June - July 2005

July 20, 2005

Pat and Pam Jones with children Jalonna and Justin.

Transitions. Bishop Ron Ramsey has appointed Rev. Pat Jones as Healthy Church Director, a major new staff position at the United Brethren Headquarters. In that role, Pat will focus most of his time on developing the new "clusters," which will consist of an average of seven churches. There will be about 30 clusters scattered across the country, and every United Brethren church will be required to join a cluster

For the past 14 years, Pat has served as senior pastor of King Street UB church in Chambersburg, Pa. Before that, he planted the UB church in Carlisle, Pa., and also pastored the Devonshire UB church in Harrisburg, Pa. Pat has been a member of the Executive Leadership Team, is a member of the Huntington University Board of Trustees, and has filled various roles at the conference and denominational level.

Both Bishop Ron Ramsey and Rev. Pat Jones were able to sell their homes within a week, and for the full asking price. Pat and Pam Jones are purchasing a home on the southwest side of Fort Wayne, about 20 minutes from Huntington. Bishop Ramsey says, "We've decided to rent for a while to get better acclimated to the area before we rush in to build or buy."

Local Church Finances. Beginning in January, all local churches will send 3.5% of their income (minus mission giving, building funds, and estate income) directly to the United Brethren Offices. This is a new process. A second check will go to the conference to cover any continuing conference assessments (check with your conference superintendent on this). Details regarding procedures for sending in the amount to the UB Offices will be sent to all churches this fall. However, at this point, you could warn your church treasurer that this change is coming, and also use this information as you prepare your church's 2006 budget.

Central Conference. Central Conference, during its July 11-12 meeting, took action on a detailed plan developed by Superintendent Tom Brodbeck which will help bring the conference into alignment with the decisions of the US National Conference. Because of a pending lawsuit, Central Conference cannot dissolve the corporate yet. However, they took the following actions to downscale what the conference does and prepare for full implementation of the cluster system:

1. The 2005 meeting will be the final annual meeting of the conference.

2. The current conference leaders--superintendent, district superintendents, conference council--will continue in office through the end of 2005.

3. The conference council will take care of any necessary business until the corporation can be dissolved.

4. The superintendent will focus primarily on helping the Healthy Church director organize cluster groups for Central Conference churches, working with Laurel Mission and the camps to develop organizational structures, processing any issues related to the lawsuit, and handling other administrative matters involved in preparing for the transition to the cluster system.

5. The conference council will focus mostly on giving final approval to the constitutions, deeds, and other documents needed for the camps, churches, and other Central Conference entities as they transition into the new structure, and will name a new superintendent and council of administration to serve beginning January 1, 2006.

6. Beginning January 1, 2006, the conference leadership will consist of a superintendent ($100 a month honorarium, plus expenses), and a council of administration consisting of the superintendent plus three clergy and three lay at-large members. They will have full authority to act on all matters related to the conference.

7. This resolution for dissolution was approved: "Resolved, that the Central Conference Council of Administration, acting on behalf of the churches and ministers of the Central Conference, be hereby authorized and directed to formally and officially dissolve the corporation known as Central Conference, Church of the United Brethren in Christ, USA, Inc., and incorporated in the states of Ohio and Indiana, upon the final resolution of all legal and financial obligations before the corporation." Central Conference includes churches in Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, but no incorporation was ever done for the Kentucky churches.

8. In 2006, churches will be assessed 1% of tithes and offerings to cover expenses, honorarium, and health insurance obligations. Funding for all conference ministries--the camps, Laurel Mission, and church planting--will end, as will the retiree health insurance benefit.

Huntington College. Susan Guilkey, a 2005 graduate of Huntington University, was crowned Miss Indiana on July 25 during the Miss Indiana Scholarship pageant held in Zionsville, Ind.  Guilkey will compete at the Miss America pageant in the coming months.

Guilkey, a native of Noblesville, Ind., graduated from Huntington in May with a degree in communication studies. In 2003, she won the Miss Huntington competition. At the Miss Indiana competition, Guilkey sang "I Don Quixote" from the "Man of La Mancha" musical for her talent.  She also won the competition's "People's Choice" award.

Her platform as Miss Indiana includes publicizing Girls Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring girls to be strong, smart and bold. During the spring semester of her senior year at Huntington, Guilkey completed an internship with Girls Inc., in Indianapolis.

New websites. Two more UB churches have launched websites: Centrepointe, a church planting project in Cincinnati, Ohio; and Lake Brantley UB in Florida. Many other church websites are listed here.

July 12, 2005

Waynesboro, Pa. The Otterbein United Brethren church in Waynesboro has withdrawn from the denomination. Otterbein was the fourth-largest UB church, with an average attendance of 814 in 2004.

In a June 9 letter to Bishop Paul Hirschy and to the superintendents and officers of Mid-Atlantic Conference, senior pastor Michael V. Newman explained that the church's elders and management Oversight Team held a joint meeting on June 8, during which they decided "by a unanimous vote to discontinue our affiliation with the church of the United Brethren in Christ effective Sunday, June 19, 2005. Beginning Monday, June 20, we will function as a nondenominational congregation."

Newman said the two largest factors in the decision were the following:

"By almost everyone's assessment, the United Brethren Church is struggling right now....Our leadership, after praying for God's guidance, has decided that it is not good stewardship to continue to put large sums of money into an organization that is seeing little spiritual impact for the Kingdom of God. We believe it would have greater impact if used in our local church or in the hands of another ministry group."

"We continue to wrestle with the question of the overall value and need to be part of a denomination in today's world. Simply put, we often have asked ourselves, 'What can we do better for the Kingdom of God as a denominational congregation that we can't do as well or even better as a nondenominational congregation?' As difficult as this is to admit because of our traditional and relationships, we honestly can't think of one thing. When we combine that belief with the large amount of money we are required to give in assessments, it has brought us to the conclusion that we should no longer continue to be part of the United Brethren Church."

Newman explained that they would have preferred to make this decision after the meeting of the US National Conference in late June, but were pushed by the possibility that the US National Conference would require churches that want to withdraw to have a congregational vote on the issue. "We are not a congregational church and have not voted on any issue in our church's history in the past 20 years, including a recent decision to relocate to another site." Newman said they believed that requiring such a vote would "be confusing and detrimental to the overall health of our congregation. Thus we felt we had no option but to take this action under the current Discipline, which does not have such requirements."

Newman continued, "We are proud of our heritage and our past association with the United Brethren denomination, and it will always be an important part of our history....We leave with no regrets or bad feelings toward anyone in conference or denominational leadership or any other United Brethren congregation."

July 11, 2005

Sunfield, Mich.The Sunfield Church on June 19th burned their mortgage on the new building they added only two years ago. The 60x82 building is a spacious fellowship area suitable for many activities. The cost of the building was $450,000. This month a new building study committee was put together to bring together a plan for a new Recreational Building.

This year, Sunfield plans to start an Upward Basketball ministry for the community.

June 27, 2005

Huntington, Ind. The US National Conference, our highest governing body, met June 20-23 and adopted a number of major changes.

Rev. Ron Ramsey (right) was elected on June 23 as the new bishop of the US National Conference. He will take office on August 15. Bishop Ramsey has served as pastor of the Main Street UB church in Walbridge, Ohio, for the past 12 years. You can read his biographical information and vision statement online.

The Property referendum was passed. It gives local churches title to their property. In the past, such property has been held in trust by the denomination.

The National Conference referendum was passed. It sets the frequency of national conferences at every two years (instead of four years), gives all congregations the chance to send a lay representative to the national conferences, and gives all current ministers with voting rights in their annual conference the right to be voting delegates at the national conference. This could raise the membership of the national conference from 65 to 500 or more.

Every church will be required to participate in what is called a cluster. Clusters will consist of an average of seven churches, and will be led by a cluster "coach." This will become a primary group for pastoral and congregational accountability, and it represents the single most significant change in structure adopted by the conference. There will be about 30 clusters in the United States.

To be a full-member United Brethren church, all congregations must now sign a covenant every two years. It requires agreement with seven statements. The covenant represents a major change for the United States churches.

The conference elected a new Executive Leadership Team, with representatives elected specifically from each of four geographic regions. See the members.

The UB stand on alcohol was changed. The United Brethren church will continue to stress and encourage total abstinence from beverage alcohol, but will no longer require abstinence in order to hold local church membership (though this requirement will remain for ministers).

Gary Dilley was reappointed as Director of Global Ministries, and G. Blair Dowden is now Director of Education by virtue of being president of Huntington University. Bishop Ramsey has chosen a new person to come on staff in a director-level role in what has been called "the Healthy Church Director" (though the official title may be different). The selection will probably be announced later this week.

You can read a more complete summary of the major actions here. All changes will be published online as the official wording becomes available. Right now, the official minutes of the conference are being finalized.

The international General Conference, with delegates from the other seven constituent national conferences--Sierra Leone, Jamaica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Canada, Hong Kong, and the USA--began on Thursday afternoon, June 23, and continue into Friday. Two new conferences were accepted: Mexico and the Phillipines.