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David Gregg has been named supply pastor of Lighthouse UB church in Williamston, Mich., effective February 1, 2012. Since 2000, he had been on staff with First Baptist church in Williamston, with whom he was ordained in 2003. He and his wife, Wendy, has four children ranging in age from 19 to 23.
Huntington University is seeking submissions for its first annual Fandana Film Festival on August 10-11, 2012.
Filmmakers can submit works for the film festival in the categories of narrative, documentary, and animation, in addition to a special category just for high school students. Awards include:
The winners will also have their films shown on the main stage jumbotron in front of thousands during the Fandana Festival weekend.
The deadline for submissions is June 1. The submission fee is $25. A late registration fee of $35 is available through July 1.
Huntington’s hit music, art and film festival, Fandana Festival, is returning this year on Aug. 10-11, featuring Christian recording artist Chris Tomlin and more than 50 bands on multiple stages.
Mary Mentzer, 94, passed away January 31, 2012, at a nursing home in Carlisle, Pa. She was the wife of Rev. Fred Mentzer, who passed away in 1979; and the mother of Rev. Robert Mentzer, a retired UB minister. Funeral services were held February 3, 2012 in Chambersburg, Pa., with Rev Murray Stevens, senior pastor of St. James UB church (Chambersburg) officiating.
Huntington University is launching a new innovative bachelor’s degree program in heuristics this fall.
Heuristics is the practice of discovery, understanding, and problem solving. The program’s goal is to develop key cognitive skills for students entering a 21st century workforce, particularly improving creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills.
The courses will be project-based and rely significantly on partnerships within the community.
The Bachelor of Arts in Heuristics, Design, and Technology degree also aims to build on New Tech Network programs, which are becoming increasingly popular in area high schools. New Tech Network schools teach students to think critically and to collaborate.
The new degree will launch in the 2012-2013 school year with courses such:
For more information, visit huntington.edu/heuristics.
This is a conference for UB ministers working in staff positions with music and worship. The organizers have a goal of 8-12 people.
Date: May 7-10, 2012 (Monday-Thursday)
Location: Daytona Beach, Fla.
Cost: $150 per person (several scholarships are available, if cost is an issue)
Meetings will be held at the Wyndham Ocean Walk hotel, located on Daytona Beach itself. (300 N. Atlantic, Daytona Beach FL, 32118)
The sessions will include “planned conversations,” where participants learn from each other. As opposed to having a particular speaker.
Further information will be posted on the UB website as available.
The Millennium Hotel in Buffalo, NY, where attendees will be staying.
We are holding a four-day conference for ministry staff in United Brethren churches. This includes persons working in such staff roles as pastoral care, assimilation, adult education, visitation, counseling, missions, discipleship, children’s ministry, etc.
It is NOT for senior pastors. Also, youth ministers and worship/music ministers are holding their own summits separately.
Dates: May 21-24, 2012 (Monday-Thursday)
Registration time: 4 pm Monday, May 21
Location: Buffalo, New York
Cost: $250 per attendee
Spouses: Yes, spouses are invited.
Your congregation needs to make sure any associate staff can attend. So budget some funds and clear their schedules for that week.
Location
The meetings will be held at Eastern Hills Wesleyan Church in Buffalo, New York. Pat Jones (right), who is well-known to UBs through his years as a UB pastor and as Director of Healthy Church Ministries, has been senior pastor at Eastern Hills since October 2009. He’ll be the keynote speaker for three sessions.
Attendees need to bring their passport, because there will be an afternoon outing to Niagara Falls and an evening meal at the falls. (Associate staff from our Canadian churches will also take part in the conference.)
Registration
The registration deadline is April 23. We have a guaranteed block of rooms at the Millennium hotel until that date. After April 23, we can’t guarantee that you’ll get a room at the Millennium.
Various factors, as given below, affect the registration cost. All per-person costs increase $25 after April 22 (that means a $50 increase for couples).
Registration with Lodging
Attendees will stay three nights (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) at the Millennium Hotel Buffalo (2040 Walden Avenue, Cheektowaga, NY 14225). The costs:
Additional perks for staying at the Millenium:
You will be required to present a valid credit card upon check-in for incidentals during your stay. Otherwise, your overnight lodging fees and taxes will be cared for by Healthy Ministry Resources and your full event fee.
Registration without Lodging
If you provide your own lodging, the cost is:
Meals
Meals included in all packages are:
You will be on your own for lunch each day.
Andrew Martin
Nick Kight, Huntington University Class of ’12
As a young boy, Andrew Martin grew up watching “VeggieTales.” Who would have known the lessons taught by Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber would one day leave an impression both morally and occupationally on him.
Early on, he wondered how these movies were made and how the characters were brought to life. He did some research and taught himself the mechanics and functionality of computers. His studies at Huntington University as an animation and computer science major then gave him the technical skills and the means to succeed in the field.
Now, he works at DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. as a technician resource administrator, also known as a render wrangler. Animators send him their animations, and Martin, alongside the rest of the DreamWorks staff, brings those characters to the big screen through a system made up of thousands of computers.
“I love a good story so I decided to take my passions and apply them toward my career goals,” said Martin, a 2011 HU graduate. “So far, I’d say animation has been a good fit for me. I’ve been told I’m going to start working on DreamWorks Animation’s next film, ‘Madagascar 3.’ I think reality will set in once I go to a theater and see my name in the credits.”
Back in June, Martin found the position while browsing through different studio websites. He applied for the job, and then, all he could do was wait.
“I didn’t end up hearing anything until August when I learned my professor sent DreamWorks a recommendation on my behalf,” he said. “He had a contact who worked there and helped me get my foot in the door.”
Three weeks later, they asked him to pack his bags and move out to California. And had it not been for the networking with professors, preparation from the HU animation department and the opportunity to conduct his own independent study on render management, Martin does not think he would have landed the position at DreamWorks.
“My professors made sure I was on the right track,” he said. “My computer science classes taught me the specifics of computers and how to utilize those to their full capacity in the animation studio.”
During his first day of work, Martin realized the DreamWorks position is the dream job he always wanted.
“The fringe benefits are amazing, the animation process is a collaborative effort, people eat their lunch together and it’s a light-hearted environment,” he said. “I’m going to be spoiled by this.”
This fall, Huntington University’s online programs are expanding to include degree programs in marketing and nursing. Both will be offered through the EXCEL Adult Degree Program.
Dr. Paul R. Fetters
When an ashen cross is lightly marked on the forehead of a Christian participating in an Ash Wednesday service on February 22, worshippers who are present are reminded that we are earthly creatures made from the dust of the earth.
“…all come from dust, and to dust all return.” (Ecc. 3:20b)
As children of God, we will remember our baptism into the Christian faith and our journey with our Saviour following conversion. We will remember that we are the body of Christ, living in community with others who wear the smudge of the cross.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten Season. Throughout the Christian Church, this season is known as a time of repentance and turning from sin and renewal of faithfulness to the Gospel. Ashes and sackcloth were symbolic of repentance, sorrow, and grief in the Old Testament, throughout the intertestamental centuries, and in the New Testament as alluded to by Jesus.
The Lenten Season spans 40 days of spiritual devotion marked by three spiritual disciplines: alms-giving, fasting, and praying.
Since the time of my new birth at the Willshire Zion Church of the United Brethren in Christ, I have been observing the spiritual disciplines of the Lenten Season–fasting (the denying of self), alms-giving (self-denial offering for missions), and praying (reflecting on and meditating upon the suffering and death of Jesus Christ). For many including myself, the receiving of the ashes has become a meaningful part of the observance.
As Christian believers, foregoing or receiving the ashes, let us welcome the Lenten Season.
A scene from "Refresh"
Benjamin Kroll (left) and Sean Cruse
Bethany Doyle
As a young man in New York City, Sean Cruse did not realize that his journey to become an animator and filmmaker would lead him to the American heartland.
He was originally interested in a college on the southern Atlantic coast with access to beaches and year-round warmth. After further investigation, though, he became dissatisfied with that school’s animation program. So, it was off to visit another campus, surprisingly nestled among the cornfields of Indiana. Cruse says the decision to check out Huntington University was a “leap of faith.”
“I originally did not want to attend Huntington. My dad and I drove around to scout out the surroundings and ended up in some field somewhere,” Cruse recalls. “But once I saw the facilities and talked with the professors, that’s when my mind immediately changed.”
Cruse is quick to point out that once he chose Huntington, he never doubted the decision.
Early in his college career, the university brought to campus a band that supported an organization called Blood: Water Mission. It was his first exposure to the serious issue of humans living without clean water. The experience awakened him to the reality of brothers and sisters in Christ living without basic needs.
“Huntington’s message is ‘Christ@Center’ but how do you get Christ to the center of someone who doesn’t even live past the age of 5 because he died from a water-borne disease?” Cruse asks. “It’s such a basic thing. I don’t understand. We’re in 2011, and there’s been a long time to solve this problem, and it’s just not happening yet. It can happen, and I want to see it happen.”
That concern ignited the idea for Cruse’s junior project in the digital media arts program. “Refresh,” a stop-motion short film, deals with the disparity between people who are privileged and those who live without. The film portrays a businessman going about his day, buying bottled water from a vending machine, watering his lawn and feeding an aquarium full of fish. These scenes are juxtaposed with images of a mother and daughter in Africa who take a long journey to bring jerry cans of dirty water back to their village.
During the last scenes of the short film, the businessman is shown retrieving his mail while a hose is watering his lawn (and driveway). As he walks inside, he slips on the wet pavement of his driveway, spilling his mail into the puddles and soaking his clothes. The next scene shows the mother and daughter journeying back toward their village with their containers of precious water. The young girl falls, spilling much of the water from her heavy jerry can. The mother helps her up and carries both containers the rest of the way.
The film leaves the audience contemplating how they use limited resources and freshly motivated to help those with less.
“I am blessed to be in this country (but) it’s not following out my faith to ignore my brothers and sisters in need around the world,” Cruse said. “This is where my passion comes from — the teachings of Jesus.”
Cruse’s commitment was contagious. Two fellow senior animation majors and members of the project team, Benjamin Kroll of Mount Lake Park, Md., and Matthew Weener of Hudsonville, Mich., soon shared the same motivation.
“Seeing Sean’s passion for this issue has instilled in me an awareness that has caused me to rethink my priorities,” Kroll said. Although Kroll grew up as a missionary kid familiar with poverty struggles around the world, working on “Refresh” gave him a new awareness of the magnitude of the struggle for clean water.
“Refresh” took the 2011 film festival circuit by storm, appearing in five separate festivals in the U.S. and Canada. Most recently, “Refresh” was shown at the Columbus (Ohio) International Film & Video Festival (CIFVF).
Matt Swift, adviser for the Ohio State University Film Studies and division chair for the student division of the CIFVF, was highly impressed with “Refresh.”
“I really liked the point behind ‘Refresh,’” Swift said. “It has a good message. You really feel for the characters, and it scored very high. Other films got mixed up with their message. ‘Refresh’ was very clear cut, and this made it a very strong film.”
Cruse appreciates the film’s acceptance into the festivals, but has a bigger goal.
“I’m more excited that the message is being spread,” he said. “We want people to not only become educated about the issue but to actually go do something about it.”
You can watch “Refresh” below.
