History Matters

Zambia Christian University

The Brethren in Christ Historical Society and the Zambian Christian University (ZACU) are collaborating partners for research on the Brethren in Christ in Zambia and the United States. This collaboration has two foci:

2. Research and publication: Teams from the US and Zambia will travel for extended periods (likely at least two months) to conduct research with partners in the other country instigated at the request of the country that is the subject of the research in question. The goal is to produce publishable products. One specific project is a book comprised of the four articles on the history of Sikalongo Mission that Dwight Thomas published in Brethren in Christ History and Life. This project will be funded by Thomas International.
3. Practical endeavors: These include communication and application of the research by Brethren in Christ scholars to the church in Zambia and the US. We are working on the repatriation of historical materials by sharing documents, pictures, artifacts, etc. between Zambia and the US, under the careful control of ZACU and the Brethren in Christ Historical Society and the Archives. Issues of copyright will be addressed.

Theological Study Forum

For the last fifteen years, the Theological Study Forum (TSF) has met three times a year “to provide a healthy forum for Brethren in Christ pastors, church leaders, and others to explore and discuss relevant theological and ministry-related issues.” The TSF is led by coordinator Bob Verno and the steering team of Curtis Book, Ray Kipe, Sheri Flohr, Lois Saylor, and John Yeatts, along with technician Ryan Cagno. The TSF seeks to serve the Brethren in Christ Church by facilitating a deeper, more rounded consideration of a wide range of topics without promoting particular views or an agenda of change within the Brethren in Christ.

Over the years, the Historical Society has occasionally published papers in Brethren in Christ History and Life that were originally prepared for the TSF, and the journal has informed the discussion of topics at TSF. Therefore, at our April 2, 2024 meeting this productive relationship, like our similar arrangement with the Zambian Christian University, was recognized in the Brethren in Christ Historical Society minutes. Such relationships provide a rich interaction that benefits all participants.

The Annual Heritage Service at the Ringgold Meetinghouse was held on June 2. The service began with singing from the “brown hymnal,” Spiritual Songs and Hymns, and a time for testimonies. Then Rob Patterson, bishop of the Allegheny Conference, spoke on “and,” describing how the Brethren in Christ began as Anabaptists and added Pietism, and then Wesleyan holiness, and then since the 1950s we have been heavily influenced by Evangelicalism. We were open to new truth in contemporary movements and assimilated them “with a difference.” Rob asked, “What is the light we will add next?”

Traditionally, the annual meeting is held in the fall, but this year it met during the Brethren in Christ U.S. General Assembly in Cincinnati, Ohio. About fifty people gathered to listen to five stories about the beginnings of Brethren in Christ congregations in Ohio. Excerpts from those stories are in the next feature, and the full stories will be published in the December 2024 journal.

The 2024 Annual Meeting of the Historical Society was held on July 14 during the 2024 General Assembly in Cincinnati, Ohio. Several individuals with roots in the Brethren in Christ Church in Ohio told stories about the history of several congregations. Following are excerpts from those stories; watch for the full texts in the December 2024 edition of Brethren in Christ History and Life.

Three Ohio Churches and Church Expansion

I am a son of the Pleasant Hill Congregation of the Brethren in Christ. Our family returned from India in 1963 and became part of this congregation. It was my Dad’s home church, and his parents called this congregation home. Growing out of these relationships, the congregation invited me to come home and speak during their one hundredth anniversary celebrations. In my presentation, I talked about church expansion.

I noted the progressive planting of churches on State Route 48 beginning with the Fairview Congregation in 1876 (Englewood), then the Highland congregation in 1890 (West Milton), and eventually the Pleasant Hill congregation in 1912. These dates relate to their building church structures for meetings. I asked the Pleasant Hill congregation why they didn’t continue the practice and move on up Route 48 to the next town of Covington and begin another congregation. I suggested three possible reasons why this particular kind of expansion ended.

1. The direction of expansion changed on Route 48. In 1912, the challenge of the city of Dayton, Ohio, south of Englewood, was taken up by the brothers and sisters.
2. The general expansion of the Brethren in Christ Church at this time was moving west. There are church leaders in the southern Ohio district whose names show up in Indiana.
3. A third reason may be more familial or sociological. The Fairview and Highland congregations both developed church cemeteries as a part of their physical property. The Pleasant Hill congregation did not develop a cemetery—they either used the community cemetery or returned to Fairview or Highland to bury their dead.

Ken Hoke, Carlisle, PA

Dayton Brethren in Christ Mission

The ministry of the Dayton Brethren in Christ Mission, started in 1912, continues to the present day, 112 years later, in ways that vary with the needs and change with the possibilities, all with the desire to see God’s Kingdom grow, souls brought to the Lord, and disciples going out to reach others.

We became aware of many children in our neighborhood who needed to be in church. We bused these lovable, streetwise, many times difficult to manage children to church Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, and Wednesday evenings. We had VBS in the summers, and by times we had additional club times for them. This opportunity lasted almost ten years. We had as many as sixty-six children midweek.

In another case, the role of the congregation is to pray while we hold monthly chapel services on various campuses of Dayton Christian Schools. At one time there were five elementary campuses, now consolidated into one larger one. For more than forty-five years we have ministered to these hundreds, probably thousands of children, seeing many of them saved, counseling others, and discipling them in the Christian life. When he does learning disability teaching in the local public schools, our bi-vocational pastor carries his Bible on top of his other books, opening the way for questions and offering spiritual help.

In 2018 our son started a recovery service for drug and alcohol addicts. Full Circle is a tremendously successful program, in which clients graduate after four or five months clean. During that time in residence they get medical help, counseling, group sessions, and also job training and placement. In six years there have been 950 alumni. We make Bibles and other literature available for clients to take as well as clip boards with forms to be filled out with individuals’ prayer requests.

Ruth Pawelski, Dayton, OH 

Englewood, Ohio and the Fairview Church

            In 2022, the Fairview Brethren in Christ Church in Englewood, Ohio celebrated its 175^th anniversary. Shortly before, newly discovered documents showed how closely the history of the church and the city of Englewood were linked.

The village of Englewood and vicinity was formed in 1800. It was first known as Iamton, then Jamton. The Hoover and Mast families were some of the earliest settlers in this area. The Jacob Ulery family followed the Hoover and Mast families to Ohio and purchased four hundred acre of land between the Stillwater Valley and the town of Salem.

Sometime during the year of 1829, Mr. Ulery noticed a cluster of stones in a plot of ground on his property. It was supposed that Indians and white men must have been buried there. The Ulery family decided that would make a good burial ground and donated one acre of land to be used as a cemetery. More land was donated later by the Herr family. In 1835 the River Brethren Church was organized and named the Fairview congregation, thus the same name was given to the cemetery.

In those early days the church meetings were held in homes. In the winter they met in homes and during warmer weather, in barns. Sometimes they had no preacher, yet they still enjoyed the Lord’s presence in their services. Sometimes they had prayer meetings and social meetings. Their baptismal services were held at the Stillwater River just north of the Englewood bridge.

Fast forward many years: After much discussion among the brethren, a decision was made to build a church for the community of Brethren in Christ believers. The original building was erected in 1876 at the corner of Union Boulevard and Route 40 (National Road). In 1973 the congregation decided to build a new church. The venture was completed in 1975 at which time the entire congregation paraded (with police escort) from the old church, down Union Boulevard to the new building. Further expansion took place in 1989 when a large addition was built.

You can still find the original Fairview Church on Union Blvd. across from the Fairview Cemetery.

Connie Niesley Palmus, Englewood, OH

Brethren in Christ Presence in Clark County, Ohio 1879-1923 

The earliest Brethren in Christ pioneers to Southern Ohio came from Pennsylvania using the Old National Road, currently Route 40. They were looking for farmland to purchase and raise their families. Several families located in Clark County. Brethren in Christ settlements in Miami County to the west and Stark County to the north had been established previously. Several families bought farms near Springfield, Donnelsville, North Hampton, and Medway. All of these locations were on or near Route 40.

The first mention of an elected overseer for the district was Levi Lukenbaugh who was chosen in 1879. Before any meetinghouses were built, the families worshipped in the homes or barns of members. As membership grew, the need for a separate place to worship became evident. In 1886, the Maple Grove church at Donnelsville was built and in 1889 a school house in Medway was purchased. By 1888, total membership was recorded at 51.

Springfield was a growing and thriving community and many of the farmers sold their land and moved to the city. In Springfield, members worshipped in homes. A Sunday School was held in 1911 in the Jacob Ulery home, regular preaching services were held in the A. B. Wingert home as well as the Linkey home, all located within two city blocks. In February 1911, the council decided to sell the Medway Meeting House to pay for the lot and building on the corner of George Street and Maiden Lane in order that “no debt would be incurred.” Beulah Chapel was ready for occupancy by July of that same year. By 1913, attendance was in the mid-eighties. Occasional love feasts and special meetings continued at the Maple Grove location until it was sold to Springfield Hatchery Co.

The early brethren were focused on outreach as they worshipped in homes and finally meeting houses. Sunday School was of high importance to the Christian education of both adults and children in the communities of Donnelsville and Springfield. In addition to the love feasts that were held twice a year, Clark County wanted to have “protracted meetings” with outside speakers.

By 1923, Beulah Chapel underwent their first expansion to accommodate the children who were coming for Sunday School. When Beulah Chapel was rededicated in 1951 after it was remodeled, part of the service enjoined the congregants to affirm the following statements: This house is dedicated to the public worship of the trinity, for the training of children, calling youth to a life of Christian service, cherishing the family, to evangelism and “nourishment of his lambs,” to help those “confused and distressed,” to console the dying and bereaved and in memory of those who have finished their course. These statements serve well the intent of the early brethren as they found their way to be the church in Southern Ohio.

Beth Ulery Saba, Springfield, OH

East Dayton Fellowship

I was taught to know and love God, follow Jesus, and depend on the Holy Spirit at Fairview Brethren in Christ in Englewood, Ohio as a teenager in the 1990s. I received a call to ministry as a seventeen-year-old at the Memorial Holiness Camp in West Milton, Ohio as part of a Missions Day altar call.

About seven years later, toward the end of my seminary training, the congregation that first nurtured me in the faith called me to return to them and help them plant a daughter congregation. We decided together to find a poor and underserved neighborhood in Dayton, Ohio (the main city of our region) and do the planting there. I would purchase a home in the neighborhood with the help of the church, move in, and use the house as the church site’s meeting place. We trusted the Holy Spirit would lead us in all further details.

In 2011 the work began, and by 2012 I moved into the home I still occupy on S. Garland Ave. The congregation we planted there was called the Shepherd’s Table and served as a daughter site of Fairview Brethren in Christ. I bought the home for $26,900, with Fairview paying the downpayment. The house was located a couple hundred feet from a long established Church of the Brethren congregation in a large, red-brick building that had been well kept despite a long period of congregational decline. The attendance hovered around 10 people at that church when I first got to know them.

When I moved in, I immediately reached out to that congregation and communicated my desire to work together for Jesus’ Kingdom purposes. They were receptive to that appeal. My first summer living in the neighborhood we hosted a neighborhood VBS program on the property of that church (the East Dayton COB). Fairview supplied virtually all the people and materials, EDCBOB supplied the place, while myself and the small team committed to helping me in the planting work made connections with those who came.

In 2016, we moved our main services from Saturdays to Sundays and from the basement into the sanctuary of the COB church. At the same time the COB’s former pastor had to resign his position due to health problems and I took to preaching for them as well as for the Shepherd’s Table. We agreed to begin exploring the possibility of a merger. The work of bringing two different groups of people together is hard work and requires patience. We were only ready to conduct a trial merger of our services and ministries in 2020, after four years of discussions, and then the pandemic hit. Finally, in 2023 we created an officially merged and dual affiliated congregation out of the two formerly separate ones.

Zach Spidel, Dayton, OH

During the spring 2024 semester, Archives intern Alex Shehigian (Messiah University Class of 2024) designed a new temporary exhibit. Titled “The World and Messiah: International Students, 1911 to Today,” the exhibit uses photographs, print materials, and artifacts from the Brethren in Christ Historical Library and Archives and the Messiah University Archives to tell the story of more than one hundred years of international students studying at the university. Included in the exhibit are stories of several Brethren in Christ, including Sampson Mudenda, a Zambian Brethren in Christ minister and superintendent of churches who studied at Messiah in the 1960s and 1970s.

Historical Society members who live within traveling distance of the Archives are encouraged to view the exhibit, which will remain in place through the end of 2024. For visiting hours, send an email to [email protected] or call 717-691-6048.