Click here to view an interpretive presentation about this exciting Church Renewal Initiative! Call Joan Daggett or Jim Miller for more information about how your church can become involved.
The theme for our Shenandoah District Conference, to be held November 7 and 8 at Bridgewater Church of the Brethren, will be “Pressing On….While Holding Fast”. These words come from Philippians 3:14 and 16. In this chapter Paul writes: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and be like him… Not that I have already attained this, but I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those who are mature be of the same mind… Only let us hold fast to that which we have attained.”
Pressing on…while holding fast. Is that where we find ourselves as Brethren right now? We have celebrated our 300th anniversary in a variety of wonderful ways. Perhaps you attended the celebration at our special Annual Conference in Richmond in July. My wife, Mona, and I were very blessed to join with almost a thousand Brethren and local residents for the celebration in Schwarzenau, Germany by the Eder River on August 3. Then in early September many of us had the privilege of partaking of our Shenandoah District 300th Anniversary event at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds.
We have now finished those celebrations and are ready to move on, to “press on” toward that future to which God is directing us. Maybe we have already begun that process. The theme of our district celebration was “Seeds for a Great Harvest”. That title was deliberately chosen to challenge us to begin to move into the future. Seed planting is an act of participation in the future as we begin our fourth century as Brethren.
But as we now press on into that future there is much we can gain by “holding fast to that which we have attained”. Our identity and values as Brethren come from that rich heritage and from the faith and example of those spiritual ancestors who have gone before us.
Alexander Mack didn’t leave much of a paper trail. His writings were minimal, but we do have his responses to forty “Basic Questions” supposedly submitted to him by Eberhard Louis Gruber, a leader of the Inspirationists. The final question was: “Do you expect a better outcome for your church than that of the former Anabaptists?” Mack’s response: “If we remain in the teaching of the New Testament we can expect this outcome, namely, that the fulfillment of our faith will be eternal life….. We cannot testify for our descendants—as their faith is, so shall be their outcome.”
We are some of those descendants! As our faith is, so shall be our outcome. How will we carry that faith of our forebears into this fourth century? May we accept the challenge to move forward into new territory. May we “Press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus….Only let us hold fast to that which we have attained.”
