YIB (Your Intrepid Blogger) will be on the road this coming week, so expect blogposts from outposts.
Saturday we’re in Columbus, OH, for a Heralds of Grace function. Sunday morning we have an opportunity to explain BMH ministry a bit with Pastor Jim Custer and his good folk at the Worthington church, and we’ll meet with a prospective BMH Books author from the Columbus church afterward, along with BMH board member Liz Cutler Gates and her husband.
Monday is a board meeting for the Brethren Encyclopedia Board at Ashland Seminary. These meetings with representatives of the other five “Alexander Mack Descendant Groups” are always interesting. One topic we’ll discuss is observance of the 300th anniversary of the Brethren movement in 2008. It was in 1708 that Alexander Mack baptized the first Brethren in Schwarzenau, Germany, and GBIM’s Ted Rondeau is working with us to include Schwarzenau in a Brethren historical tour in 2008. Save your money and get your passport-we’d love to have you join in that trip.
Tuesday and Wednesday we’ll be in Lititz, PA, to meet with Association of Grace Brethren Ministers (AGBM) officers and district examining personnel for a “Certification Summit.” We’ll be discussing proposals and options issuing from the good work of Dr. Jerry Young, who has been doing research and development work on, among other things, the licensing and ordination procedures for Grace Brethren ministry personnel. You’ll hear more of this.
Later in the week we’ll meet in eastern Pennsylvania with reps of several national marketing groups we’re working with on BMH Books. We’ll make an announcement soon, but a “sneak preview” is that we’ve just entered a marketing agreement to get BMH Books widely distributed through chains of bookstores, both Christian and secular.
And finally, we swing by Kittanning, Pennsylvania, my home town, to do some preparatory work for a gala BMH Books event to be held Sunday, June 11. On that day pastor Mark Cornwell and the Kittanning congregation will host a “Walking Like Jesus Did Day” in which the focus will be on the message of Larry McCall’s BMH book of the same name.
Sunday morning we’ll have music by the Whites and preaching by McCall, and in the afternoon there will be a gala book premiere and autograph-signing party to which you’re all invited. Since we’re all Kittanning natives, this event–thought up by my wife–seemed a good opportunity to celebrate what God is doing through the book (which, incidentally, you may purchase online at www.bmhbooks.com or by calling toll-free 1-800-348-2756).
If all goes well, we’ll be back in Winona Lake on Friday for a meeting of the natorg heads to pray, update, and strategize together. You’ll be hearing from YIB enroute! 
