Why A Church Called Brethren?

This article was written by Jerry Flora and appeared in the October 1977 issue of The Evangelist.


Here’s a “both-and” answer for Brethren searching for a distinctive identity.


SOME days you can't do anything right. If some joker asks, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" you're stumped. No matter which way you reply, he will charge you with cruelty to your spouse.


Some questions can't be answered, it seems, because they are improperly formed. Other questions should receive a clear, specific answer. Either it is Monday or it's not. Either you live as though there is a God, or you don't.


Still other questions deserve a response of both-and. Life on planet earth, for example, demands both centrifugal force and gravity. Scripture teaches divine sovereignty and human responsibility.


Once Jesus was asked which of the 613 commands in the law of Moses is the greatest. "I'll tell you which is the great commandment," he replied, "but it doesn't stand alone. There is a second that goes with it, and on these two depend all the law and the prophets: love the Lord your God com­pletely, and love your neighbor personally.”


If we apply that kind of both-and approach to life in the Brethren Church, it may help us. Why does this denomination exist? Why should there be a church called "Brethren"? The Brethren Church exists to express our allegiance to the Lord Jesus in a family style out of loyalty to the gospel and love for the world. We have here both the "what" and the "why" of our existence.


The identity, the "what," of the Brethren Church is our faith in God through Jesus Christ our Lord and the family style in which we express it.


Allegiance to Jesus as Lord


Jesus said in reply to that question, "You shall love the Lord your God." Now, "Lord" is the Hebrews' name for the God who gets involved with people. "God" is the general term for the Infinite One who created the universe and keeps it going. But "Lord" or "Yahweh''-this is that same God in his personal relationships with sinful humanity. It was he who reached down and called an Abram, sustained an Isaac, transformed a Jacob, and freed a whole nation from slavery. Jesus said, "The Lord, this God who acts on behalf of such people-love him! Answer his love with all that you are: heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your Rescuer completely, utterly, always, and love only him."


The apostles never forgot what he said. And the central thrust of their writings is not "accept Jesus as your personal Savior." That is both true and necessary, but the basic confession of the New Testament declares, "Jesus Christ is Lord!" Jesus the Jew is God Almighty come to earth for us sinners and for our salvation. Jesus is "Lord," the God who gets involved with people.


The early Brethren knew what that lord­ship meant and were prepared to accept it. They took as basic a passage in Luke's Gospel where Jesus taught, "If a person is going to come after me, let that person count the cost and not be like the fellow who begins to build but cannot finish, or the king who goes to war but cannot fight. Neither of them has estimated the cost." Alexander Mack, founder of the German Baptist Brethren, wrote much of obedience and sacrifice in following Christ. There is a price tag on loving this Lord completely, and a would-be disciple must count the cost.

We in a republic don't understand lord­ship. We elect our mayors, we elect our commissioners, we elect our senators, we elect our presidents. We don't know how it feels to have someone over us, before whom we fall prostrate and whisper, "Master! "-someone whose every utterance carries the force of law, whose very glance signs life or death.


The Brethren who first braved the Atlantic to reach Philadelphia knew the meaning of lordship. They talked much about the cost of discipleship. They recalled the story of John Naas, that giant of a man among them. So large in stature was he that the king asked him to join his elite personal bodyguard. But Naas refused to be recruited. They tortured him to no avail, hanging him at last from a tree by one thumb and one big toe. Fearing that he was going to die, they cut him down and dragged him before the monarch. Simply Naas explained that he could not join the king's elite corps because already he was in the army of King Jesus. He had pledged his allegiance to Christ as Lord.


A family style


One unique feature of the kingdom of God is that all its citizens are adopted chil­dren in the royal family. The King is their Father, the Crown Prince their Elder Brother. This, too, is part of the "what" of the Brethren Church-this family style.


Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as your­self." If the neighbor is an outsider, that outsider must become an insider and in­siders must become family. The old Breth­ren used to talk about our denomination as "the brotherhood." We experience that brotherhood each year at General Conference. The Brethren are a family, and General Conference is the annual reunion.


It's frightfully easy for us to get caught up in the life of our local churches, forgetting that we are in fact a part of one another. Each con­gregation is a cell of the body, and each must think of itself in such terms. Henry Holsinger and the others who started the Progressive Brethren described our church government as federated congregationalism. Incidental affairs of operation are left to the local churches, but in major areas of thought and life all Brethren must stand together. We really do need each other!


Rev. Kent Bennett described in a 1970 article in the Brethren Evangelist "What It Means to be Brethren." So far as outsiders are concerned, he wrote, the quality that distinguishes the Breth­ren is their caring fellowship, what we are here calling a family style of Christianity. Think for a moment about the names of other denomina­tions. Lutherans are disciples of Martin Luther. Presbyterians are so called because they govern their churches by a system of elders (presbyters). Baptists insist on that great rite of the church, and that it be by immersion. Methodists got their nickname because the founding Wesley brothers were so methodical in everything they touched. But what can you do if your name is "Brethren"? You have to be a family! That is what outsiders noticed about the first Christians, and this is what observers marked about the early Brethren, too.


The Brethren Church exists to express our allegiance to the Lord Jesus in a family style out of loyalty to the gospel and love for the world. The second half of that sentence contains the "why" of the Brethren Church, our reason for existence.


Loyalty to the gospel


As Jesus interpreted it, loyalty to his saving good news means obedience. "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and don't do the things that I say?" he asked. "If you love me, keep my com­mandments." And so, for Brethren from 1708 to 1978, love has meant loyalty more than coziness or ecstasy.


Now, every family has its forms, and the forms of various families differ. Some whole families, for example, squeeze the toothpaste tube in the middle. In one family the father takes out the garbage; the father in another family wouldn't think of taking out the garbage. Call it tradition, call it ritual, call it whatever you like-every family has its forms. And the Brethren Church has hers. Best known are the external forms of baptism by trine immersion, confirmation by the laying on of 'hands, the three­fold service of the Lord's Supper, and prayer with anointing for healing.


In addition to these, the Brethren family style from the beginning took the internal form of an obedient life. Here is the root of which the external forms are fruit. If Jesus commanded something, the original Brethren tried to do it. Sometimes they went too far and had to pull back; then they might change direction, only to correct their course again. But they were desperately intent on obeying the word of the Lord to whom they had pledged allegiance.


This family style was also a separated life, a life set apart from the world and reserved for Jesus' use. At times there was too much em­phasis on being separated "from" and not enough on being set apart "for." Today many Brethren haven't even heard of the doctrine of the separated life. It is in Scripture, and it's part of our heritage.


In the third place, Christian life for the found­ing Brethren was a simple life. Modesty and frugality in obedience to the New Testament characterized their style of living. Now, when ecologists are urging us to simplicity, the Breth­ren could take their flag out front if they really believe in a simple life.


It also was a peaceful life. This meant a life in which they not only tried to put away violence in religion and international relations, but also they tried to avoid harsh feelings toward one another. These may arise as part of life in a family, but Scripture calls Christ's followers to be reconcilers and peacemakers.


Likewise it was for the early Brethren a ministering life, one in which, at their best, they approached the world and asked, "May I serve you?" If Jesus the Lord came to minister and give away his life, his servants who followed him could do no less.


Can we today hold together these historic forms and our contemporary methods? Or must one be sacrificed in the interest of the other? The Progressive Brethren were convinced that no necessary contradiction exists between eternal realities and time-conditioned techniques. They said in effect, "We can both be loyal to the truth of the gospel as practiced by the early church and apply it in the modern world using the very latest methods." Henry Holsinger even appeared in a photograph wearing his new-fangled rubber overshoes to prove that it could be done!


Love for the world


In attempting to carry out this ideal, Charles F. Yoder, after earning a Ph.D. degree and editing the Brethren Evangelist, left this country in order to found a missionary work in Argentina. Many years and heartbreaks later, when it be­came necessary to reestablish that same work, Dr. Yoder-then past retirement age-set about to do the job.


This was love for the world, but not in the wrong sense. It was not love for the world that "is passing away and all the desires of it." No, this was true, proper love for the world, as when "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son." In fact, "in Christ, God was acting to reconcile the world to himself." That's what got the Progressive Brethren going a hundred years ago. It was their loyalty to the gospel that made them Brethren; their love for the world made them Progressives.


When a theologian asked Jesus about this business of the great commandment and the second, he answered with the story of the good Samaritan. One analysis of that parable says that each of the bandits who beat the traveler and left him half dead was in effect saying, "What's yours is mine, and I intend to take it." The priest and the Levite who passed by on the other side were saying, "What's mine is mine, and I intend to keep it." And the Samaritan - hated half-breed that he was - declared, "What's mine is yours, and you're welcome to it if you need it."


When Jesus finished the story, he turned the theologian's question around. The problem had been "Who is my neighbor?" but he reversed it, asking, "Which of these was neighbor to the victim?" Our Lord laid the responsibility on his hearers to take the initiative by acting in a neighborly manner. He did not require needy outsiders to justify receiving aid. "What's mine is yours, and you're welcome to it if you need it." As those who have become new creatures in him, we need no longer claim anything for ourselves-not even our life.


The existence God gives us is not ours but his, to be given away for the sake of the gospel and the world. Such was the spirit of former Progressive leaders like editor Henry Holsinger, evangelist Stephen Bashor, missionary Charles Yoder, theologian J. Allen Miller, brothers named Ronk, and the inimitable Mrs. U. J. Shively.


At the time of the American Revolution two famous printshops operated in Philadelphia, those of Benjamin Franklin and Christopher Sauer, Jr. A loyal member of the German Baptist Brethren, Sauer suffered personally and pro­fessionally during the war and its aftermath. Still he never lost sight of the motto placed in the shop by his father: "For the glory of God and my neighbor's good."


That's what the Brethren are all about. A faith to live by, a family to live with, certain forms to live out, and a future to live for-all to the glory of God and the good of our neigh­bors. That's why there's a church called Brethren!

Camp Bethany "Tent Campers" Gather

By Lynn Mercer • 01 May, 2024
On Saturday, April 20th, beautiful Camp Bethany hosted a reunion of campers who slept there in the tents in Camp Bethany's earliest years! Those in attendance camped way back in 1959, the very first year that Camp Bethany hosted overnight campers. Some of the tent campers were ‘there’ via Zoom! Many brought in photos and other memorabilia from their camping days to share. Everyone had an opportunity to share their name, what Brethren Church they attended when they were campers, and a memory. Of course, much more was shared, tears were shed, and God received all the glory! Reflecting on the day, here’s a text from one of those who attended: “I can’t stop thinking about Saturday and just what a wonderful time I had. It was so very special in every way. . . . When I saw the invitation, . . . I had no idea what a wonderful time was in store for all of us; so many warm memories.” Sherry (Barnhart) Van Duyne and Sherry (Shannon) Fabian led us in singing some of the old camp songs! We remembered the Camp Bethany cooks and enjoyed a delicious lunch made by Paula Strickland. The names of many of those who volunteered as Camp Staff were mentioned. Ken VanDuyne gave a very interesting and informative presentation about Camp Bethany's early history, showing us pictures of the Camp in its earliest days! Following that, the Camp Board provided information about the many ways to support Camp Bethany, including IRA Qualified Charitable Distributions, wills or bequests, retirement plans, investment accounts, life insurance, and more. Kenton VanDuyne, Camp Director, served as photographer for the day. We want to acknowledge that the Camp Bethany Board members & the North Central Region Leadership Team of The Brethren Church cooperated together to sponsor this event, and we extend a heartfelt thank you to both Camp Bethany and the North Central RLT. If you have questions, please get in touch with me, Lynn Mercer, who thoroughly enjoyed planning this Reunion (937-441-9771 or class_of73@yahoo.com ). We thank God for bringing each one of us to Camp Bethany when we were younger & we thank God for bringing us together for a great day of celebration! As a promotional article stated prior to the camp's dedication in 1959, “(This is) an ideal place to worship God. . . . We can rest assured that many will find Christ as Savior here.” True! True! True! Lynn Mercer Pastor, First Brethren Church of West Alexandria (OH) North Central Regional Leadership Team

Skilled Brethren Community-Builders

By Stephen Longenecker • 01 May, 2024
Brethren excel at community. Traditionally, Brethren emphasized a tight-knit community as an alternative to the corrupt world. During Threefold Communion, or Love Feast, the height of the Brethren church year, members demonstrated their commitment to the faith community, especially through feetwashing. The early Brethren were an intense, intimate community. The old Brethren, however, did little to enhance community in the larger society, which they considered soaked in sin and best avoided. They even steered clear of the temperance and abolition movements although they philosophically agreed with them. But later generations of Brethren became more active in the world. The branch of the German Baptists that evolved into The Brethren Church pushed the Dunker envelope on contributing to the global community, especially through temperance, mission, and, later, disaster relief. Enhancing the larger community became part of the faith journey. Thus, the old Brethren built community from within, and newer Brethren added an outward, activist perspective. Combining the two gives Brethren a special talent for community-building. Contemporary society needs the Brethren sense of community. The strains on our social fabric are painfully obvious. Pessimism, for example, has often become the default response, especially among young people. They are gloomy about their future, think that society is stacked against them, and consider success increasingly unattainable, often because outside forces suppress their aspirations. They feel alone, and whatever community they recognize, they consider hostile. From another perspective, we have become a society of angry, aggrieved minorities. Almost everybody, even many white people, regard themselves as a member of an oppressed subgroup. Some define Americanism so narrowly that they exclude numerous groups, while others come close to rejecting the concept completely. Surely, many minorities have legitimate concerns, but a countervailing commitment to American society has all but disappeared. On and on. Everybody has their favorite instances of an unraveling society. I hesitate to offer more examples, for surely almost every one will offend someone. The challenge, then, is to bring the Brethren sense of community to the larger society. True, we cannot change the world by ourselves, but normally that is a positive. When powerful individuals send seismic shocks through society, it’s usually bad -see Vladimir Putin. The call, then, is not for individual Brethren to single-handedly change the social trajectory but to keep their little corner of it clean and orderly. Do what we can in our own way. A friend has been organizing Sunday afternoon community programs at a public library for over ten years. She reasons that “if I can get my neighbors together once a month to talk and enjoy a program together, maybe it will help us see our community and neighbors as ‘people of value.’” Recently, a prominent liberal pundit (Mara Liasson) and a well-known conservative (Jonah Goldberg) appeared shoulder-to-shoulder at my home institution, Bridgewater College, to make the point that we can disagree with civility. But rather than supply quick suggestions, let me challenge Brethren to develop their own strategies. Pastors, give your congregants a list of concrete steps they can take to heal our society. Along with basic theology be specific. No bromides. We may not get Congress to work, but we can brighten the corner where we are. In sum, society needs us. Admittedly, the inward-looking old Brethren are a poor blueprint for ministering to the world, but their skilled community-building nevertheless inspires us. They treated all within the fellowship with love, respect, and equanimity. Later generations more aggressively applied this to the larger society. Hence, with a deep tradition—first inward, then outward—Brethren know community. May we share it with a world that needs us. Steve Longenecker is Professor of History, emeritus, at Bridgewater College (VA).

A New Library Developed in Pucusana, Peru

By Scott Soden • 01 May, 2024
Last Christmas, Your partners in Pucusana, Peru, began working on a new project that would not only update the building but also add more opportunities for children and their parents in the surrounding areas to work on their education and discover a love for reading and exploration. Thanks to an investment on your behalf, the library has been completely renovated and updated with new shelves, tables, desks, and more books. This Christmas gift for the community will impact not only families today but also families yet to be a part of this incredible ministry. Elena, Isaac, Alli, and Topher are thrilled to offer the library as a resource for children. While the kids are busy discovering all new worlds in the pages of so many new books, their parents are discovering better parenting strategies in specialized classes and learning to cook as Isaac takes groups of adults through the basics and beyond. These small things create real impact and transformation, bringing hope and love throughout the region. Your donations to the Brethren Church and Brethren Global Partners continue to have the real-world effects seen and felt for the kingdom each and every day! Thank you for making this happen! Please continue to pray for your partners in Pucusana and around the world! Scott Soden Global Partners Coordinator

Philippine Brethren Launch New Church in Caypombo

By Scott Soden • 24 Apr, 2024
Praise God for all the fantastic blessings he pours down on his people! Sunday, March 24 th, marks a significant day of praise and celebration as the Brethren Church in the Philippines officially launched a brand new church plant in the community of Caypombo! Pastors Rolly and Efren both set up new leadership in their previous churches so they could concentrate on this rapidly growing community. In fact, the church launched in Pastor Rolly’s own covered garage area. The opening day began with the inaugural message by The Brethren Church in the Philippines Executive Director, Gary Castro. It was punctuated by tons of praise, laughter, and joy as families gathered to participate in this new ministry! Our new church is not just a building but a community filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. The people and the community are being transformed, and it's not hard to imagine that they will quickly outgrow their current location. Let us all pray that the spirit continues to use them to impact the lives of the community for Christ in miraculous ways!  By Scott Soden Global Partners Coordinator

Season of Lent and Easter Lead to Baptisms in India

By Scott Soden • 17 Apr, 2024
Easter is such a critical time for the church. Not only do we celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus for our sins, but it’s also an incredible opportunity to share our faith with the world around us. In India, the season of Lent begins a 40-day period of significant prayer and fasting, during which many lift the needs of their neighbors, friends, and the world before the throne of grace. Each morning, groups of men and women come to churches throughout the region to pray and hear the word proclaimed. Lent is a serious time for your brothers and sisters, too. They pray for you and lift you in prayer as well. Each year during this season, many are convinced that Jesus is Lord and make a significant decision for themselves that will have profound implications here on earth and in eternity. This is especially important to note because once a Hindu chooses to profess faith in God and God alone through Jesus, his son, they take all other idols out of home and heart. This can lead to shunning, persecution, and even death, especially when their statement of faith is followed by entering into the waters of baptism. A decision to follow Jesus is never taken lightly. This year, we have the profound joy of announcing that at least 21 new brothers and sisters have joined the family! On Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, the services of your partners at the churches in Rajahmundry and Visakhapatnam, India, served not only as a call to the world that Jesus Christ is King but also marked that fact with baptisms. Hallelujah! Praise God! Please keep your partners in India in prayer as they continue to serve the Lord with unwavering dedication and perseverance. They are witnessing lives being transformed daily through the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit. Despite the high levels of persecution in the country, their spirit remains unquenched, serving as a beacon of hope and inspiration for us all. By Scott Soden Global Partners Coordinator

Southeast Region Gathers at Maurertown Brethren

By Gail Heiston • 17 Apr, 2024
On Saturday, April 13th, Brethren from across the Southeast Region, representing Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky, gathered for the Southeast Region Annual Meeting. This year, the meeting was hosted by Maurertown Brethren Church of Maurertown, Virginia. Approximately seventy people were in attendance for a day of worship, teaching, fellowship, and service.  Our morning began with corporate worship and messages from Steven Cole, Executive Director of the Brethren Church; Gail Heiston, Southeast Regional Resource Coordinator, and Pat Gravatt, Chair of the Southeast Regional Leadership Team. Scott Soden and Miles Larson sent video updates on Brethren Global Partners and Brethren Church Vitality, respectively. Everence spoke of the partnership and opportunities for congregations, and Nate Riddle from Mt. Olive Brethren Church invited others to participate in a mission trip to Riverside, Kentucky, this coming June. After lunch, various breakout sessions were held. The sessions focused on regional networking and collaboration, church health, and church planting with the GSE (Gatherer-Shepherd-Elder) principles of Vision USA. This year, for the first time in many years, we invited our youth to attend. They were certainly busy, decorating cookies for our lunch, hosting a Jesus-themed egg hunt, and even undertaking a service project. The project was to package cake supplies and a card to be taken to local churches to be distributed to those in need in their local communities. Some of the youth spoke at the end of the day and did a wonderful job sharing about their morning. We appreciate those who attended for the morning; it was great seeing each and every one of you and those who came to share. And thank you to Maurertown Brethren Church for their warm welcome, generous hospitality, and delicious lunch. Gail Heiston Pastor, Bethlehem Brethren Church Southeast Regional Resource Coordinator

Bethlehem Brethren Celebrates Easter, New Members, and Baptisms

By Gail Heiston • 17 Apr, 2024
March and April were truly months of celebration for Bethlehem Brethren Church in Harrisonburg, Virginia. As our family grows at Bethlehem, we had the joy of celebrating Easter together, both longstanding members of our church as well as new families we've been blessed to have added recently. Resurrection Sunday was filled with flowers and singing from our Bethlehem Kids. God's message of His death, burial, and resurrection over 2000 years ago resonated with us, reminding us of His continued work in our midst today. We were blessed to celebrate two baptisms in March! Praise God! What a moment of joy to welcome these souls to God's family! Thanks to the portable baptismal provided by the region for our regional churches, we were able to baptize in the church. Ten people were received into membership the following Sunday, and two Sundays ago we received three more people into membership! Three young boys were dedicated to the Lord in March as well. The week before Easter, we held an egg hunt and breakfast. Most of those attending were from our surrounding community. We had a packed house for breakfast, and the egg hunt (which we had to move indoors due to the weather) was a success as those children collected over 640 eggs in about ten minutes! We are grateful to God for how He is moving in our midst and look forward to what He has in the future! Gail Heiston Pastor, Bethlehem Brethren Church Southeast Regional Resource Coordinator

Everyone Needs a Good Doctor - Even a Church!

By Dan Acker • 09 Apr, 2024
I have a friend who says that every person needs to have a good barber/hairdresser and a good mechanic. Let me expand that advice to also include a good doctor. I thought about this piece of advice after having recently attended the Natural Church Development (NCD) training in Orlando, Florida. Finding a doctor is not fun. After all, who enjoys having to endure the tedious repetition of going from one doctor’s office to another, trying to find a doctor that is right for you? Answer: No One! And when you do find a doctor, it is often not a rip-roaring good time to go! However, it is necessary for our health and longevity. We need someone in our lives to share with us what we are doing well and what we could improve. Even if we are healthy, an occasional check-up is still a good thing. I believe this is also good for a local church to do. The local church needs a way to assess what it is doing well and what it could improve. Like people, churches can struggle with being healthy. As one author observed, “People do not drift towards holiness, and churches do not drift towards good health.” While there are certainly many church assessments to choose from, I want to share with you some compelling reasons why I believe Natural Church Development is a valuable tool for your church's health assessment. It is used extensively. NCD has been around for over 20 years and has been used in over 70,000 churches on six continents in 84 countries. Put simply: That’s a lot of churches in a lot of places! That means NCD has a track record and extensive data by which to effectively measure church health with a great deal of accuracy and reliability. It measures church health, not church growth. It is easy to equate church growth with church health, and along with it, assumptions such as if your church is growing you must be healthy, and if you're not growing, then you must not be healthy. NCD does not focus on church growth measurements but health measurements. Think of it like health vitals for the church. Here are the vitals the NCD measures: ● Empowering leadership: How well does church leadership empower others to become all that God wants them to be? ● Gift-based ministry: How well are people matched with their gifts to ministries in which they can use their gifts? ● Passionate spirituality: How well are people's faith actually lived out with commitment, fire and enthusiasm? ● Effective structures: How effective is the way your church is structured at achieving your church’s purpose? ● Inspiring worship service: Is the worship service an inspiring experience for those who attend? ● Holistic small groups: How well are people involved in groups where the Bible is studied and applied to everyday situations? ● Need-oriented evangelism: How well does your church identify and help meet the needs of pre-Christians? ● Loving relationships: How well do people in your church practically love one another? It is more than an assessment. Yes, the NCD is known most notably as a tool to measure church health, but it also offers much more. In addition to the church health assessment, Natural Church Development digs deeper into many of the eight factors described above. The NCD offers such things as a spiritual gift assessment, leadership assessment and practical ideas and ways to incorporate each factor into your church. My church has used it. What good would a recommendation be if my church didn’t use the NCD. My church has used the NCD assessment several times, and each time we have found it helpful in assessing our church health, including areas where we need to improve and areas where we are doing well. Recently, we have decided to utilize NCD more fully in helping us achieve our purpose. As I shared at the beginning, we all need a good doctor, and so does the church. It’s not always fun to see a doctor but it is oh so necessary for our health. We often find a doctor on the recommendation of a friend or family member. So, as a fellow church leader and co-laborer, let me recommend Natural Church Development. No doctor is perfect and neither is the NCD. However, I believe the NCD is a great option to help measure the health of your church!

New Sign and Cross in Rajahmundry

By Scott Soden • 27 Mar, 2024
A Light in the Darkness! Your partners in India continue to work to let the world know that God loves them through services, special projects, relief and development programs, and lighting up the way. In March 2024, the Brethren Church in Rajahmundry celebrated the upgrading of the cross and sign that hangs over the main road right outside the compound. This sign symbolizes the words from John 14:27 that Prasanth spoke when he purchased the land previously seen as cursed: “My peace I give unto you.” For many years, a cross and sign have been hanging, greeting the traveler with this message of peace; now, the entire sign has been cleaned up, and the cross also lights up the night to guide the weary traveler to a place of hope, peace, and light. The cross and sign were hung and dedicated by the laymen's group and prayed over by Nirmala Kumar to mark a significant day and the hope the message brings. Although this makes them a bigger target for radical Hindu groups, the church and its leadership believe that they must continue to shine as a beacon of hope in word and deed for all who seek life, peace, and belonging. As Jesus reminds us in Matthew 5: 14-16, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”  Please keep your partners in India and worldwide in your prayers as they continue to be salt and light to their communities. Enjoy the video they created to mark this special day for the church in Rajahmundry. Scott Soden

If the Lord is My Shepherd

By Michael Cook • 06 Mar, 2024
While walking through the woods as a family recently, we fell into a dispute about the water we had brought along to drink. And by “we” I mean my oldest and youngest daughters. The center of this disputed water claim was the hydration backpack that my eldest was wearing. The problem wasn’t wearing the backpack; the issue was that our youngest wanted another drink every four steps or so. It was a classic power struggle between the youngest child and the oldest. Solutions were offered. “Maggie, stop being annoying,” was one. I wasn’t sure how helpful – or likely – this solution would be. “Ellie, just let me have a drink and stop complaining,” was another possible but unlikely way forward. Finally, I realized that this was a self-limiting problem. Maggie isn’t very big; how much water could she possibly drink? “Ellie, stop and let her drink all of it she wants. Then she won’t want any more for a while, and she’ll leave you alone.” Ellie was indignant. “She’ll drink it all!” she exclaimed. “She won’t drink it all. There’s plenty of water there for everyone.” “BUT SHE’LL DRINK IT ALL!” Ellie would not be convinced, even though she wasn’t wearing some kid-sized hydration backpack that only held a thimble of water. She was wearing my pack, which holds close to two liters of water. All three of my daughters could have drank until their bellies and bladders were full to the top, and there would still have been water left over. But the fear of not having enough runs deep, doesn’t it? Electric cars typically have a range of approximately 10x the average daily commute. But we stick with internal combustion power because we’re afraid electricity might not have the “juice” when we need it. People are filling storage units as quickly as they can be built. There’s a candy dish calling my name from the next room. I’ve already had a few pieces out of it. Certainly, I’ve had enough. Why do I still want more? What is it inside of us that remains unsatisfied? Why does it so often seem like there’s not enough? Before he was King David, he was simply David, the little brother. As the little brother, he got stuck watching sheep because his older brothers had better things to do. While watching sheep, he came to one of the most profound truths about God recorded in Scripture. Just as David was a shepherd over his sheep, God was the shepherd caring for David. The LORD is my shepherd. I lack nothing. What did David have while shepherding? Probably little more than a bit of food, a big stick, his sling, and a few rocks. And yet he lacked nothing. Why? Because the God of the Universe, the creator and sustainer of all things, was his shepherd. He wasn’t worried about the things he didn’t have. He knew what he did have: a Shepherd-God who had delivered him from a lion and a bear. The LORD is my shepherd. I lack nothing. The fear of not having enough is a tool of the enemy. It keeps us from making big plans and dreaming big dreams. Are we afraid to ask God for audacious blessing? Is it a fear that God won’t give us what we need? Or are we afraid that he actually will? Is God the owner of the cattle on a thousand hills, or is he not? Is Jesus the master of the fish and loaves, or is he not? In my own life, I’ve felt the Spirit’s conviction that I’m not dreaming big enough. And I suspect I might not be alone. If the Lord is your shepherd, you lack nothing. Go boldly in the assurance of his care, and seek out the dreams he has for you, your church, and your community.
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