The Brethren Church

United Community Brethren Church celebrated their one year anniversary this last Easter. In the past year a lot has happened at the church. UCBC has established its core group, which includes youth pastors, and has climbed to an average attendance of sixty peple. Programs that the church facilitated last year were the Boy’s Club, Girl’s Club, Food Pantry, Children’s Church, and Manpower. This year, UCBC has added many other programs such as Toddler’s Church (ages 2-3), Sunday Morning Breakfast, SPLAT (a group for 8-12 year olds), the Core (the youth group - ages 13-17), and New Beginnings 12-step program (a Christian-based program for those struggling with addictions of every kind).

United Community Brethren Church has been blessed with more people this year that can teach Children’s Church, as well as those who can assist with secretarial duties. This has lightened Julie’s load somewhat, which couldn’t have happened a bit too soon, with the new addition to the family, Faith Angeline Harvey, on February 8, 2006.

United Community Brethren Church hosted the Ohio District Conference and a few months after that, hosted a summer outreach event called Unity In Our Community. The festival consisted of games, music, dancing, face painting, an artist, a clown (who made balloon animals), food, bouncers, lots of contests and prizes, and the fire department brought out their fire truck for the event. The kids were cooled off, on that extremely hot day, when the fire department shot water out of the truck for them. Throughout the day, approximately 150-200 people attended the carnival.

A week after the carnival, the Harveys relocated to a much needed, bigger home. They can still receive mail at the old address; the new address is at the end of this article. As far as the parsonage goes; as the Harveys move the rest of their things out, new ideas and plans are developing. UCBC is looking into facilitating a boy’s group home at the residence, when funding becomes available for the project.

Finances are always a little tight for United Community Brethren Church, with high heating and cooling bills as well as upkeep on the property. The church and parsonage have had many maintenance issues and many major things needing to be updated or repaired. The continuation of financing is our main concern and prayer request, since a lot of the people the church reaches are in poverty. (There have been eight homeless individuals that have attended the church. One couple has now been blessed with a place of their own.) Despite financial struggles, the Lord keeps providing, whether through individuals, Brethren churches, or the Ohio District. UCBC was blessed with a school bus, which was donated by an individual. The church was also blessed to have received several small gift cards for the carnival from local supermarkets, as well as a grant for $250 from Wal-Mart. There was also a time when a couple gave $500 out of nowhere to the church. Another blessing was when a woman from Kettering, Ohio stopped by the parsonage one day with a $100 check for the church. She’s not a member, had never visited our church, and didn’t know much about it, but had seen work being done to the place and people coming and going, and was moved to give a donation. God works in mysterious ways and always right on time. These are just a few details of the many blessings God has shown in a little over a year. The ultimate blessing however, is the people that the church touches. There are so many testimonies to share, that it would take up the whole Evangelist.

All that can be said for what is happening here on the corner of Hillcrest and Main in Dayton, Ohio is that with the help of the people God has sent to be his vessels, that have drive and enthusiasm, as well as a lot of love, compassion, and a world of faith, the church will be blessed and will be a blessing to others.