Sesquicentennial Celebration

There are no words to express the depth of my gratitude for the many, many ways that the Lord revealed His tangible presence and power in our midst this past weekend during our 2021 Ministry Conference.  Just to mention a few highlights …

• The Holy Spirit clearly anointed the ministry of our guest speakers (Brockie Follette, Jim Le Shana, and Rusty Savage) during our general sessions. Each message was delivered with equal measures of Christ-like clarity, compassion, and courage.  If you missed any of them or would like to hear them again, just click here.
• Our opening session on Friday evening included a special time of recognition for David and Carol Kingrey, who recently completed over 16 years of faithful service at the helm of the Church Leadership Institute for Ministry (CLIM).
• The morning session on Saturday included the reception of St. Paul Friends (Nepali/Bhutanese) into full church status after completing their journey to maturity with our Home Mission Board.
• The evening session on Saturday included the re-commissioning of the Carpenter family (Brad, Chelsea, Sarai, Gideon, and Ian) as they prepare to return to Rwanda for another term of missionary service with EFM.
• Our closing Community Worship Celebration on Sunday morning, held at the historic Alumni Auditorium, included a recording ceremony for three of our dear friends and colleagues (Brockie Follette, Todd Follette, and J.C. James).
• Each of our meetings for worship in which business is conducted (ministry team gatherings, area gatherings, representative gathering) also went very well, as did our children’s conference and ministry fair, and our times of gathered worship and fellowship were rich, as usual.
• Our sesquicentennial fund-raising campaign got off to a good start, as we collected the first $5,000 towards our total goal of $150,000.  These funds will be divided equally in providing critical support for the three core pillars of our corporate mission statement: Church Health (“Whole CHURCH,” i.e., “Jerusalem”), Home Missions (“Whole GOSPEL,” i.e., “Judea and Samaria”), and Global Outreach (“Whole WORLD,” i.e., “ends of the earth”).
• Special thanks goes out to our faithful partners at Friends University, including President Amy Carey, for their gracious hospitality and excellent service. 

It’s hard to imagine a better start to our year-long sesquicentennial celebration, which will culminate a year from now at our 2022 Ministry Conference in Lawrence during the last weekend in July, where we will gather for the 151st yearly meeting of the Evangelical Friends Church here in Mid America.  Lord willing, we hope to hold mini-celebrations in each of our seven areas at some point during the coming year as well in anticipation of our historic gathering next summer.  Please join me in praying that the coming year will be set apart in each of our churches as a special season of hopeful preparation for a fresh visitation of the Lord, one that will produce the fruit of genuine repentance and spark an authentic, sustainable movement of ongoing spiritual renewal in our midst for many years to come.

Maranatha!  Come, Lord Jesus!

– David O. Williams, Lead Superintendent