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Jason Sheets, associate pastor of Shepherd of the Valley UB church (Logan, Ohio), sent a report on a youth group activity. Sixteen youth from the Shepherd of the Valley and nearby West Pleasant Hill (Rockbridge, Ohio) UB churches participated in a 30 Hour Famine. The groups together raised over $1500 to help fight world hunger. (click photo to enlarge)
Phil Whipple, Bishop
On January 25-27, Sandy and I visited our Haitian church in Bradenton, Fla. I did three leadership training sessions for them, using the “Habitudes” materials.
About 30 people came on Friday night. My session lasted about two hours. When I finished, one of their guys did a ten-minute recap of the main points in the Creole language, which is used widely among Haitians.
Something similar happened during the Saturday morning and evening sessions on Saturday, though the translation became more detailed as the day wore on. About 20 people attended both of those sessions, but not always the same people; some people came for just one session, depending on their work schedules.
We arrived at the church on Sunday morning during the Sunday school hour. They have three adult classes which meet in the sanctuary at the same time. In our American culture, we think you need a separate walled room for each class, but that wasn’t the case here. One class of about 30 met on one side, a group of 15-20 ladies met a little further back, and clear in the back of the sanctuary was a class of about 15 guys. All three teachers were every animated and engaged with teaching their material, and the people didn’t seem distracted by the noise. They were really focused on their teachers.
At the end of the Sunday school hour, the children and youth came in from their areas. Everybody moved up to the front, and they had a traditional Sunday school closing, complete with awards for the classes that gave the most money and brought the most visitors.
I delivered the morning sermon, with the help of a translator. I estimate that 100-110 people attended that morning. Although the community includes Hispanics and other ethnic groups, this was very much a Haitian congregation.
Pastor Jean Claude Presendieu would like to see them expand to other groups, but as long as they speak Creole, they’ll be a Haitian congregation. He said most people communicate in English at their jobs. But when they come to church, they prefer using Creole, which is their native, heart language.
One lady gave an announcement in English. She’s Haitian, but was more comfortable speaking in English than in Creole. They didn’t translate for her, so I figured enough people could understand what she said.
The Bradenton congregation keeps a strong tie to Haiti, especially in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake. Pastor Presendieu will go to Haiti in April or May to help conduct a crusade. They’ve done some projects, like putting together buckets of supplies to send back to Haiti.
We received word that Rev. Herbert (“Herb”) Cherry passed away Thursday night, March 24, 2011. He was an ordained minister and former pastor in the United Brethren church, and the brother of fellow UB ministers Harold and Howard Cherry. The funeral is set for Thursday, March 31st, at Eden UB church in Mason, Mich.
The ordination service for Mary Flamer. L-r: William Flamer, Ed Harvey, Mary Flamer, Roland Albert, and Bishop Phil Whipple.
Bishop Phil Whipple (left) with William and Mary Flamer.
On Sunday, March 20, 2011, I conducted an ordination service for Mary Flamer. Her husband, William, is associate pastor of Park Layne UB church in Dayton, Ohio. Interestingly, Mary and William actually live in Philadelphia, Pa. Once a month, they travel to Park Layne to participate in the service.
Ed Harvey, pastor of Lighthouse Community Church in Dayton, and Roland Albert, pastor of Park Layne, joined me on the platform to assist in Mary’s ordination.
Rev. Robert Sanders, 82, of Reedsville, Ohio, passed away Saturday evening, March 19. He had pastored UB churches in southern Ohio since 1955–Mt. Zion, Salem Chapel, Laurel Chapel, West Pleasant Hill, Liberty, Logan, and Mt. Hermon. He concluded his ministry with 23 years as senior pastor of Mt. Hermon UB of Pomeroy, Ohio, 1980 to 2003.
Rev. Sanders served in the Army-Air Force in the Philippines 1946-1947. He also taught school for 30 years. Rev. Sanders was ordained in 1973.
Rev. Sanders is survived by his wife of 58 years, Nina, three daughters, and one son.
Funeral: 1 pm Wednesday, March 23, 2011. Rev. Peter Martindale will officiate.
Visitation: 5-8 pm Tuesday, March 22.
Location: White-Schwarzel Funeral Home, 9 Fifth St., Coolville, Ohio. Phone: 740-667-3110
Huntington University has been ranked sixth in the nation for Online Christian Colleges & Universities for 2011. Huntington offers online degree programs through its EXCEL Adult Degree Programs and the graduate school.
The rankings were compiled by The Best Colleges, a publication that reviews publicly available data and then produces independent ranking assessments of colleges in various disciplines. Rankings were based on schools that exemplified a Christ-centered education and met other criteria–graduation and retention rates, education quality, financial issues, reputation, and other factors.
Best Colleges wrote, “With strong showings in every category we measured, Huntington University online is one of the top online Christian universities around.”
Huntington’s oline programs are designed to fit into the busy schedules of adult students. EXCEL offers associate degree programs in Christian ministry and organizational management, in addition to bachelor’s degree programs in business management, human resource management, and not-for-profit leadership. The graduate school offers master’s degree programs in youth ministry leadership and education in an online hybrid format.
The Top Ten Online Christian Colleges were:
HTV News, Huntington University’s television station, won second place in the “TV Studio Production” category from the National Religious Broadcasters Association.
Students Katrina Helmer, a senior broadcasting major from Noblesville, Ind., and Brendon Shick, a senior film studies and broadcasting double major from Grand Rapids, Mich., are listed as producer and director. They were presented with certificates at the national NRB convention in Nashville in February.
HTV News also took second place in the 2011 IASB College Broadcasting Competition Awards for the “Television Newscast” category. Shick won third place in the Television Spot Production category for that same competition.
HTV is a weekly news program written, directed, produced and edited by Huntington University students.
Brad Kittle (right) has been appointed senior pastor of Praise Point UB (Willshire, Ohio), effective April 1, 2011. He had been senior pastor of The Rock, a UB church in Findlay, Ohio (originally called Faith Community), since 2008. Kittle replaces Mark Rutledge, who had served as senior pastor of Praise Point since January 2006. A special retirement service was held for Rutledge on March 27, 2011.
Praise Point was formed in January 2003 when two UB churches, Zion and Willshire, merged. They sold their previous buildings and constructed a brand new facility in a prominent location in Willshire. That building was dedicated in September 2006.
Huntington University launched a new website on March 16, 2011. It was the culmination of a ten-month project.
“One of the goals of this project has been to update our ‘front door to the world’ with fresh imagery and contemporary layouts that instantly convey the excellence of a Huntington University education,” said John Paff, executive director of communications. “We also wanted to make it easier for faculty and staff to participate in the ongoing editing and updating of our web content.”
The website was built from the ground up with a new server environment running Ektron CMS400.NET, a robust content management system used by many major corporations and universities.
Thousands of pages and tens of thousands of individual files were painstakingly moved from the old site to the new web system by a diligent team of staff and students, Paff said. Once this phase was complete, more than 50 meetings were scheduled before public launch to enable faculty and staff to carefully review every section of the new web site.
We continually increase the number of people who receive UB information electronically. Here are the latest numbers.
Facebook: 446 people now “Like” the United Brethren page. We add new persons every week. Last March, the number was 230, so we’ve just about doubled in a year. Go to: facebook.com/unitedbrethren
Feedburner: 204 subscribers. Feedburner is the best way to keep current with UB news, since the news comes to your email every day. People who subscribe to Feedburner love it. Subscribe here.
Connect Email: 1100 subscribers, including people from most of the countries where we minister. Connect is an occasional, as-needed email (the last one was sent out March11, 2011). It would be great if you collected subscriptions from others in your church. We don’t use this list for anything else. Subscribe here.
WAVES: 277 subscribers. This is a fairly new quarterly email from the Women’s Ministry Leadership Team. It’s designed as a resource for women. Two editions have gone out so far. Subscribe here.
