Worship Service at Camp Blue Diamond Sept. 7th

We welcome college students and take our worship to Camp Blue Diamond on Sunday, Sept. 7. The 10:45 a.m. service will include communion. There will be no worship service held in our sanctuary on this Sunday. A chicken barbeque meal begins at noon. The afternoon is free for swimming, canoeing, hiking, games, and visiting with friends. Please register during Fellowship Time on Sunday mornings or in the church office during the week. Cost is $7 for adults; $3.50 for children 3-10; under 3 and college students are free.

Directions from State College:Take SR 26 from State College to Pine Grove Mills. In Pine Grove, turn left at the blinking light, staying on SR 26, and travel over Tussey Mountain. About 3 miles down the mountain, take the first paved road (Oak Charter Road) to the right Travel about 7 miles to Moorseville (you will pass Shaver’s Creek and Stone Valley). In Mooresville, Oak Charter Road turns into SR 305 West, aka Shavers Creek Road. From here, you can choose the back or front entrance to Camp Blue Diamond.

Back entrance (gravel): One mile after Mooresville, turn right onto Globe Run Road. Travel 1 mile to a four-way stop. Go straight. Follow this road about 1 mile until it runs into Diamond Valley Road (paved). Go straight onto Diamond Valley Road to Camp Blue Diamond. Once at camp, go around the lake and past the hunting cabins (Bearview and Rising Sun). The workship area and parking lot are straight ahead on the left.

Front entrance (paved): About 5 miles beyond Mooresville on SR 305 and just before Petersburg, you will see a sign for Camp Blue Diamond. Turn right onto Diamond Valley Road. Travel 1/4 mile on this road, cross a bridge, and turn left at the fork, remaining on Diamond Valley Road. Travel about 1 mile. At the next fork, turn right. You are still on Diamond Valley Road and about 5 miles from Camp Blue Diamond. You have entered Rothrock State Forest. Stay on the paved Diamond Valley Road. You will arrive at camp. Once at camp, go around the lake and past the hunting cabins (Bearview and Rising Sun). The worship area and parking lot are straight ahead and on the left.

2009 Disaster Response & Work Camp Meeting

If you are a youth or adult who would like to participate in an intergenerational mission group over spring break or a youth who would like to participate in a youth work camp during the summer of 2009, please attend an organizational meeting on Sept. 21 at noon in the Fireside Room.

The Church of the Brethren offers two programs to complement our mission programs: Brethren Disaster Ministries and Brethren Work Camps.

The Brethren Disaster Ministries has volunteer opportunities for adults and youth over the age of 15. Generally the projects center around rebuilding homes in disaster areas. The commitment is one week and travel expenses, food and housing will be provided. This could be a good intergenerational program for adults and youth of our church.

The Brethren Work Camps offer a mission outreach nationally and internationally for youth. Programs are available for middle school and high school aged students to attend summer work camps. The work camp experience includes opportunities to participate in the culture of the area and work with others from churches on a mission outreach project. The commitment varies by project anywhere from a weekend to a week. Participants need to raise funds to cover: registration fees, travel, food, and housing.

If you are interested in participating in either of these programs please attend the meeting on Sept. 21. During this meeting we’d like to survey the interest in both programs and map out a plan to implement the programs with the members of our church.

If you are interested but cannot attend this meeting, please talk with Karen Moser.

300th Annual Conference - A Letter to an Ancestor

Dear Great-Great Grandfather James Quinter,

A very special Annual Conference of your beloved Church of the Brethren took place in Richmond, Va., this summer to celebrate 300 years since its founding at Schwarzenau, Germany, and I wanted to write you about it. It was an historic occasion, an especially exciting coming-together in worship and celebration of two groups that had split apart in your day. As your great-great granddaughter, I felt very privileged to be a witness to that reconciliation.

Great-Great Grandad, there were more than 6,000 people there! The Church of the Brethren, inheritors of your beloved German Baptist Brethren, came together with the Brethren Church, descendants of Brother Henry Holsinger’s Progressive Brethren. I know you and others labored and sweated and prayed for years, trying to keep those two groups together 125 years ago, and—heartbreakingly— it was not to be.

But there we were—together once again, filling a vast coliseum, singing, praying, worshipping. Each denomination went on to have its own business meetings in its own spaces, but we came together again for study and insight groups, bible studies, and additional beautiful and powerful worship services. We learned from each other and we learned to know each other. You would have loved it!

The Brethren of today are in many, many places in the world: Africa, India, the Caribbean, South America, Asia—brothers and sisters of all races and backgrounds. And people from many nations have come here to America and are strong, active members of your beloved church.

Granddad, at times in the week, it seemed like the vision in Revelation where a crowd from every race and nation and language is gathered before the throne of God! I even had the privilege myself of taking four Nigerian sisters to dinner one night!

You would be encouraged, too, by the progress that sisters have made in the church—officially ordained to the ministry for 50 years now! You know well how powerful the preaching of women can be, for the preaching of Sarah Righter Major reached your own heart for Jesus Christ when you were only 16. I still have the little New Testament she gave you on that occasion in 1832. Many of us sisters are working for even greater inclusion in your beloved denomination. Some of us even think about changing our whole church name to something besides “Brethren”!

Yes, there are still sad and discouraging things that we face in the wider world, and some that are still part of your church—issues and disputes we wrestle with and that threaten to split us once again. Since your day, Great-Great Grandad, we’ve discovered that God truly makes people different and gives them talents and callings in wonderful ways, but ways that don’t appear just to the eye. These differences mean, among other things, that they fall in love with someone else differently. Some of us recognize this as God’s own good and beautiful work, but some of us do not. That makes me sad.

But there are still many, many good things going on with your beloved Brethren—many, many good and earnest people striving to reach others with Christ’s message of loving God and neighbor in peace, simplicity and service. I hope that we can somehow work through our differences over the next 125 years so we don’t have to feel so silly when we finally come to agreement again! A resolution on forbearance was passed at this year’s conference to help that. I know you would have loved to be there!

Lots of love—your great-great granddaughter,

Sarah Quinter Malone