Report of the Historical Committee

                  The Historical Committee met three times to fulfill its duties during the past conference year.

                  The major item of activity this year has been the long anticipated publishing of the minutes of our conference from 1859-1895. The final work is entitled Verhandlungen 1859-1895. The word, Verhandlungen, means proceedings and is a clear indication of what is contained in the book. We are delighted that the book will be made available during this session of Annual Conference. It is the desire of the committee that members of the Bible Fellowship Church will now be able to have access to our “roots” and understand the development of our church.

                  The work of collecting relevant historical materials in our archives continues. Each year sees the addition of church records and individual items to our collection. Each church should consider placing its minutes and other records prior to 20 years ago in the archives where they will be protected, preserved, and available for study.

                  The Historical Society, which was formed as an outgrowth of the Historical Committee, continues to grow and find interested persons. This years’s society meeting will be held on November 4, in the Quakertown Church, and will feature the presentation of two papers, one the history of the Quakertown Church by Jim Roth and the other on the life of W. G. Gehman by Richard E. Taylor.

                  The next immediate project of the Historical Committee will be the binding of a set of Year Books. When this task is complete, there will be two sets of bound Year Books for the years 1896-1965.

                  Dr. Harold Shelly continues to work on the writing of a history of our church. This project is sorely limited by lack of time and financial resources. It is still the desire of the Committee to bring this work to completion though it is difficult to predict when that completion will occur.

                  Several churches have been celebrating anniversaries this year. The Archives was able to supply background information to York, Cedar Crest and Royersford as they planned their anniversary celebrations. Anniversary services are an excellent tool to encourage congregations in their work and show the community that we are not “fly by night” groups. Make use of the resources of the Archives.

The Historical Committee: Bright N. Heist, Chairman; Richard E. Taylor, Secretary; Ralph D. Cole, Treasurer; Daniel G. Ziegler; Willard E. Cassel; Harold P. Shelly.