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The house Charles Beeghley has lived in for nearly every minute of his life has a living room where energy-saving light bulbs mingle with a robust wood-burning stove.

Off the living room, a computer peeks out from an office space. There’s no Internet on the computer, so forget checking your e-mail. There’s no television in the house either.

With their plain clothes of slacks and modest dresses, bonnets and black hats, Beeghley and his family have been mistaken for the Amish or Mennonites. They’re not. But they’re not offended, either.

The Beeghleys are members of the Old German Baptist Brethren.

Beeghley was elected one of the Willow Springs congregation’s ministers back in 1992. He’ll serve for life with three other ministers, one of whom is Darrell Shuck, Beeghley’s cousin and a minister since 1960.

“Charles and I share the same great-great grandfather,” Shuck says. “(We’re) probably third cousins.”

That great-great grandfather, Jacob Ullrich, was the first of the brethren to come to Kansas when he traveled from Indiana, eventually settling near Pleasant Grove, where the brethren’s first Kansas church was built. Today, 65 members keep the church, the Willow Springs Old German Baptist Brethren Church, going.

The congregation, many of them tracing their roots to Ullrich too, will be at the forefront of the brethren this weekend, as thousands of members and their families gather for an annual conference.

Membership

What the members share, besides possibly some similar relatives, is a late-in-life baptism. Like all Anabaptists, the Old German Baptist Brethren does not believe in infantile baptism. They believe a person must understand the full weight of becoming a member of the congregation.

“You just feel like you need to make a change,” Beeghley says. “You feel if you stay on the path that you’re on, it won’t be good in the end of things. We believe in a heaven and we believe in a hell and there are two places and two choices. All people have to fall under one or the other. We believe in salvation through Jesus Christ, the New Testament teaching, that would be our creed, in the New Testament.”

Beeghley was 22 when he says he was ready to make that change. For Shuck, the pull to become a member was more immediate. He was 14 when he was baptized, which the brethren does by trine immersion, which means a person’s body is submerged in water three times in the name of the Holy Trinity — giving them the nickname “the Dunkers.”

As soon as a person has repented and been baptized, he or she becomes a member and therefore begins to adhere to the brethren’s ban on “worldly influences” such as television, radio, stereo, the Internet and modern fashions. Cell phones, answering machines and cars get the group’s OK because they are deemed useful.

The conference

Modern technology and more will be discussed as part of a business meeting Tuesday at the close of the annual Old German Baptist Brethren Conference, which begins today and takes place on Beeghley’s farm at 1164 N. 650 Road.

A field on his property has been clear of his crops of soybeans, corn and wheat since his property was chosen at the 2008 conference site two years ago. About 5,000 people — members and nonmembers alike — are expected to descend on the farm today. It’s the first time the conference has taken place in Douglas County since 1970.

The yearly conference allows the brethren to come together as one to worship, participate in fellowship and make sure they are all on the same page, which they will do in Tuesday’s business meeting. During that meeting they will decide how to answer questions that have come up during the year, ensuring that they all will abide by the same answer.

“It might be doctrinal, just a question, you know, ‘Should we do this?’ or ‘Should we have this?’ and it’s answered by the big congregation,” Beeghley says.

The group says these yearly meetings are modeled after a meeting in Jerusalem in Acts 15 in the New Testament. In much the same way as in the New Testament, the brethren’s meeting is designed to create a unified belief and ideology among the 56 congregations in the United States. Beeghley says the members know it is best for everyone to streamline their ideas — you can’t have one congregation saying the Internet is OK to use and others saying it isn’t acceptable.

“We have our own ideas, when you come together, obviously some people have to submit,” Beeghley says. “Nobody likes to submit, but it’s good for all of us.”

That sort of thought has kept the brethren going for 300 years. The group can trace its roots to 1708 in Schwarzenau, Germany, where Alexander Mack laid the foundation for their way of life.

“People are welcome to ask questions or find out the truth,” Beeghley says. “Find out there’s plenty of affirmation, plenty of history behind it.”