Report of the Historical Committee of the Bible Fellowship Church

   The Historical Committee met twice during this conference year. The projects on which it is working are proceeding at a steady but slow pace. Much of the work of the Historical Committee requires a great deal of time. Because the work is done by those who have full time responsibilities in ministry, the work proceeds at a gradual pace.

   Harold Shelly continues work on the history that will be a complete telling of the story of the Bible Fellowship Church. He has full time responsibilities at teaching and is limited in what he can do. We continue to work toward the completion of this project though at this time there is no foreseeable conclusion.

   Richard Taylor has been working on the final editing of the unpublished minutes of our church from 1858 to 1896. This project has been in the work for about 8 years. It is expected that the manuscript will be sent to a printer in January or February of next year.

   The Historical Committee purchased a new fire resistant cabinet to increase the capacity for storing records that are being received into the archives. This cabinet allows us to store more of the irreplaceable records which we possess.

   The Historical Committee is encouraged by the interest shown by other historical groups. The Bible Fellowship Church was represented by Richard Taylor and Daniel Ziegler at a Mennonite Conference in November of 1987. As a result, the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society has published Taylor’s paper on William Gehman and anticipates publishing Ziegler’s paper on Eusebius Hershey, our first missionary.

   The Historical Committee continues to collect the documents that are so important to understanding the development of our church. Each church and each board or committee should place its past records and minutes in the archives for storage and future reference. If you wish to place materials in the archives, contact archivist Richard Taylor.

Historical Committee: Bright N. Heist (chairman), Richard E. Taylor (secretary), Ralph D. Cole (treasurer), Daniel G. Ziegler, Willard E. Cassel, Harold Shelly.

   The following recommendations are presented to the 105th Annual Conference:

RESOLVED: That group pictures be taken of the participants of the 105th Annual Conference of the Bible Fellowship Church.

RESOLVED: That group pictures be taken of the participants of Annual Conference every four years hereafter.