I have just returned from a road trip that took me to the Lilly Endowment in Indianapolis, Anderson University and School of Theology in Anderson, Indiana, Earlham College and Bethany Seminary in Richmond, Indiana, and United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.
It was a wonderful, productive trip and I will report on it in a series of articles; but first here is the news about the preaching camp at Richmond.
The camp is scheduled for June 13-18. Housing and meals will be in the Quaker Hill Conference Center near the campus of Earlham College. Earlham College has a long and honored connection with the Quaker communities in the United States. It was the home base of the influential writer and theologian Elton Trueblood and more recently the institutional home of Richard Foster.
Quakerism was at the forefront of the abolition movement a century and a half ago; Earlham and vicinity were important stops on the Underground Railroad. So part of our mid-week excursion during the preaching camp will be to visit the Underground Railroad reenactment center called “Follow the North Star.”
Official host of the camp is Bethany Seminary, a school of the Church of the Brethren. Daniel Rudy is one of their second year students; he preached at the inaugural Festival of Young Preachers this past January and was later accepted onto the 2010 Young Preacher Leadership Team.
The daily preaching will be in the chapel of the seminary; and I will post some video of that chapel and the seminary on our Facebook page. All the Dogwood trees were in spectacular bloom this week and the sun was bright and warm. The campus is beautiful and the facilities are perfect. Adjacent to Bethany is the Earlham School of Religion whose staff and facilities are also available if needed.
Two Bethany students, Katie and Parker Thompson, will serve as our Camp Coordinators, arranging our field trip, planning the worship services, and managing the registration table. Like Daniel Rudy, they are from Pennsylvania. Katie and Parker will also participate in the camp as young preachers.
We have other young preachers coming from Atlanta, Indianapolis, Chicago, and perhaps Cincinnati and elsewhere. Registration is still open for the Richmond camp and registration forms can be found elsewhere on this web site. Cost is only $200 for the week. Richmond, Indiana is one hour west of Dayton, Ohio along Interstate 70.