Interest is high, and registrations are strong for Equip05, the national equipping conference for Grace Brethren people to be held in Winona Lake, IN, this July 31-August 5.
Many are registering for courses that yield seminary credit, and others are simply choosing topics and workshops that will be helpful in all aspects of church ministry, ranging from intercultural communication to biblical prophecy to effective use of media in worship services.
Nationally-known experts will be teaching classes, including Dr. Charles Arn, Randy Frazee, Dr. Jerry Bridges, Dr. Don Sunukjian, and others. Grace Brethren leaders such as Jim Custer, Tom Julien, Tim Boal, Ed Lewis and many more will also be teaching. Also, many local church practitioners such as Jeff Bogue, Kary Oberbrunner, Bryan Nelson, Keith Shearer and more will share from their experience and research.
A joint business meeting for the corporations of GBIM, GBNAM, GBIF, CENational, BMH and Grace College and Seminary will be held Monday evening, August 1. Grace Brethren Investment Foundation, in honor of the 50th anniversary of its founding, is funding a chicken dinner that evening, which makes it necessary for each person attending to reserve a ticket. Members of the various Grace Brethren corporations need purchase only one ticket per person, as the business meetings of all organizations is included in the schedule.
The Moderator’s Address by Keith Shearer will be at a plenary session Wednesday evening, August 3, and all the national organizations headquartered in Winona Lake will have Open Houses of their facilities beginning at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, August 2.
BMH is sponsoring several special functions at this year’s conference. The BMH Open House on Tuesday afternoon will be an autograph party featuring a half-dozen BMH Books authors available to sign their works. BMH staff will also produce and distribute the daily conference newsletter, “FGBC Conference World.”
A BMH-sponsored hymnsing on Tuesday evening at the Grace Village Retirement Center chapel will feature a volunteer choir led by Dan Thornton, the leading of “A Mighty Fortress” by Prof. Donald Ogden, a special one-woman presentation of Susannah Wesley by Miriam Uphouse Christiansen, and more.
Thursday evening, August 4, beginning at 5 p.m., BMH will sponsor a “Brethren Heritage Tour” with guest lecturers John Teevan and David Plaster. Included will be a bus tour of Arnold’s Grove in Milford, the historical murals at Camp Alexander Mack, a dinner on the grounds of Camp Mack, a special tour of the Anabaptist Interpretive Center in Shipshewana, Indiana, and a gift copy of BMH’s newly-published Heroes Who Live On, Vol. 2.
To register for these events, for any courses, or for the conference itself, log on to www.equip05.com or obtain the conference brochure from any Grace Brethren church or call Fellowship Coordinator Tom Avey’s office at (574) 269-1269.