A Distinct Witness?
As a side hustle, I spend a few hours a week doing a little bit of bookkeeping for my local church, Park Street Brethren. I help make sure that bills get paid and the checkbook stays balanced. Every Friday, Park Street takes out a small ad in the church section of our newspaper, The Ashland Times-Gazette. This little ad lists our name, lets people know how to get in touch, and when they can join us for worship. It’s very simple, and it costs $4.27 every time it runs. So, in a month that has five Fridays in it, the bill I get a bill for $21.35. If the month happens to have four Fridays in it, the amount due will be $17.08.
Being a good Brethren, I pause whenever I see the number 1708. Obviously, 1708 was a very important year for the Brethren. In that year, our small corner of Anabaptism was founded when those first Brethren were baptized. The simple act of re-baptism that started our movement was a public denouncement of the ruling authorities of the day. The Brethren refused to take part in a society that placed unbiblical - and therefore untenable - demands on them, such as requiring sworn allegiance to the local ruling powers and participation in decades-long wars. The witness of our first Brethren was unmistakable; instructed by Scripture and led by the Spirit, they committed to follow Jesus together even though their faith put them directly at odds with the world.
More than 300 years later, we find ourselves wondering what our distinct Brethren witness to the world might be today. Indeed, do we have a distinct witness at all? If asked, I suspect most Brethren would mention some of our distinctives, perhaps that we practice foot washing or engage in three-fold communion. But foot washing is fairly common across the Christian faith. The love feast - part of three-fold communion - is an important and beautiful time of fellowship. However, the world around us isn’t sitting up to take notice just because we occasionally eat together. Even believer’s baptism, once a hugely subversive act, is now a common practice.
Where does that leave the Brethren, then? Do we have anything to offer to our world? We certainly do! It’s found in the heart of what led those early Brethren to count the cost, enter into baptism and face the persecution they knew would follow. Today, our witness is the same as theirs: we are to be instructed by Scripture, led by the Spirit, and committed to following Jesus together. Let us reaffirm the preeminence of the Kingdom of God in our lives, refuse to take part in systems that are opposed to it, and bring peace to this broken world in any way we can. Lived out humbly, wholeheartedly, and winsomely, this Brethren witness is no less unique and needed today than it was all those years ago.
MIchael Cook
Ministry Support Specialist
The Brethren Church







