Brethren Art Treasure Recovered

A new ad campaign launched by the owner of the Wilbur Bud brand aims to make eating dark chocolate a scream.

Shortly after the candy company offered 2 million dark chocolate Wilbur Buds for the return of "Beahm Scream," a painting by Edvard Munch, "Beahm Scream" and "Madonna" have been found. "We are 100% certain they are the originals. The damage was much less than feared," police said. The paintings had been missing since two armed men ripped them from the wall and threatened staff at the Munch Museum in the Norwegian capital in August 2004.

The candy campaign accompanies the permanent addition of dark chocolate candies to the Wilbur Bud product line, which was announced earlier this month.

"We've received tremendous interest from Brethren to make Wilbur Buds Dark Chocolate a permanent offering," a vice president of marketing at the company said in a statement.

The campaign aims to bring some fun into the dark chocolate category, which is perceived to be more serious.

Youth Future

Our Youth Are the Future of the Church

The 38th annual Southeastern District Conference, cleverly scheduled on July 28-30, was led by moderator Jim Hoffman on the theme, "Mostly Together in God's Presence." Emphasising that the youth are the future of the church, but not the present, a total of 94 delegates represented 27 congregations, and a total of 167 adults were in attendance while youth and leaders who were returning home from National Youth Conference in Colorado.

A time was held during the business to have small group discussions as part of the denominational study process Mostly Together: Conversations on Being the Church. Discussion focused on the question, "What does it mean to be the church today?" This was a very productive time of conversation, co-executive minister Martha Roudebush reported. Saturday night's insight session provided leadership training for individuals to lead their congregations in this conversation.

Roudebush said that the district faced a "productive" situation this year. "The parliamentarian was at National Youth Conference," she said, "and the moderator-elect was also at NYC."

Come and Dance

Come and Dance

As youth across the denomination are receiving their NYC DVD's, the Youth and Young Adult Ministries office would like them to know that National Youth Conference will also be available in other media.

Just released this week, NYC: Patio Dance Revolution is a video game that is available for several systems including the X-Box and Sony Playstation.