Genes Letter - New Years Eve 2005

To the church in Arlington,

Thank you for sending your representatives to be with us at the Thanksgiving conference. I have a notion they had a little difficulty reporting back to you as to what happened during those meetings. We moved fast and covered an incredibly large amount of territory.
Here is my request: that your representative(s) give you an overview of the conference, and that the entire church come together to decide on the times when you can all listen to the first five messages and the last message. The middle messages will not be sent to you - there is too much chatter and very little message. Everyone's sense of humor was in full sway by then.
After that, I would like to come visit you...if I possibly can. (Arlington, Colorado Springs, St. Paul. Lacey, Vancouver)
The conference was about the fact that we have an unfinished task. First, we covered the part of the task that is unfinished. The response was nothing less than phenomenal. There was but one heart in that room.
I began by explaining that we have built slowly and we have built well. It is a decent, pure, honorable foundation. In retrospect, from 1800 to 1974, those groups outside the institutional church were actually flawed by their methods to attract followers. We have laid a new foundation by way of the beautiful testimony given by the early Anabaptists and the Moravians.
Now it is time to trust that foundation and to build on it.
Here are the major things we touched on during the conference:

1. It is time to grow...and here's how. (We talked about a way to reach the neighborhood. Your representative should have a copy of a flyer. Please look at it. I have included a copy, just in case you need one.
2. We must leave a record of the testimony of those who came before. And we must leave a testimony for us, and for those who will come after us. How?
3. We must tell the story of the Lord's testimony through the ages. The story has been forgotten. To finish this part of the task, some of us will have to become writers. The Pilgrim Church, and The Torch of the Testimony are antiquated, out of date, limited and unreadable. Bob Wilson of Arlington, Texas has taken responsibility for getting this story written, but you are needed. We have an unfinished task.
4. We must not lose our songs. We need a "living" songbook with each and every church sending its most loved songs to one person who will see that it is made available to all the churches. John and Betty Kapple, Phil Warmanen and Jennifer Vasiliades will become the first stewards of that charge.
5. I have asked that each church purchase and lay a bronze plaque on a concrete pedestal at the Roanoke retreat grounds until we have one for each of the following groups who carried the torch of the testimony. (The Priscillianists, The Celtic Church (and Columba) The Cathars (Paulicians & Bogamils), The Waldenses, John Wycliffe (and the Lollards), A memorial to all who died in Smithfield, England, The Brethren, Bakht Singh, Prem Pradham, The United Brethren, The Anabaptists, William Tyndale, Jeanne Guyon, The Moravians, The Little Flock, and John Huss)
6. We also discussed the future of the Roanoke retreat center: that we must not lose what we have experienced at Roanoke. We have passed the charge to Nick Vasiliades and David O'Connor to keep Roanoke and to minister what God has given us. Also, at Roanoke, we need a bath/shower building.
7. As we discussed the future of SeedSowers, then came the unexpected. One of our sisters donated her home to be given to the Lord's work (to SeedSowers), upon her death. Then another unexpected event occurred! Let me explain.

It has to do with where some of us (now) plan to be buried. That is, leave a lasting visitable place of our testimony for other generations, along with the plaques and memorial pedestals at Roanoke.

To begin, I told what it is like to walk through the cemetery of the Moravians at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Their headstones tell how they lived and died for the Lord and His gospel. I then talked about a cemetery very near the Roanoke retreat grounds. It would be a short walk to visit the cemetery and read our headstones! There are now twenty-two people (including Helen and me) who have decided to be buried there. I have a notion the number of those joining us will grow.

For those who are buried there? You will neither be buried alone, nor will you be forgotten!!

We also will set a time capsule at Roanoke. It will be planted on the crest of the hill on the retreat grounds. There the capsule will be opened every twenty-five years. This (large capsule) will be filled with mementos and memorabilia of our part of the testimony.

As we write the history of Christians who lived before us we will place a plaque at the geographical location where these groups were born. The location will be noted in each one of the history books we write about these people. To illustrate: we plan to place a plaque on the Island of Iona where Columba and the Celtic churches were first born.

We have about seventeen of these plaques to create. There will be seventeen at Roanoke and duplicates at the places where these people had their beginnings.

One more request - and it is one we did not cover at the conference: to ask each church at the conference to write a brief history of your church, recounting your past up until right now. Then select someone to keep a diary - or chronicle - of your church on into the future (to be passed on with each generation).

Then there is the part about Nick Vasiliades' and David O'Conner's funerals!! I asked everyone to...

Well, ask those who attended the conference to explain this to you!

You will hear a message on "What will be lost if this work dies soon after my death."

Please listen to that message carefully, as we listed those things that are in our care...the contributions God has given to us...for us to pass on to the present and future generations.

If we should lose all this...that is a sobering thought, indeed.

But one of the highlights of the conference came just after that final message was delivered. One of our young people, Stephen Beebe (age 16) said, "Should we fold up, there is one more thing that will be lost. My children will not be able to grow up in church life."

I have rarely ever been so touched. But it did not end there. Later, Tim O'Dell, who is one of the twenty-two who have said they will be buried in the Roanoke cemetery said, "Stephen, I want you to be the one who buries me at Roanoke."

Quite a number of us wept!! (Including Stephen.)

Such was the conference. Please come up with a plan to hear the messages I brought at the conference. After that, contact me about a future date for coming to visit you. I look forward to working with you toward completing A Task Unfinished.

Your brother in His bonds,

Gene