Church of the Brethren - Illinois & Wisconsin District

06/16/2026

June/July 2026 District Newsletter

06/16/2026

The Village ILWIDIot
Walt Wiltschek

“When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” —Psalm 11:3, NIV

My vacation travels earlier this month took me to Eastern Europe, exploring some bits of family heritage as well as some places that had long been on my list to see.

One stop that covered both those aims was a difficult one: The Auschwitz memorial sites, in the Polish town of Oświęcim. I approached it with both anticipation and dread, wanting to learn but also wary of the emotional load such a visit would carry. More than a million people died at the Auschwitz camps during World War II, most of them Jews. The site also had a profound impact on the surrounding town and villages, with thousands of homes destroyed and many people displaced.

Seeing the railroad cars still on the tracks that led to extermination, the remains of gas chambers, and still-standing wooden barracks looking forlorn and almost haunted in open fields was a potent experience. While I think most of my own ancestors died in other camps, the echoes of what they and so many others must have experienced rang loudly.

Since returning, someone asked me what it was like, and I couldn’t really describe it adequately. I still haven’t found the right words for what I felt. But one that kept recurring while I was there was likely a common one: “How?” How could the world have let this happen? How would it have felt for those in the midst of it all? How did people hold on to any hope?

I also visited Oskar Schindler’s factory site in Kraków, another place surrounded by stories of death, but one with an undercurrent of life. Schindler’s efforts, as famously portrayed in the Steven Spielberg film, saved the lives of 1,200 Jewish people he was able to keep employed in his factories. While Schindler was far from a perfect individual, his tomb in Jerusalem bears the inscription “Righteous among the nations” because of his ultimate actions.

Perhaps that is one answer, or part of an answer, to “How?” In the face of evil, we do what we can. In the face of injustice, we find ways to change the rules of the game. We might not always be able to prevent terrible things from happening, but we don’t turn away, and we don’t let the terrible-ness consume us.

I wonder, decades from now, how people will look back on the events of our own time. As Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel wrote, “The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference.” What does “righteousness” look like today?

My vacation travels earlier this month took me to Eastern Europe, exploring some bits of family heritage as well as some places that had long been on my list to see.

06/16/2026

THE COURAGE TO IMAGINE
by Jocelyn Watkins, 2026 Illinois/Wisconsin District moderator

“I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you” (2 Timothy 1:6)

“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:17-18)

Beloved in Christ,

Every year, Annual Conference themes arrive long before the gathering itself, quietly working their way into our conversations, worship planning, newsletters, and expectations. The more I sit with this year’s theme, “Imagine!”, drawn from Acts 2:17-18, the more timely it seems. Perhaps that is because imagination feels increasingly difficult in a world so practiced at anticipating conflict, decline, disappointment, and division. Fear, after all, requires very little imagination. We encounter it in headlines, political rhetoric, and in the anxieties many congregations quietly carry about attendance, finances, aging membership, and the future itself. Over time, it becomes easy to speak the language of scarcity more fluently than the language of possibility.

When the Spirit is poured out in Acts 2, it is not upon people who feel secure, settled, or certain about what comes next. The disciples are living under occupation and political tension. They are navigating uncertainty, grief, confusion, and the lingering disorientation that follows upheaval. And still, into that reality, the Spirit speaks through visions, dreams, prophecy, courage, and community. “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,” Peter declares. “Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”

Peter’s description of the Spirit’s work in Acts 2 is remarkably communal. The young are seeing visions. The old are dreaming dreams. Sons and daughters prophesy, and servants receive the Spirit. Imagination, in Peter’s telling, is not reserved for a select few. The Spirit is poured out broadly across the community, and the miracle unfolding in that moment is not simply that people are speaking. The miracle is that people are hearing one another, each in their own language, across difference and distance in ways that should not have been easily possible.

I wonder sometimes whether we still expect the Spirit to work like that among us. Too often, I suspect we have become more practiced at imagining what the church is losing than imagining what the Holy Spirit may still be capable of doing within and through us. We know how to talk about shrinking attendance, aging buildings, limited budgets, and uncertain futures. Those realities deserve our attention. I wonder whether we devote the same energy to imagining what faithfulness, renewal, and Spirit-led community might look like in the years ahead. We grow fluent in the language of decline, anticipating conflict before conversation has even begun and assuming younger generations are disinterested while older generations feel unheard. Before long, our attention turns toward protecting what remains rather than discerning what new thing God may still be unfolding in our midst.

Again and again, our Brethren story has unfolded in seasons of uncertainty, carried forward by ordinary people willing to gather, listen, ask difficult questions, and trust the Spirit's guidance through community and discernment. Perhaps that, too, is part of what it means to be “Kindled Anew.”

Rekindling may begin with recovering the courage to imagine differently: congregations where disagreement does not immediately become division, where younger and older voices listen to one another with genuine curiosity, and where communities are known not only for surviving difficult times, but for embodying hope, generosity, patience, and peace within them. Imagination itself may be a kind of spiritual discipline, because what we imagine inevitably shapes how we live. Congregations shaped primarily by narratives of decline often begin behaving defensively and fearfully. Congregations that expect the Spirit to remain active among them often begin asking different questions. They may become more willing to listen, to experiment, to make room for voices that have not always been heard, and to believe that faithfulness and future are not the same thing as institutional preservation.

As we gather for Annual Conference this month, and as we continue our life together in the weeks that follow, my hope is that we will carry some of that imagination with us. Not imagination detached from reality, but imagination deeply rooted in the conviction that the Holy Spirit has not stopped speaking, not stopped stirring, and not stopped kindling new life among God's people.

In a season that so often encourages fear, suspicion, exhaustion, and retreat, one of the most faithful things we can do may be to remain open to the possibility that God is still doing more than we can presently see. If that is true, what might our congregations notice, nurture, or attempt differently?

“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; a...

06/14/2026

🙏Week of June 14:
Pray for the Cerro Gordo Church of the Brethren congregation, and for the work of the Church of the Brethren Ministry Office as it equips and supports pastors across the denomination.

06/07/2026

🙏Week of June 7:
Pray for Camp Emmanuel near Astoria and another season of camping by the lake. Pray for all the children and youth coming there this summer for residential and day camps, and for managers Don and Kelly Davis (Woodland).

05/31/2026

🙏Week of May 31:
Pray for the Martin Creek congregation near Fairfield, and for the “FaithX” service trips that will take youth and others to a locations around the country and in Northern Ireland to serve this summer.

05/24/2026

🙏Week of May 24:
Pray for all the historic cemeteries maintained in various locations by our congregations, such as Coal Creek near Canton and the Emmert Cemetery of the former Franklin Grove church, as they continue to provide places for remembering and reflection. Pray this week for all those who have lost people close to them, that their memories might be a blessing.

05/17/2026

🙏Week of May 17:
Pray for the district’s Program and Arrangements Committee as it works on plans for this year’s district conference, and for the denominational Young Adult Conference taking place May 22-24 at Pennsylvania’s Camp Blue Diamond.

05/13/2026

The Village ILWIDIot
Walt Wiltschek

“So let’s strive for the things that bring peace and the things that build each other up.” — Romans 14:19, CEB

Two conversations recently have lingered in my mind.

Last weekend I had a chance to visit with long-time peace activists Bob and Rachel Gross at Chicago First’s 101st anniversary celebration (see more on the celebration below). In the course of our chat, Bob mentioned his experience as a conscientious objector. He was arrested as a non-registrant during the Vietnam War while visiting here in Illinois and spent some time in the Kankakee prison before some kind, local Brethren put up the deed to their home for his bail. He’s gone on to create a long legacy of peacemaking and reconciliation ministries in the church.

Just after that, I did an interview with Brethren folksinger Andy Murray, looking back at his song “Brave Man from Ohio” for a forthcoming Messenger article. The song is about Ted Studebaker, a Church of the Brethren member and conscientious objector from the Dayton area who refused to fight in Vietnam because of his beliefs. Studebaker volunteered instead to go as an agricultural worker and teacher with Vietnamese Christian Service. He was killed in Vietnam in 1971, 55 years ago this spring. Andy’s song memorably lifts up Ted’s witness: “Give me a shovel instead of a gun … And if I die, I’ll die making something instead of tearing something down.”

As we find ourselves again in a time of war—as has happened too often in our history—what does it look like now to honor our denomination’s historic peace church position? Brethren have never been completely of one mind (at least not for a couple of centuries) on exactly what our peace stance means in times of war, but the strength of that countercultural message seems to have waned much further in recent decades. Perhaps because we don’t have an active draft or perhaps simply because our core beliefs have become more diluted, I feel like I hear less and less of that call to be active peacemakers and show a different way of living.

While the sledgehammer of war and violence pounds incessantly around us, sacrificing too many lives on its anvil of destruction, our heritage raises a different vision—a different possibility. What will you create today?

05/13/2026

WHAT WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN

by Jocelyn Watkins, 2026 Illinois/Wisconsin District moderator

“I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you” (2 Timothy 1:6)

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

Beloved in Christ,

Over the past several weeks, it has felt increasingly difficult to avoid the headlines. Reports of missile strikes, political threats, military movements, nations posturing, old conflicts resurfacing, new ones emerging. … The names and places change, but the rhythm feels familiar: people standing at the edge of fear, uncertainty, and violence, trying to convince themselves that power will somehow bring peace. I have found myself reading these stories with scripture in one hand and our Brethren story in the other, and I find myself wondering what, exactly, we have been given for moments like this. When the world grows louder with the language of fear, retaliation, and certainty, what does it mean to be a people whose story has always pointed in another direction?

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul writes, “I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you” (2 Timothy 1:6). The word rekindle has been lingering with me. One does not rekindle something entirely new. One rekindles something already present, something perhaps neglected, something that may have quieted beneath the weight of ordinary responsibilities, difficult seasons, unanswered questions, or the slow accumulation of life itself. And so, I find myself asking: What gifts have been sitting quietly in our hands all along, waiting to be remembered?

I have been thinking, too, about inheritance and about what was placed into our hands long before any of us ever stood behind a pulpit, served on a ministry team, chaired a committee, attended district conference, or found ourselves navigating difficult conversations in our congregations. Long before any of that, we inherited a witness.

In 1708, in Schwarzenau, our spiritual forebears gathered in a world that was hardly peaceful. They knew political instability and religious coercion. They understood the pressures of empire, the dangers of division, and the temptation to secure peace through power. Yet into that world, they chose a different way. They chose baptism as an act of conscious discipleship. They chose simplicity when excess offered status. They chose community when individualism offered autonomy. They chose service when ambition offered recognition. They chose peace when violence offered certainty.

Perhaps most strikingly, when they disagreed—and surely they did—they chose to remain in relationship long enough to listen for the Spirit. I find myself wondering what our forebears would recognize in us if they sat quietly in one of our board meetings, worship services, kitchen table conversations, or online exchanges. Would they recognize the same patience? The same humility? The same willingness to stay with one another when clarity does not come quickly?

That question lingers with me, because for us, consensus has never simply been a method of conducting church business, nor merely a slower way of making decisions. Consensus, for us, is theological. It is rooted in the belief that truth is not something we conquer, defend, or possess, but something we discern together through humility, patience, prayer, scripture, and community. Discernment takes time. It takes the willingness to listen deeply. It takes the courage to admit that even our strongest convictions may still have something to learn. It takes the grace to remain at the table, especially when walking away might feel easier.

I wonder if that witness matters now more than ever, because the violence we encounter in the headlines rarely stays on the news. It has a way of finding its way into our conversations, our assumptions, our politics, our social media feeds, our congregational meetings, and our homes. If we are not careful, it can also find its way into our spirits. Long before violence ever becomes physical, it often begins in smaller ways: in our impatience, in our defensiveness, in our unwillingness to listen, in our need to be right, in our quiet dismissal of those whose experiences, perspectives, or convictions differ from our own. And if that is true, then where does peacemaking actually begin?

Jesus, of course, never promised that peacemaking would be easy. He simply called it blessed. “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9). I have been sitting with the word peacemakers, because Jesus does not seem to be describing those who appreciate peace when circumstances allow for it, or who speak about peace so long as it costs them very little. He seems to be describing something far more active, and perhaps far more costly: people willing to step into tension without becoming consumed by it, people willing to ask one more question when assumptions would come more easily, people willing to listen long enough for understanding to begin taking root, and people willing to remain in relationship even when resolution does not come quickly. I suspect our Brethren forebears understood something of that, and I find myself wondering if the Spirit may be inviting us not simply to admire that witness, but to practice it.

Perhaps rekindling does not always look like discovering something new. Perhaps, more often than not, rekindling looks like remembering what has been in our hands all along.

Over the past several weeks, it has felt increasingly difficult to avoid the headlines. Reports of missile strikes, political threats, military movements, nations posturing, old conflicts resurfacing, new ones emerging. … The names and places change, but the rhythm feels familiar: people standing ...