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What We Believe
Our lives must bear fruit. Doctrine isn't just stored as head knowledge, but created through a life that testifies of Jesus Christ as Lord. For this reason, Brethren Life, like Brethren Belief, centers on Jesus Christ…
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Recent Articles
Brethren Academy 2024 took place November 8-10, and Ashland, OH was graced with the presence of 16 high school-aged, up-and-coming leaders of The Brethren Church! The weekend was full of teaching, fellowship, and communion with the Lord and the Body of Christ. The future of The Brethren Church looks brighter with these students in it! This year marked the last of a 3-year rotation of Brethren Academy themes. The first year of the theme rotation, students learn about their identity in Christ and their identity as members of The Brethren Church. In the second year, they learn about their God-given calling and how they are able to live that out in a uniquely Brethren way wherever they find themselves in life. This year, as the third year of this rotation, students learned what it means to have a Kingdom Witness and why it's important to share it with others. Students learned from Executive Board member and pastor of Gretna Brethren Church, Rob Starnes, and even had the opportunity to practice sharing their Kingdom Witness with the group. Students were led by mentors who walked alongside them, through the weekend, and helped process what the Lord was teaching them. These mentors included Brianna Freel, Chyann Mackey, Shelby Morris, Lydia Smith, Amanda Carriere, and Sarah and David Miller. Patrick Sprague also led students in worship. This is the second year Patrick has led worship and set the tone for the weekend in this meaningful way. Sara Moore, Ryan Smith, and Lydia McCullough also planned and orchestrated the weekend. Thank you, mentors and leaders, for being an integral part of Brethren Academy! On Saturday, students had the opportunity to learn what a Kingdom Witness looks like in unique contexts. They visited the Ashland Public Library and heard from their Community Engagement Manager, Lindsay Brandon-Smith, about how she can share her Kingdom Witness through her day-to-day work as a public library employee. Then, students were joined by a panel of speakers with different backgrounds and understandings of what sharing their Kingdom Witness can look like. Students learned that even though their Kingdom Witness may be different from others, it is still powerful to share because it might be the exact message someone else needs to hear to learn about God. Thank you to our panelists: Cory Smith, Ron Waters, Tony Basham, Louis Mancha, Sadie Vanderzyden, and Amber LeMaster! To end our time, students joined Park Street Brethren Church for their Sunday morning service and heard a timely message from Pastor Nate Bebout about the promises of God’s New Covenant in times of tension. Then, students were joined by local Brethren, Steven Cole, Dale Stoffer, and Alex Hill, to name just a few, who heard highlights from the weekend and prayed over the students as they prepared to return home, equipped with the confidence to share their Kingdom Witness with their friends and family. It was a beautiful time in which The Brethren Church's current and future leaders could gather and support one another. Thank you to all who participated in this beautiful, impactful weekend! The Lord is certainly raising up the future leaders of The Brethren Church, and we are so excited to see what He does in the lives of these students in the months and years to come! Starting in 2025, Brethren Academy will be fully funded by The Brethren Church. At General Conference 2025, our offering will go toward funding Brethren Academy so we can continue the work of raising young leaders for many years to come. Please consider donating to this worthy cause! Lydia McCullough Executive Assistant The Brethren Church
Praise the Father for a new Pastoral Couple in Argentina. On Sunday, November 3, 2024, Nancy and Agustin Bidondo were ordained and set as pastors for the congregation in Santa Fe, Argentina. Elders Willy Romanenghi and Guillermo Rojas presided over the ceremony, releasing this amazing young couple into the ministry as the church's pastors. Over the past couple of years, Willy and Guillermo have been working to identify and mentor young men and women and prepare them for the service. This marks the third new elder in Argentina in 2024, with Willy’s own son, Guillermo, preparing for ordination soon. Let us praise God for all he is doing with our partners worldwide! What a testimony to the faith and love of his people and their willingness to accept the call to ministry in the pastorate and in the workplace. God's word continues to be heard, and his kingdom continues to advance. Amen!!! Scott Soden Global Partners Coordinator
Duolingo is a language-learning app. You play games and complete exercises, and your proficiency in a new language increases as you practice. Currently, Duolingo offers courses for over 40 languages on its platform. I am the proud owner of a 2+ year streak on Duolingo; as of this writing, yours truly has completed exercises in Spanish for 981 (and counting) straight days. You might think that my ability to communicate en español should be pretty good by now. Maybe I’m even borderline fluent. But you would be totally wrong. My Spanish is still pretty lousy. A 365-day streak is enough to put me in the top 20% of users in my age bracket. I have nearly tripled that. So what gives?  Well, being a busy human being, I did what busy human beings do: I found a shortcut. I discovered an exercise that would keep my streak going, and it only took about a minute and a half a day. So, instead of investing the recommended 10-15 minutes a day studying Spanish, I started spending less than two. I’ve been doing that for the entire last year, at least. My ability to use more complicated forms and tenses plateaued and then began declining. Despite my consistency, the effort and time I invested almost nearly three years wasn’t nearly as fruitful as it might have been if my heart had really been in it. God, through his prophet Isaiah, called out his people, saying, “[They] come near me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Isaiah 29:13). Doing and saying the right things is the easy part. I can attest that you can earn a 1,000-day streak in Duolingo and not actually learn much Spanish. According to scripture, it’s possible to prophesy, cast out demons, and perform miracles without actually knowing Jesus! (Matthew 7:21-23) Clearly, just doing and saying the right things – and even incredible, powerfully good things - isn’t enough. There’s one story in the Bible that came to my attention recently, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Right after Pentecost, Peter and John are in Jerusalem. The two of them have been preaching, teaching, and healing, and the church has been growing by the thousands. In Acts 3, they healed a lame man. In the very next chapter they were arrested by the Sadducees and brought before the Sanhedrin. The religious leaders ask them where their power to heal comes from. Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, gives a powerful testimony of Jesus. After hearing Peter’s bold witness, the religious leaders marveled—not because of the eloquence of Peter’s words. Peter and John were “uneducated” and “untrained.” They didn’t marvel anew at the miraculous healing of the lame man now made whole and standing before them. They marveled because they realized that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13) The Sadducees had spent their entire lives learning about God, talking about God, and teaching others about God. They knew more about God than anyone else. But now their eyes have been opened: John and Peter didn’t just know about God. John and Peter were transformed because they had been with Jesus. As a result, the members of the Sanhedrin were left speechless (v. 14). Here’s the lesson I’m learning about my halfhearted Spanish studies and my walk with Jesus: Your heart has to be in it. Transformation comes through sitting in the presence of Jesus. Intentionally. Consistently. Let our prayers not just be a fleeting moment to list things we want but leisurely, meaningful time spent seeking the face and heart of Jesus. May we seek him with a hunger and thirst as real as any we’ve ever felt. And like John and Peter, I pray that those around us might know when they look at us that we, too, have been with Jesus.
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