and a worship coordinator for National Youth Conference. For suggestions of ways to bless others, visit www.brethren.org/volunteer, www.brethren.org/pray , and www.brethren.org/give .

(Read this issue of eBrethren)

eBrethren

Sacred start

Posted on January 16, 2014 by eBrethren

Photos by Wendy McFadden and Bethany Clark.

By Mandy Garcia

The doctors removed a small bone in the ball of my foot two weeks before Christmas. It was a scheduled, outpatient surgery, but knowing it was coming didn’t make the recovery any less frustrating. Being stuck at home for several weeks put an abrupt halt on my normal schedule and to-do list.

But a few days before the celebration of Christ’s birth, I finally realized that I had been given the Christmas gift I’ve always said I wanted: time to simply sit and savor the season.

It’s probably sad that I finally got my wish because I had no choice, but the fact remains that it was a very special time. I stayed still. I stared at the star on top of our tree and considered God’s leading. I wrapped myself in crocheted blankets and gave thanks for warmth. I watched my neighborhood get tucked in under a thick, white blanket, and praised God for forgiveness that covers sins with mercies white as snow. It was an “in between” time, a sacred space.

In a similar way, January can be an “in between” time for all of us—Church of the Brethren denominational ministries included. We wrap up the loose ends of the past year and get ready to dive into all the exciting things coming up in the new one. National Youth Conference coordinators and the workcamp team stay late at the office for their long awaited registration kick-offs. The Annual Conference office assembles necessities for their site visit in Columbus. And church planters (who seem to have a gift for “in-between” time) get their things in order before the Church Planting Conference in May.

This time before the gears get really moving can feel a little like being stuck at home with a broken foot. But if we frame it right, if we focus on the many wonderful things on the horizon, it takes on a feeling of holy preparation. Like the quiet calm of Christmas, this time can be a gift, sacred space, full of thanks and praise.

As we prepare to dive into this New Year, may we spend our “in between” time watching carefully for God’s leading, full of gratitude, and freely giving as God has so freely given to us.

For a list of ways that you can get involved in Church of the Brethren ministries in 2014, visitwww.brethren.org/events ,www.brethren.org/volunteer , andwww.brethren.org/give .

(Read this issue of eBrethren)

Events

The lesson of the Malibu tile

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

Malibu tile decorating the Serra Retreat Center

– Blogging from the Clergy Women’s Retreat

Serra Retreat Center in Malibu, Calif., where Brethren clergy women are meeting this week, is decorated with the most wonderful tiles. They are set in walls and floors and railings and garden paths.

The tiles were saved after the Malibu Potteries tile factory burned in 1931. According to a history of Serra, 9,000 boxes of tile were salvaged and stored away. The tiles were put into use when the Franciscans purchased the abandoned Rindge family mansion, and the building was completed as a retreat center. But in 1970 another fire destroyed the building. Tiles were once again retrieved and salvaged, and now add color and beauty to a rebuilt center.

In some places tiles are formally placed, and showcased with care. In other places, like one of the garden paths, pieces of broken tiles are strewn in a kind of crazy quilt, no less beautiful than their formally placed kin.

Our retreat leader, Melissa Wiginton, has commented that she loves the values of the Church of the Brethren. She asked us, what are the God-given gifts or values that we Brethren caretake? She named this a “hermeneutic of retrieval,” meaning that our calling as a church is to make sure these values–these gifts from God–are retrieved from the past and available in the future.

Women have been using a hermeneutic of retrieval for a long time. The classic example, of course, is quilting. For generations, women retrieved bits of cloth that were still good, cutting them out of old clothes that were no longer wearable, to sew together into something new and useful and beautiful. A bit of that old summer dress that you loved so much you wore it out, was salvaged from the rag pile to grace the corner of the quilt on the guestbed that helped welcome visitors to your home.

Women don’t do this only through quilting. How many pairs of jeans, rendered unwearable by holes in the knees or stains on the hems, have shown up the next summer as shorts? How many yogurt cartons are washed and show up later in the fridge holding leftovers?

My husband has a hermeneutic of retrieval as a handyman. He saves old pieces of wood and parts of machines and household hardware that he acquires along the way, in case he can re-use them. A set of hinges on an old door that he replaced for a client, for example, may reappear where needed to put a sagging door back in place, right and true.

It’s going to take women and men working together to caretake the gifts entrusted to our church. When Melissa asked what gifts God has given Brethren, the group responded by naming peace, service, community, simplicity, women in ministry, humility, continuing the work of Jesus. I wonder, what other gifts should be added to this list?

And what will the Brethren gifts look like after they are retrieved and made into something new in the future? Will the Brethren values be beautifully formalized? Or strewn about with abandon to become a spiritual version of a crazy quilt? Will future generations see them set in the philosophical walls and spiritual foundations of the worldwide Christian movement?

None of that we can know. Our present job is to take care of our church’s gifts. We must pick out the bits of beauty and usefulness in the old cloth, and keep them for the new quilt to piece tomorrow. We must keep an eye out for the old set of hinges that will polish up beautifully, to put the door to the future in place, right and true.

Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
Director of News Services
Church of the Brethren

Events

‘I knew that we would all be kindred spirits’

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

–Blogging from the Church of the Brethren Clergy Women’s Retreat

“I knew that we would all be kindred spirits,” said our worship leader tonight. She gave a presentation on a recent trip to the island of Iona, and said she had been looking forward to this Clergy Women’s Retreat while there and had prayed for the women who would come to this retreat. She brought small stones from Iona to give to each participant.

I looked around the room and thought, are we in fact all kindred spirits?

One might assume that a gathering of Brethren clergy women would, for the most part, be homogenous. But a statistician could find a lot of differentiation among us. This group could easily be “sliced and diced” in a number of ways.

We could be grouped by European or African or Native American or Asian ancestry–which may not all be apparent from our skin tones or accents or names.

If grouped by age or generation, differences would quickly become apparent, variations of culture and lifestyle assumptions would emerge in the baby boomers as opposed to the Gen Xers, for example.

There are women here with decades of experience in pastoral or other forms of ministry. And there are the newly licensed, and some who have been in ministry for only a couple of years or less.

There are extroverts and introverts, artists and writers, academics and administrators, preachers and counselors, chaplains and teachers.

Women have come here from very different geographical places, from the east, the south, the west, the midwest, the mountain states. Each of those settings has its own cultural and political and theological geography–and a varying scale of welcome for women in church leadership.

The group includes women doing ministry in the large metropolises of Chicago, greater Los Angeles, D.C. It also includes women serving in rural settings, where the only way to get to church might be by gravel road.

Some have been in the Church of the Brethren all their lives. Some are brand new to the denomination.

Are we kindred spirits? At one level, I believe so. In Ephesians 4 it is called “the calling with which you have been called.” All called to ministry, all answering God’s call in one way or another. That’s how the women in this gathering are kin, and that is the place our spirits meet.

–Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
Director of News Services

Events

It’s windy tonight – it’s REALLY windy tonight!

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

–Blogging from the Church of the Brethren Clergy Women’s Retreat

The wind is blowing fiercely around the Serra Retreat Center tonight, rushing through palms and eucalyptus trees as it hurries on its way down the canyon to the sea. The Serra Retreat Center, where Brethren clergy women started their retreat today, is set high in a canyon above Malibu, within sight of the coastline of southern California.

The day was sunny, clear, warm, beautiful. But with the evening and sunset came the wind.

Worship this evening felt like a still, small space in the middle of tumult. Candles were lit, hymns were sung, prayers were spoken, scripture was read, God’s presence was felt in the beauty of the surrounding hills and sea, and in the warmth of the fellowship, as the wind growled outside and shook the plate glass windows through which in the daylight we may be able to see the ocean.

In a closing offering of sharing, the group was invited to recall and name women who have grounded them in the faith. Names were spoken and memories shared. Beautiful names, dropped one by one into that place of worship: Anna, Mary, Myrna, Louise, Ruby, Patricia, Judy, Phyllis, Nancy, Esther, and many more. Mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers, and daughters. Teachers, missionaries, pastors, and the spouses of pastors. Living and dead. The matriarchs of the church.

What might that worship experience mean, in the long term, I wonder? It gave me a vision of what clergy women may accomplish in our world. This evening, I saw a tableau of how women in ministry contribute a still, small space where God is present for people beset by a tumultuous world.

Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
Director of News Services
1/13/2014

Devotional

Implications

Posted on January 6, 2014 by RRowan

2013 Advent good_news_hi_res John 1:14

Prayer for the day:
God of grace and truth, thank you for coming to earth in a form that I can relate to, as a human of flesh and blood. Thank you for showing me your love in such a personal way. Help me offer that same love to others. In the name of our neighbor, Jesus the Christ, I pray. AMEN

Question for reflection:
Who around you needs to hear a hopeful word today? With whom will you share the Good News of Jesus?

~ Jonathan Shively, Executive Director, Congregational Life Ministries

Congregational Life Ministries of the Church of the Brethren is offering these simple prayers and questions in connection to this year’s Advent Devotional written by Tim Harvey, pastor of Central Church of the Brethren (Available from Brethren Press in print and E-Book formats). Join us as we look and listen for the coming of the Word through the reading of scripture, Tim’s reflections, times of prayer, and conversations on this blog.