Message from the Moderator: October 2016

By David Whitten, District Conference Moderator, 2017

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1 KJV).

My very first engagement as the Moderator of the Northern Plains District of the Church of the Brethren was to assist with the closing of the Robins congregation on September 10. This was not an easy thing to do. In an earlier meeting with the few, remaining members of the congregation following a closing prayer to adjourn one of the members buried her head in my breast and wept uncontrollably. Her family had been members there for three generations. The closing of a congregation celebrating 160 years of existence is like a funeral. We grieve over it.

And yet, we were uplifted by the words of our guest speaker, Rev. James Benedict, a man who was born and raised in the Robins congregation (Please read his sermon in this month’s district newsletter) and presently pastor at the Union Bridge Church in the Mid Atlantic District. Rev. Benedict commented on Ecclesiastes 3:1 and the reality that there is a season for everything including congregations. He then pointed to the fact that in the imagery of Revelation 21 and the new Jerusalem there was something glaringly absent. What was missing was the temple, something so central to the people of God in the old Jerusalem and yet not present in the new. In the first earth and first heaven the church was perceived as a dwelling place for the Spirit of God. In the new Jerusalem there will be no need for that because God becomes their dwelling place and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes . . . neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away (Revelation 21: 4 ESV).       

I don’t know but I left there feeling encouraged by the words of Rev. Benedict. That ultimately when all is said and done even our beloved churches will become obsolete in the kingdom of God.

We closed the ceremony and the congregation with the tolling of the church’s bell chimed to be heard throughout the community and then no more. For those whose heart was first touched by God’s Holy Spirit, for those who came to faith in an altar call, for the baptisms, the prayers, the sermons, the singing, the countless reading of the Word of God, the legacy lives on from the Robins Church of the Brethren. To God be the Glory. RIP