CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN MessengerJUNE 2016 WWW.BRETHREN.ORG Befriending death A FATHER'S LAMENT 8 BRUTAL RESURRECTION 14 WHAT ATTORNEYS REALLY DO 18 All aboard Take a trip with the seagoing cowboys. Through Peggy Reiff Miller’s expert prose and Claire Ewart’s luminous paintings, learn the real-life story of seagoing cowboys who took livestock to people suffering the effects of World War II. Thousands of men signed up to serve. They returned with a wider view of the world around them. 800-441-3712 • www.brethrenpress.com A long time ago, when I was looking for adventure, I became a seagoing cowboy. We didn’t ride horses. We rode waves. Take a trip with the seagoing cowboys. Through Peggy Reiff Miller’s expert prose and Claire Ewart’s luminous paintings, learn the real-life story of seagoing cowboys who took livestock to people suffering the effects of World War II. Thousands of men signed up to serve. They returned with a wider view of the world around them. 800-441-3712 • www.brethrenpress.com CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN MessengerMessengerPublisher: Wendy McFadden Associate editor: Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford Web editor: Jan Fischer Bachman Design: The Concept Mill Contributing editors: Eric Bishop, Sandy Bosserman, Dana Cassell, Daniel D’Oleo, Emmett Eldred, Tim Harvey, Bob Neff JUNE 2016 Vol.165 No. 5 www.brethren.org/messenger 8 A father’s lament 10 Befriending death 13 More strawberries 14 Brutal resurrection 18 What attorneys really do 22 Nigeria update Cover photo by Tommy Clark/flickr.com departments RM 2 F O THE PUBLISHER 17 MEDIA REVIEW 3 In TOUCH 20 BIBLE STUDY 4 RefLECTIONS 25 NEWSLINE DIGEST 5 THE EXCHANGE 27 LETTERS 6 YOUTH & YOUNG ADULTS 30 TURNING POINTS 7 ABOUT THOSE NUMBERS 32 POTLUCK From the Publisher confess that I get impatient with people whose main attitude toward life is one of complaint. They’re the ones How to reach us whose Facebook posts are all about their daily frustrations. Traffic was I MESSENGER terrible. The weather is too hot. The weather is too cold. They’re annoyed by 1451 Dundee Avenue the very customers upon whom they depend for their salaries. Elgin, IL 60120 But then there’s lament, which is not the same thing. As Bob Neff writes in Subscriptions: this issue, “I complain when I expect that change can happen. I lament when I Diane Stroyeck face circumstances that cannot be changed. For example, we don’t find Lament [email protected] Counters in department stores.” Phone: 800-323-8039 ext. 327 Fax: 847-742-1407 Department stores don’t have them, but the church should. Instead, however, “the American church avoids Advertising: lament,” says Soong-Chan Rah, professor of church Karen Stocking [email protected] growth and evangelism at North Park University. Forty Phone: 800-323-8039 ext. 308 percent of the Psalms are laments, he points out, but Fax: 847-742-1407 those psalms are the ones left out of the liturgies of many Editorial: churches. Both hymns and contemporary worship songs [email protected] are weighted much more to praise and celebration. Phone: 800-323-8039 ext. 326 So what’s wrong with that? Rah says that a church Fax: 847-742-1407 of only celebration is the voice of the comfortable, the Subscription rates: status quo, while lament honors those who suffer. In $17.50 individual rate WENDY MCFADDEN PUBLISHER Prophetic Lament, his book on Lamentations, he urges - $32 for 2 years $14.50 gift rate the church to recover a balance between praise and la- $14.50 church club rate ment, between celebration and suffering. - $27 for 2 years The articles on grief and lament in this issue are a step toward that balance. $ 1.25 student (per month) When the church is willing to provide a lament counter, it’s being biblical. When If you move, clip address label and the church makes room for those who suffer, it follows the example of the father send with new address to MESSENGER in Jesus’ parable. The book of Lamentations, says Rah, helps us see “how the Subscriptions, at the above address. North American Christian community should respond to a broken world.” Allow at least five weeks for address change. For digital Messenger go to www.brethren.org/accessmessenger. Visit MESSENGER online at www.brethren.org/messenger. MESSENGER is the official publication of the Church of the Brethren. Member of the Associated Church Press. Biblical quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version. Copyright © June 2016, Church of the Brethren. MESSENGER (ISSN 0026-0355) is published 10 times a year by Brethren Press, Church of the Brethren. Periodicals postage paid at Elgin, Ill., and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to MESSENGER, 1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120-1694. Printed on recycled paper (20% post consumer) 2 Messenger June 2016 InTouch Guests Kayla Alphonse and Debra Ziegler Giving, fellowship, Close-Up and slow-roasted pork hiques Church of the Brethren in Manheim, Pa., hosted a drop-in pork roast dinner April 9 as a benefit for the Nigeria Crisis Fund and the Haiti Medical Project. About 40 church Cmembers volunteered to serve, host, clean up—and roast the pork outside while snow fell. About 360 people were served in the dining room and 160 take-out dinners were made. No reservations were need- ed, and the cost of the meal was by donation. Theme baskets were donated by Sunday school classes and indi- viduals and sold by silent auction. The proceeds amounted to over $34,000 to be equally divided between the two programs. The Chiques church has sent two workcamps to Haiti with the opportunity to work in several medical clinics and to see firsthand the severe poverty and need for medical care, maternal care, and clean water. The idea for this benefit dinner came as a result. Dale, Debra, and Don Ziegler from Elizabethtown (Pa.) Church of the Brethren, recent visitors to Nigeria, and Kayla Alphonse of the Haiti mission were available for conversation throughout the evening. Alphonse, who rep- resented the Global Mission and Service staff, presented a program that Sunday morning. The whole event was an opportunity for giving and fellowship. —Sandra G. Brubaker Congregation ‘Outside of the box’ baptism How does a pastor baptize new members when the baptistry in the church basement is being renovated? When Krista Hunter approached pastor Norman Replogle at West Goshen (Ind.) Church of the Brethren and told him she wanted to be baptized, he had to think outside the box. After discussing the possibilities with a couple of trustees, they used a children’s inflatable swimming pool for the baptism at the end of the Palm Sunday service. —Janet Elliott Do you have district or congregational stories that might be of interest to MESSENGER? Short items with a photo are best. Send them to MESSENGER, c/o In Touch, 1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120 or [email protected]. Messenger June 2016 3 Reflections What matters most ’ll never forget the moment. Years ago, another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of William Sloane Coffman was at Bridgewater the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:1-3). College for an endowed lecture on militarism The unity of the church is a gift of the Spirit, and Iand homosexuality. humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearing love are As the liberal theologian launched into his address, required to maintain this unity. This God-given unity is he made this startling confession: “I always allow for the not uniformity. The miracle of the church is that it breaks possibility that I might be wrong.” down barriers of race and class and gender and culture What a brilliant opening! By ac- and brings together a breathtaking assortment of people knowledging the limits of his own who, for all their differences, are all united by their goal of knowledge and perspective, he a world redeemed in Jesus Christ. disarmed his audience and invited A church that is divided and preoccupied with its dif- it to listen in a less hostile and ferences can hardly bear witness to the world of God’s defensive way. redeeming love. Those looking at all the turmoil and divi- Sloane Coffin was also being sion in the church would wonder why they should be part biblical. Anticipating the imminent of that mess: If the followers of this Jesus behave like that appearance of God to deliver the toward each other, either he’s a joke or they’ve forgotten ROBBIE MILLER people from their exile in Babylon, what he taught and how he lived. the prophet Isaiah exhorts, “Seek Of course our personal beliefs matter, and we should the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he hold them and share them with conviction. But when we is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrigh- value our personal positions over the unity of the church, teous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that when we think that others in the body must believe as he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will we do, when our belonging to the body depends on the abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7). body’s agreement with us, that’s a good time to remember Then speaking on the Lord’s behalf, he reminds these that no one fully knows the mind and ways of God. That’s exiled Judeans, and us, that no one fully knows the mind a good time to allow for the possibility that we might be No matter how convicted we are of the rightness of our position, none of us fully knows the mind and ways of God.