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Holiness in our Midst: Session 44

SESSION XLIV: ON THE LORD’S PRAYER

What line in the Lord’s Prayer speaks most clearly to you? Mine is, “Give us, this day, our daily bread.” Whenever I hear or am invited to join in the prayer, I remember a story.

In the 1970s and 1980s, I was a member of Fourth Presbyterian Church, situated right across from the Hancock Building in downtown Chicago. The pastor was the gracious and eloquent Dr. Elam Davis, who was written up in Time magazine in 1979 as one of the most influential preachers in the U.S. It was a privilege to hear his timely Gospel messages each Sunday, spoken from his heart without notes in a Welsh brogue. In a sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer, he shared about a little girl praying: “Give us this day, our daily breath.” Since that day, even aloud, I substitute the word “breath” for “bread,” because it reminds me that God is involved as prime mover and sustainer in the totality of my life.

STORY CIRCLE PROMPT: What line in the Lord’s Prayer sustains you? How? Why?

FOR PERSONAL/JOURNAL REFLECTION:

1. Read the above reflection.

2.   Consider writing in your journal on the following topic: Examine the Lord’s Prayer, line by line, and its sustaining value in your life.

FOR GROUP STUDY:

1.   Read aloud Session XLIV.   

2.   Ask each person to answer the Story Circle Prompt.

[View Past Sessions Here]

Note: Holiness in Our Midst: Sharing Our Stories to Encourage and Heal is a monthly on-line feature created by Janis Pyle to facilitate sharing of our personal experiences, thoughts, beliefs, and spiritual practices with one another, especially through stories. Barriers are broken down when we begin to see all persons, even those with whom we disagree ideologically, as sacred and constantly attended to by a loving Creator. Each column is accompanied by a “story circle” prompt and study guides for personal and group reflection. To share your stories, contact Hannah Button-Harrison at communications@nplains.org. Janis Pyle can be reached at janispyle@yahoo.com.

Leadership Development Musings: May 2016

Laura Leighton-Harris, Minister of Leadership Development

17 of us gathered together at beautiful Camp Pine Lake for a couple days for our annual Pastors Professional Growth Event and for a time of conversation, sharing, little rest and relaxation, good old fashioned a cappella singing with a few on guitar, mandolin, and banjo. David Radcliff with New Community Project was our guest speaker inviting us into conversation on Telling the Stories of Jesus: 1) Give Me Something I Can Feel, 2) The Bible Bridge, 3) Full Gospel Preaching, 4) Banish Bashful Brethren, 5) If We Build It.

A few nuggets to share with you from this topic: As to give me something to feel-David asked these 2 questions, how do we connect with those things that lift us in worship? How do we expose those things in worship? Heart> Head> Hands> Health/Evoke deeper thoughts in others. As to the Bible Bridge-David shared “We need to have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other”, other comments of keep it real-keep it grounded/question of What does the Bible mean to us? Responses of it is practical, lived out, a guidebook, it’s relevant/question to ponder: How do we release the possibilities that are noted in the Bible? In our sharing about full gospel preaching…speaking on controversial issues-it was noted this is more along the lines of experiential learning and we shared having commonality-integrity-don’t be in a hurry-attitudes (check our)- framing (how we frame what we say or ask)-safety-knowing our stuff and being caring. In our sharing on, to me, the most intriguing topic of banish bashful Brethren-question of why is that we are seen as bashful? Possibly because folks don’t know who we are, we aren’t who we used to be, letting our actions speak {these might be signs that we may not want to grow} so then the question arose as to what are ways we can flourish and so we shared the following in this regard: get down and dirty {being prepared for the messiness of life}, being healthy, spirited, willing to grow, willing to be vulnerable, be encouraged and empowered, have fervor. As we finished up our time we conversed about if we build it–being present and being community and if we do so by incorporating all of these areas, hopefully people will come and will want to hear us Tell the Stories of Jesus and be sent out to share the good news with others. David left us to think about 7 ways we are going to be in ministry this month (April) so I would invite all of us to do so as well, each month.

I also invite you to think about joining us next year for this event, which is open to pastors and lay leaders.

Message from the Moderator: May 2016

Our Story, Our Song: Christ

Rhonda Pittman Gingrich, Moderator

Throughout the Biblical Story, God repeatedly reminds the people to remember the Story. As God’s people, it is important for us to remember and tell God’s Story and to sing the songs of our faith—in good times and in bad times—so we don’t forget who we are and whose we are. When we forget who we are and whose we are, when we fail to remember and tell God’s Story and to sing the songs of our faith, we run the risk of allowing our identity and lives to be shaped by the prevailing stories of society. God’s Story must not simply be remembered (recited and heard), it must be re-membered (pieced together and retold ways that connect intimately with our lives), understood, and embodied.

So as we continue to move through this year, I invite you to join me in an ongoing exploration of the overarching Story of God and God’s people—a story that continues to unfold through us today. To provide structure for this journey of remembrance and reflection, I am drawing on The Story of God, The Story of Us: Getting Lost and Found in the Bible by Sean Gladding.

So grab your hymnal and your Bible and join me in exploring the Story that reminds us who we are, whose we are, and who we are called to be and become.

Sing: O Come, O Come, Immanuel (Hymnal: A Worship Book, 172)

Read: Matthew 1-20; Mark 1-10; Luke 1-18; and John 1-11

As we pick up our story this month, the Israelites are watching and hoping for the long-awaited Messiah. They have returned from exile, but for all intents and purposes are still living in bondage under the rule of foreign governments. Under the leadership of Nehemiah they rebuilt the Temple, but it barely hints at the glory of Solomon’s Temple. Even more importantly, God’s visible presence is missing. And so they wait. They wait for God’s return to the Temple. They wait for God’s forgiveness. They wait for a new exodus from their suffering. They wait for a renewal of the covenant. They wait.

In the midst of this longing a baby was born. Jesus. A vulnerable baby, born in humble surroundings to parents who led unremarkable lives except for their openness to God’s revelation and their determination to respond to God’s call with thankful obedience. God had returned to dwell among the people.  And yet, while recognized by the visiting Magi and even King Herod, this miraculous arrival of the long-awaited Messiah went unnoticed by his own people—with the exception of a few people on the margins of society: his young mother (who in responding to God’s call found herself an unwed, pregnant teenager); a group of lowly shepherds; the elderly, “righteous and devout” Simeon who had been promised by the Holy Spirit that he “would not see death before he saw the Lord’s Messiah” (Luke 2:25-35); and the elderly, long-widowed prophetess Anna who fasted and prayed at the Temple day and night (Luke 2:35-38). This was to be the pattern throughout Jesus’ life: overlooked, rejected, even despised by many of the very people who longed for a Messiah, even as he touched the lives of many others in transformative ways, including both the most marginalized within Jewish society and Gentiles viewed with disdain by the Jewish people.

With the exception of just two other childhood episodes (the family’s flight to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath and a trip to the Jerusalem to celebrate the festival of the Passover) the Gospels leave much to be imagined about the intervening years between Jesus’ birth and the start of his public ministry.  However, it is probably safe to assume that Jesus grew up in a practicing Jewish household, nurtured by parents who maintained traditional roles, surrounded by younger siblings, and trained in the trade of carpentry by working side by side with his father. A seemingly mundane and ordinary life—and yet perhaps it was just this life that prepared him to connect with real people leading ordinary lives when he launched his ministry.

His cousin John was called to lay the groundwork and prepare the way for Jesus’ ministry. The word of God did not come to the religious authorities, the word of God came to John “in the wilderness” where God so often met and continues to meet God’s people (Luke 3:2). “John, like the prophets before him, warned the people not to presume on their privilege as descendants of Abraham but instead to be faithful to the covenant Abraham made with God” (Gladding, 162). John piqued the interest of and aroused expectation in the people. Some even wondered if he was the Messiah. However, John was clear in his message: “I’m baptizing you in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out” (Gladding, 162).

It was onto this stage that Jesus emerged to begin his public ministry, coming to John to be baptized. In that act he not only identified with the people who, in submitting to baptism, were admitting their human faults and failings and answering a call to greater faithfulness. Just as David was anointed by God’s prophet Samuel to lead the people, through baptism, Jesus was anointed by God’s prophet John to lead the people. As he emerged from the water, the Spirit descended on him in the form of a dove (the animal offered as a sacrifice by the poor) and a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22).

Following his baptism, Jesus did not immediately begin his public ministry. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness where he spent forty days and faced three trials that echoed the trials Israel, God’s firstborn son, faced during their forty years in the wilderness following the exodus. Where the Israelites failed in trusting God when faced with hunger and demanded manna, Jesus resisted the temptation to satisfy his hunger with bread alone, choosing God’s will instead. Where the Israelites continually tested God’s power, Jesus resisted the temptation the prove God’s power by jumping from the pinnacle of the Temple. Where the Israelites gave into the temptation of idolatry and failed to worship God alone, Jesus resisted the temptation to worship Satan in exchange for establishing dominion over the whole earth. Over and over again, when faced with trials and temptations, Jesus remained faithful to God.

When he returned from the wilderness, Jesus returned to his home in Galilee to begin his ministry. As he proclaimed the good news of God’s kingdom in word and deed—teaching in the synagogues, changing water into wine, preaching on the hillside, feeding the hungry, telling stories by the seaside, healing the sick, cleansing the temple, and delivering the demon-possessed—his reputation and influence as a rabbi grew.

He called twelve ordinary men from varying walks of life to follow him, learn from him, and be his disciples. In a striking parallel, just as God had once dwelt in the Temple among the twelve tribes of Israel, God was once again intimately present in the midst of the people represented by the twelve disciples.

Jesus came to deliver the Israelites from their present bondage, but throughout his ministry, he consistently reminded the Jewish authorities—through his words and his actions—that God’s covenant with the Israelites was meant to bless all people, not just Israel. God’s sought (and continues to seek) the restoration, reconciliation, and redemption of the whole world. The Jewish authorities and many of the Jewish people, including his own disciples, didn’t seem to understand this and often questioned his choices.

Where some saw categories, Jesus saw people with hopes and dreams, struggles and hurts. He looked into the eyes of the people he met and touched them—literally and figuratively.  This was huge.  It was the practice of the Jewish people to isolate those who were unclean because of disease or sin.  To touch them put one’s purity at risk.  But without concern for his own purity or cleanliness Jesus touched them and in so doing, didn’t just restore their physical, emotional, and spiritual health, but restored their relational health. How beautiful it is to be noticed, to be touched when recognition and loving touch have been withheld. Jesus’ actions serve as a reminder that the spiritual journey, while intensely personal, is also always relational.

Because he consistently reached out and touched the lost and the least, the marginalized and the oppressed, the sinners and the foreigners, is it any surprise that “outsiders”—like the Samaritan woman at the well—often recognized Jesus as the Messiah before the Jewish people who had been watching and waiting for “the Anointed One”?  Because he was not the Messiah they had expected and because he often confronted religious authority and societal conventions in bold ways, transforming lives and relationships, was it any wonder that the Jewish authorities felt threatened by him?

Are we as slow to recognize God’s incarnational presence in our midst as some of those who surrounded Jesus? What are the trials and temptations that trip us up and prevent us from living as faithful disciples? Who are the people around us who cry out to be noticed, to be touched?

Jesus said he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. When one of the Pharisees asked him, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He answered, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” The law is love. Jesus was love incarnate. How has your life been transformed by Christ, God’s love incarnate? How are we called to embody God’s love for a hurting world in the time and place that we live?

As Jackie Deshannon wrote, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of. What the world needs now is love, sweet love. No, not just for some but for everyone.” The world is still in need of reconciliation, restoration, and redemption. O come, o come, Immanuel. We are still in need of a Messiah to guide us as we seek to partner with God in building God’s kingdom. O come, O come, Immanuel into our hearts and into our lives.

Sing: Tú, Has Venido a la Orilla/Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore (Hymnal: A Worship Book, 229)

Pastor’s Professional Growth Event

Laura Leighton-Harris, TRiM Coordinator

Hello Everyone!

Just a reminder about our upcoming Pastors Event at Camp Pine Lake in April. The camp staff & I have gotten the registration form up and running.  Please click here to register.  One change with our schedule, Rhonda Pittman Gingrich, this year’s District Conference Moderator, has asked for some time of story sharing as a district so this will take place Monday from 4:15-5pm so we invite you to come and share stories. Also, there will not be any kitchen staff on duty yet and the plan is to have continental breakfast and the other meals catered in, so taking that into account it was realized we would need to raise the cost to cover catering in those meals. In year’s past, the registration cost was $55; this year the cost will be $65. Scholarships are available for those who do not have access to professional growth funds from their congregations. You may pay when you arrive.

I have 2 persons set to do opening worship so just need 2 persons for closing worship. If you would like to do this, please email me.

Starts: Sunday, April 10th 2016 at 5pm
Ends: Tuesday, April 12th at 11am

All Ministers (Ordained, Licensed, Lay, Cluster) in the Northern Plains District are invited to a time of retreat and refreshment April 10th-12th 2016 at Camp Pine Lake. This event, being planned by the Minister’s Professional Growth Committee, will include time for worship, study, rest, recreation, and fellowship.

Leadership will be provided by David Radcliffe: David Radcliff is director of the New Community Project, a faith-based nonprofit organization focused on care for creation, peace through justice and experiential learning. David is ordained in the Church of the Brethren and holds an MDiv and DMin (Peace Studies) from Bethany Seminary. He served as a pastor for 10 years, then as Director of Brethren Witness for the General Board for 15 years before joining with others to launch NCP in 2003. He leads Learning Tours to Africa, Asia, the Arctic and the Amazon; speaks in dozens of schools, colleges, and congregations every year; teaches classes for adult learners at Elizabethtown College and Bethany Seminary; and enjoys gardening, camping, photography, writing and cooking–and has given up his car for a bicycle. Born in Blue Ridge, VA, he now lives in Peoria, AZ.

David’s overall theme will be:
Tell me the stories of Jesus
Session foci:
Give me something I can feel (creative arts in worship and witness)
Full gospel preaching (how do we speak on controversial issues?)
If we build it… (the new community, that is)
The Bible Bridge (making Bible study relevant)
Banish Bashful Brethren (evangelism and revitalization)

Ministers in the Church of the Brethren are called to continual spiritual and professional growth. This event is designed to support that endeavor. Participants in the full event will receive .6 CEUS in Preaching and Worship.

A tentative schedule can be found below. Weather permitting we hope to have a campfire on Sunday and Monday evenings. If you play guitar, ukulele or banjo, bring your instrument along to help accompany some singing around the fire.

Please save the date and plan to join with your brothers and sisters in ministry for this time of Sabbath renewal.

TENTATIVE RETREAT SCHEDULE
Sunday 
5:00-6:00 – Arrive/Settle In/Light Supper
6:00-6:30 – Opening Worship
6:30-7:30 – Group Building (Laura Leighton Harris)
7:45-8:45 – Plenary w/ David Radcliffe
9:00-10:00 – Campfire and Conversation /Q & A with David
Monday
8:00-8:30 – Breakfast
8:45-9:15 – Q& A with David
9:30-11:00 – Plenary w/ David
11:15-12:00 – Free Time or Coaching/Listening Sessions or Discussion about Prof. Growth
12:00-1:00 – Lunch
1:00-2:30 – Free Time/Sabbath Rest
2:30-4:00 – Plenary w/ David
4:15-5:00 – Story sharing with Rhonda Pittman Gingrich, DC Moderator
5:00-6:00 – Dinner
6:00-7:00 – Plenary w/ David
7:00-7:15 – Q & A with David
7:30-8:30-  Ministry Sharing
8:45-9:45 – Campfire and Conversation
Tuesday 
8:00-8:30 – Breakfast
8:30-9:00 – Pack and Clean-up
9:00-10:00 – Plenary w/ David
10:00-11:00 – Closing Worship

Called to Serve

By Amanda McLearn-Montz, assistant workcamp coordinator

Photo by Don Knieriem

Growing up in the Church of the Brethren, I always contemplated serving with Brethren Volunteer Service
(BVS) for a year. I dreamed of the various places I could serve, and the ways I could make a difference. When I started college, however, these dreams fell to the wayside. I became distracted with the pressure of being a premedical student and the innumerable obligations of school and extracurricular activities.

Then, in 2012, God called and led me to work for the summer at Camp Pine Lake, the Church of the Brethren camp in the Northern Plains District. At camp, I grew closer to God while I lived in a Christian community and worked with children and youth. One of my favorite moments happened during a campfire that concluded a week of camp. The campers shared how meaningful camp was to them, and that they could feel God’s love there. At that moment, God reminded me of my dreams to serve in BVS. I realized that a year of BVS before medical school would deepen my faith, make me a better physician, and give me opportunities to spread God’s love.

Two years later, I discovered that God was calling me to serve with the Church of the Brethren workcamp ministry. When I was at National Youth Conference 2014 as a youth worker, I met people who had served as assistant workcamp coordinators. I eagerly listened to their stories, and fondly reminisced about my own workcamp experience during my summer on the Youth Peace Travel Team in 2013. I loved how the workcamp coordinators worked with youth and empowered them to strengthen their faith by serving others. The opportunities to travel, meet new people, and serve in a variety of ways also piqued my interest. After thoughtful prayer, I decided to apply. One year later, I moved to Elgin, Ill., and started my adventure.

During this time of service, I have experienced God in preparing for 2016 workcamps. When I went to Puerto Rico for my first site visit, the director and I were welcomed wholeheartedly by the congregation that we will be serving with in June. I saw God’s love in their hugs and smiles and in the pastor’s gracious hospitality. As I continue preparing with my fellow leaders, I know God will continue to guide and support us. I cannot wait to see what God has in store for this summer!

—Amanda McLearn-Montz is a member of Panther Creek Church of the Brethren in Adel, Iowa. She and Deanna Beckner serve as assistant workcamp coordinators for the 2016 season. Learn more or register at www.brethren.org/workcamps.

Originally printed in the February 2016 Simply Put: Stories of Sustaining Faith newsletter produced by the Church of the Brethren.

Do Black Lives Really Matter?

By Carol Wise, Common Spirit COB

I live in Minnesota. My state is a land of beautiful contrasts; with iron rich hills and flat, fertile farmlands; lush summers and barren winters; dynamic metropolitans and isolated swaths of wilderness. It is also a land of harsh contrasts, particularly when it comes to measures of equality and well being between its white population and communities of color. Among all of the fifty states, Minnesota has some of the highest levels of disparities between white and black people, particularly in areas of education and criminal justice. According to 2013 statistics from the Council on Crime and Justice, in Minnesota:

• A black person is 20x more likely to be stopped for a traffic offense than a white person.
• Black youth comprise 7% of the population, yet are 40% of those youth held in juvenile detention. This contrasts with white youth who are 82% of the overall youth population and 38% of youth detained in juvenile detention.
• Black adults, who represent 5.2% of the overall adult population, represent 37% of the Minnesota prison population. American Indians, with just 1.2% of the state adult population, comprise 9% of the prison population.
• According to the US Department of Education, the achievement gap between white students and students of color is one of the highest in the nation.

Minnesota is a state where Black lives don’t seem to matter very much at all, a statement more of fact than opinion. This was brought violently home during another fatal police shooting of a black man, Jamar Clark, who was shot in the head on November 15.  A week later, a group of white supremacists shot five Black Lives Matter protestors in a disturbing display of planned hatred and domestic terrorism, although it was never labeled that way and has largely faded from our newspapers. Tellingly, no one seems particularly interested in how these young, white men were radicalized and what influences led them to pose with deadly firearms and then deliberately seek out trouble.

These racial divides in my state and across our nation are not simply a matter of troubling politics for me. Rather, they represent profound challenges to my deepest values of faith; calling into question any easy proclamations that I might make or hear about God’s love for all people or the inherent dignity of each and every one of us. The prophet Isaiah captures this state: “Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance; for truth stumbles in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter.” (Is 59:14)

It is because of, and not in spite of, my faith that I, a white woman, have marched twice now with Black Lives Matter. I’ll confess that I have sometimes felt uneasy in those protests. This new brand of dissent seems harsher, more vocal and less accommodating than previous witnesses. The tools of social media have quickened the pace of information and also exposure. Videos are easy to access and can be used to enflame tensions over and over again. The goal is not to quietly persuade but to loudly disrupt. Anger is fierce and freely expressed. It makes me uncomfortable…and that is precisely the salient point. It is not about my comfort, but about the deep, fervent and encompassing pain that this anger is seeking to exorcise.

A colleague of mine is fond of quoting Paul Batalden: “Every system is exquisitely designed to produce the results it gets. If you want to change the results, you have to change the system.” I have been comfortable for too long with our system of racial inequality, and it has dulled my capacity to hear the prophetic call for justice.

With humility and hope, I offer this pledge for the coming year:

• To listen intently to the voices of Black Lives Matter and to trust their experience.
• To participate in marches and protests as I am able.
• To deepen my understanding of the dynamics of white privilege and challenge situations where I see white privilege practiced.
• To use the power of my vote and civic engagement to dismantle the practices and structures of racial bias and injustice within my state and country.
• To continue to pray for the well being and peace of my communities and especially for those who are most impacted by systems of injustice and violence.
• To financially support organizations that are working for racial justice and healing in my community.

As a church, we have responded mightily to the needs of our sisters and brothers in Nigeria who were, and continue to be, besieged by violence.  This has been a powerful statement about our faith values and also about our understanding of our shared humanity.

In that same spirit, what if we duplicated those same efforts for the sake of black lives here in this country? What if we initiated a formal partnership, inviting Black Lives Matter leaders to address us at Annual Conference, opening our churches for meetings, raising funds for the work, and committing ourselves to prayer, support and active engagement? What if we took seriously the violence and discrimination that is daily directed at black lives? What if we demanded that our pastors, our leaders, and each of us were accountable to myriad of resolutions and Annual Conference Statements about race and equality that we have made over the years? What if our church, the Church of the Brethren, was truly committed to embodying the truth about the value and dignity of black lives?  I cannot help but believe that we would be a transformed people and a transformed church.

In this season of incarnation, I am grateful to the Black Lives Matter movement for speaking the truth that invites uprightness back into the public square. And I pray that I might have the courage to faithfully respond to this prophetic call.

District News & Announcements – December 2015

In this issue

1. New Director at Camp Pine Lake
2. Brethren Disaster Ministries Trip
3. Sending of the Seventy: Instructions for Churches
4. Fundraising Update
5. Message for Church Treasurers
6. Moderator Updates
7. In Our Prayers
8. Regional Youth Conference
9. Brethren Heritage Tour
10. Holiness in our Midst: On Holiday Tradition
11. Leadership Development Musings
12. Advent Stories and Events

Banner photo: Brethren Disaster Ministries Trip, Nov. 15-21; photo by Matt Kuecker. Send in your photos for future newsletters! Email communications@nplains.org.

District News & Announcements – October 2015

In this issue

1. Michael Himlie to Bike for Peace in 2016
2. Circuit preacher tours SE Iowa Cluster
3. Highlights from Sr. High Youth Lock-in
4. Sending of the Seventy: The Needs of Our Neighbors?
5. New Ministers of Leadership Development Announced
6. Help Identify our Future District and Denominational Leadership
7. Fall Board Meeting Roundup
8. Moderator Update: Our Story, Our Song, Begins with Creation
9. Holiness in Our Midst: On Seasons

Banner photo: Dedication of new picnic shelter at Prairie City CoB, Oct. 18; photo by Diane Gumm. Send in your photos for future newsletters! Email communications@nplains.org.

District News & Announcements – September 2015

In this issue

1. District Conference 2016 theme: “This is our story. This is our song.”
2. Celebrating Stover Memorial CoB’s 70th anniversary: Sat., Oct. 17, 3pm
3. Haitian Brethren hold march in Port-au-Prince to mark Peace Day 2015
4. Job openings at Camp Pine Lake & District
5. Holiness in Our Midst: On Current Reads

District News & Announcements – August 2015

In this issue

1. Come to “Song of the Pines” at Camp Pine Lake, Sat. Sept. 5th!
2. Have you heard of the “Dunker Punks?”
3. District Conference 2015 Wrap-Up
4. 2015 Milestones in Ministry
5. In Our Prayers
6. Pray for Peace – Sept. 21
7. Holiness in Our Midst: On Gardens
8. Brethren Heritage Tour next summer!