Dennis Loyd served as a teacher, professor and administrator for more than five decades at the Nashville, Tenn., university and its neighboring K-12 school, both associated with Churches of Christ. From the time he was a college student, Loyd preached for Churches of Christ across Middle Tennessee. For 23 years he served as an elder of the Granny White Church of Christ, now the Church of Christ in Green Hills.

Dennis Loyd, right, visits with David England, former news bureau director for Lipscomb University, and Jimmy McCollum, communications professor, during a celebration of 100 years of student journalism at Lipscomb in 2023.

From 1996 until earlier this year, he served as associate editor of Gospel Advocate publications.

Visitation is scheduled for noon to 2 p.m. Thursday, May 30, followed by a memorial service at 2 p.m. at the Church of Christ in Green Hills, 3805 Granny White Pike, Nashville, TN 37204.

Loyd taught in the high school at Lipscomb Academy from 1959 to 1968 before he moved to the university, where he served as chair of the English department and as dean of students. Lipscomb students knew Loyd as a strict-yet-compassionate disciplinarian who also had a sincere love for literature and the arts. He coordinated the spring Singarama musicals at Lipscomb and appeared in student productions including “Arsenic and Old Lace” and “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” University officials named Loyd a Lipscomb Legend in 2005 and he received the Mustang Alumni Award from Lipscomb Academy in 2023.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

The post Lipscomb legend Dennis ‘Dean’ Loyd dies at 87 appeared first on The Christian Chronicle.

But this one, Ukrainian Christians said, feels like a triumph.

Anna Ivanova

Anna Ivanova, who survived the Nazi occupation in World War II and nearly seven decades under the Soviet Union, died May 14 in her home in Kramatorsk — about 10 miles from the front lines of Russia’s invasion. She was 100.

She may have been “the oldest Christian in Ukraine,” said Jeff Abrams, minister for the Tuscumbia Church of Christ in Alabama.

Anna Ivanova takes notes during a Bible study in Kramatorsk, Ukraine.

“She refused our many offers to evacuate to a safer area,” said Abrams, who makes multiple trips to the Eastern European nation each year and directs Rescue Ukraine, which provides shelter, heat, food and medical assistance to Christians in Ukraine and refugees spread across Europe and the U.S. 

“She said she survived the Germans and would survive the Russians,” Abrams said of Ivanova, who also told the minister, “my next stop will be heaven.”

Ivanova grew up under Soviet atheism. “Her true love died during World War II,” Abrams said, “and she never married anyone but Jesus.”

She responded to the Gospel message when missionaries from Churches of Christ began working in eastern Ukraine after independence in 1991. Abrams baptized her in her bathtub in 1995.

Anna Ivanova and Jeff Abrams.

“She refused our many offers to evacuate to a safer area. She said she survived the Germans and would survive the Russians (and that her) next stop will be in heaven.”

Kate Gladkykh, a member of the Church of Christ in Kramatorsk, remembered asking Ivanova why she decided to get baptized. 

“She said that once she realized how sin is all about death and God is all about life, there was no doubt in her mind she wanted to be with God,” Gladkykh said.

Anna Ivanova chats with fellow Ukrainian Christians during a fellowship meal in Kramatorsk, Ukraine.

Ivanova was part of the first generation of Churches of Christ in what minister Oleksandr Rodichev called “post-atheist” Ukraine. Christianity was new and missionaries from America were a novelty. Many Ukrainians were baptized.

“But not all of the first ones kept the faith,” Rodichev said. “Many of the first ones passed away a long time ago. Not all showed diligence, and not all grew spiritually as they should.

“‘I’m thankful for those who have been faithful before me because they are why we have Christians in Ukraine now. Anna is an excellent example of a servant who loved the church and was involved in the church’s hospitality.”

“This is the last picture of me and Anna,” said minister Oleksandr Rodichev, left. He visited Ivanova at her home in Kramatorsk after a bomb attack. “Her home was entirely undamaged.”

In Kramatorsk, Ivanova cooked meals for the congregation and maintained dozens of flower arrangements in the church building.

“Every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday she’d be at the building checking on everything and making sure it was taken care of,” said Gladkykh, who now lives in Alabama and worships with the Tuscumbia church. “Then, when she started getting sick more often, I remember her writing all of the rules of how to take care of our flowers and plants.”

Anna Ivanova celebrates her 100th birthday in January 2024 with the Kramatorsk Church of Christ.

The end result was a “pretty big notebook” of rules, Gladkykh said, and Ivanova decided to give the instructions to a young Christian named Rita. Ivanova “wanted somebody really responsible and involved, so not so many candidates were suited for this position. But Rita was!” 

When the Russian invasion began, many church members fled west to Ukrainian cities farther from the front lines or to the nations of the European Union. Ivanova decided to stay, despite the pounding of artillery shells. 

A block away from her apartment, buildings lie in ruins. 

An apartment building stands in ruins one block away from Anna Ivanova’s home in Kramatorsk, Ukraine.

On Jan. 25, the church members who remain in Kramatorsk celebrated her 100th birthday.

She admired Abrams and Kramatorsk minister Vladimir “Vova” Paziy for “their ability to bring God’s Word to people’s hearts,” Gladkykh said. “I remember one time seeing her getting emotional about one of Jeff’s sermons. To me it was surprising, because Jeff talked about how sinful we all are and how we need to confess our sins to each other and to God. 

“I remember (Ivanova) saying how true that is,” Gladkykh said, “but, honestly, she is the purest person I have ever known!”

Anna Ivanova sits between ministers Vladimir Paziy, left, and Vitaly Rodichev in Kramatorsk, Ukraine.

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It’s just one of the famous, or maybe infamous, one-liners for which Monty Daffern was known.

Over nearly 30 years, thousands of students who passed through the Oklahoma State University campus ministry — dubbed “UC@OKState” — at the Stillwater Church of Christ heard Monty share those words.

I was one of them. 

From fall 2000 to spring 2004, I was blessed to be a part of that ministry. Monty was, for many of us, the builder of the bridge that took us from the faith to which we were born into the faith we could claim as our own. 

He taught us how to see God not in the words of our parents but in our own lives. And he taught us the importance of growing that faith wherever we go — to “worship where you are,” as he told us in his “Going Home” sermon at the end of every semester.

It’s hard to know how many lives Monty touched, but now that he’s gone, it’s heartbreaking to think how many will miss out on the chance to learn from, laugh with and be loved by him.

Monty was called to his eternal home on May 13, 2024, at the age of 54. He was born Oct. 31, 1969, to Gary and Jeannie Daffern. He grew up in Hooker, Okla., with his sister, Tonya, and brother, Casey.

Monty had attended Oklahoma State University in the early 1990s. As he wavered in his faith, he found the University Center at the Stillwater church a place to belong and grow. He went on to attend Abilene Christian University, where he received his Master’s in Biblical Studies, before returning to Stillwater in 1994 to serve as campus minister.

In 1995, he married Jenny. Together they had three children, Harrison (who is married to Hannah), Melanie (who goes by Mellie) and Kyeson.

It was in 2013 that Monty’s health took a hard hit. He was diagnosed with Isaac’s Syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder with less than 200 known cases. But Monty was a fighter and refused to give up. He stayed in ministry and kept touching lives.

Monty Daffern on one of the many mission trips he made to Mexico.

In 2016, after a trip to the Mayo Clinic, a medication combination was worked out enabling him to live a fairly normal life. In August 2022, he got COVID-19, and from there, things gradually began to break down.

In a sermon last fall, Monty — in a wheelchair and struggling with his speech after spending several weeks in the hospital —  talked about Isaac’s Syndrome.

“It’s like Parkinson’s and MS (multiple sclerosis) had a baby,” he quipped.

In January this year, he was hospitalized again. In addition to Isaac’s Syndrome, he was diagnosed with Morvan Syndrome, another rare disorder with only 14 reported cases. He went through several rounds of an experimental treatment. For a while he seemed to be improving, until he wasn’t.

From hospitals to rehabilitation facilities to a nursing home — and then in May came word he had once again entered the Stillwater Medical Center. Doctors had put him in hospice care. His family gathered close.

Within days, the man who had touched so many lives was gone.

Tributes poured out on social media as former students and friends shared the things Monty taught them and the impact he made on their lives.

Those tributes continued at a memorial service this past weekend, where hundreds showed up to grieve together, with others joining online from around the nation.

Greg Summers, a children’s minister for Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, Ark., said he often tells students, “I came to saving faith in Jesus at 14, but I got to meet Jesus in my 20s, and I got to meet him through this man named Monty. Because Monty lived with the spirit of God just dwelling inside of him, and every time you interacted with him you got to see a little bit of Jesus.”

Monty Daffern with his wife, Jenny.

Summers served as an intern in the Stillwater campus ministry from fall 2005 to spring 2007. He is one of many campus ministry students who became a minister himself.

Monty believed finding a place to belong was essential to helping students come to believe in the Gospel. That relationship building was a huge part of his ministry. He was a mentor, a friend and a wise teacher. 

“Monty, you were … quirky,” Matt Mills chuckled as he listed things like Dr Pepper, the Green Bay Packers and Elvis. “But you loved what you loved. You loved the Lord. You loved your family. And we’re so glad you loved us. You will be missed dearly.”

Mills, preaching minister for the Perkins Church of Christ, south of Stillwater, is also a former University Center student. He later worked alongside Monty as an associate campus minister.

Matt Mills preaches for the Perkins Church of Christ, south of Stillwater, Okla.

Mills reminded everyone how Monty often quoted Romans and was known for other one-liners, including, “The process is more important than the task — that’s my least favorite one. Don’t start a relationship during finals week. And, if you don’t know what to do, wash feet.”

Washing feet was something Monty led student interns through each year, a group I was fortunate to be a part of.

As one group of interns left, they’d ceremoniously sit with the interns chosen to serve the next year. They’d take buckets of water and rags — washing feet while sharing lessons learned that might help the new interns.

“He embodied what it means for a Christian to wash feet,” said Barry Bachman, who had served alongside Monty for the last several years and now leads the campus ministry. “I can’t tell the times I walked in to find Monty washing dishes, moving chairs, doing the things that maybe nobody wanted to do.”

Many laughed as Monty’s “bromance” with Paul, the writer of Romans, was referenced. Monty loved to teach Romans and frequently offered a study of Romans class to the University Center students for college credit.

Monty Daffern in his office.

While ministering to students was his career, Monty was so much more than just a campus minister.

He was a father, a brother, a son. Jenny and their children have also been instrumental in the ministry. Students have watched his children grow up and admired the marriage he and Jenny had.

He counseled many young couples and officiated countless weddings — ending each couple’s vows with the phrase “until I lay you in the arms of Jesus.”

It’s something his sweet wife has now done, much sooner than she, his children, his family or anyone who knew him would like. 

But we are confident that those arms are exactly where Monty is now — worshiping where he is, as he taught us all to do.

CHELLIE ISON is a freelance journalist and works as a social media and video production manager. She and her family attend the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City.

Memorial donations

Monty Daffern always talked about and hoped to leave behind a new facility for the students at the University Center before he retired. If you would like to make a memorial donation toward the completion of this venture, contribute via this link or mail a check:

UC Foundation Building Campaign

P.O. Box 2168

Stillwater, OK 74076

More photos

Monty Daffern with his family.

In 2023, Monty Daffern was awarded the Stephen Ekstein Lifetime Achievement Award at the Campus for Christ Conference.

Monty Daffern “just being Monty” at the University Center.

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It’s the Cedar Springs Church of Christ in Kentucky’s rural Fern Creek community, according to a national directory published by 21st Century Christian.

In actuality, the answer is more complicated.

Yes, the Louisville-area congregation’s roots go back 231 years — to its launch as the Chenoweth Run Baptist Church in 1792.

That founding date is why the directory puts the Kentucky church at the top of its list of the oldest known Churches of Christ in the U.S. But the chart explains, too, that some of these congregations — such as Cedar Springs — started in other religious bodies prior to the Restoration Movement.

The Kentucky group didn’t identify itself as the Cedar Springs Church of Christ until moving into a new building in 1851 — 172 years ago.

“So, most people date us to 1851 because of the Baptist history,” said Zack Martin, the church’s minister since 2016. “So when I came here and started digging into the history, I felt like I was opening up old wounds because nobody ever talked about it.”

Zack Martin, minister for the Cedar Springs Church of Christ, stands in his office.

‘Treasure trove of history’

Nonetheless, understanding the past is helpful in navigating the church’s future, said Martin, a 2007 Bible graduate of Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn.

“The Lord is my first love, and history is my second love,” said Martin, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in historical theology from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo.

“It’s a treasure trove of history,” he said of the Cedar Springs church. “Like, we go all the way back to 1792, and there’s even a connection to Daniel Boone.” 

A cousin of Boone, the famous American frontiersman and folk hero, gave the land for the original Chenoweth Run Baptist Church, Martin notes.

Martin summarizes the history of the church, located about 15 miles southeast of downtown Louisville, this way:

The congregation began its theological shift in the 1820s after the hiring of a preacher named Zacheus Carpenter, who identified with the teachings of Alexander Campbell, a key figure in the Restoration Movement. As a result of Carpenter’s influence, the church split, and those left behind practiced simple New Testament Christianity.

Zack Martin holds an archived gospel meeting invitation from decades ago.

For a few decades, that group kept worshiping under the Baptist name. But in 1851, members relocated and built a new building. At that time, they became the Cedar Springs Church of Christ.

The church moved to its current site in 1919 on farmland donated by an elder, Roscoe Stout.

“By that time, people had automobiles, so they thought: Why not move up to the main road?” Martin said. “So the story goes that they put the building on logs, and a team of mules moved the building.”

The existing building was erected at the same site in 1958. A fellowship hall was added in the mid-1980s.

Restoration roots

Cedar Springs’ complex history mirrors that of many congregations associated with the Restoration Movement, sometimes called the Stone-Campbell Movement in recognition of key reformers Barton W. Stone and Campbell.

“While we can use the phrase ‘Stone-Campbell Movement’ as a useful shorthand, the goals of restoring New Testament Christianity preceded those two men and were not limited to them, even in their day,” Restoration Movement scholar John Young said in an email.

The next-oldest congregations listed by the 21st Century Christian directory are the Parksville Christian Church in Kentucky (established in 1796); the Church of Christ of Philadelphia, Pa. (circa 1800); the Pleasant Ridge Church of Christ in Tennessee (circa 1800); the Rock Springs Church of Christ in Celina, Tenn. (1805); and the Rocky Springs Church of Christ in Bridgeport, Ala. (1807).

Related: 21st Century Christian’s full data sheet on the oldest Churches of Christ

“Many individual Christians — and occasionally even entire congregations — felt a need to move away from various practices, beliefs and institutions in pursuit of those aims,” said Young, a theology professor at Amridge University in Montgomery, Ala. 

“Sometimes, that resulted from the preaching and teaching of believers who were already part of ‘our’ movement,” he added, “but in other instances, it was the result of their direct, profound encounter with the Word.”

Church member Nannette Dawson sorts and organizes historical documents from the congregation’s archives.

Film photos on a table at the Cedar Springs Church of Christ await filing.

A daughter’s legacy

Here in Louisville, church member Nannette Dawson, whose husband, Will, grew up in the Cedar Springs church, is helping Martin research the congregation’s history. 

The Fern Creek community where the church is located was an unincorporated area until the city of Louisville annexed it in 2003.

The church basement is filled with thousands of old bulletins, ledgers and photos that help piece together that history.

Dawson said she wants her 16-year-old daughter, Jasmine, whose grandfather and great-grandfather both served as Cedar Springs elders, to understand her roots.

“My daughter’s got a legacy here, and she doesn’t know that,” Dawson said. “Kids need that foundation.”

The mother recalled that the congregation lost a lot of members during the COVID-19 pandemic — some from the virus itself, others from old age.

“My daughter’s got a legacy here, and she doesn’t know that. Kids need that foundation.”

Those deaths reinforced the need to preserve the church’s collective memory, Dawson said.

On a similar note, Martin shared how the historic documents benefited him during the pandemic.

He was able to check the ledgers and learn that the church closed for a full month during the global influenza epidemic of 1918.

“They simply wrote (on the ledger), ‘No meeting on account of flu,’” he said. 

The lesson for Martin while the church grappled with COVID-19: “We’ve been here before. They shut down and still survived. We’re still here because of their strength and their faith and their legacy. So we need to pass that down to the next generation and let them know where they come from.”

An old directory is among the historical documents kept by the Cedar Springs church.

From the 1950s to the 1980s, Cedar Springs’ attendance ran about 200 on Sundays.

Post-COVID, that number averages 50 or so.

But Martin points out that families were larger in the congregation’s numerical heyday.

“In the ’50s and ’60s, there were a lot of young families who averaged about four kids apiece,” he said. “So that really bulked up the numbers through those decades.”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

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It has a bright future, too, lifelong member Carolyn Ragland Poston believes.

“This congregation probably has 20 babies under 6 years old,” Poston, 74, said at the rural church’s two-day bicentennial celebration. “I mean, I’m telling you, we are busting loose with babies.”

A car speeds past a traffic sign warning of the parking lot entrance for the Bethlehem church. The Tennessee congregation is one of the nation’s oldest Churches of Christ.

The 80-member congregation worships God in a red-brick building about 35 miles east of Nashville. A yellow sign along the two-lane blacktop — just a few miles off Interstate 40 — warns motorists to slow down in the church zone.

Fires and floods forced the Middle Tennessee church to rebuild multiple times — and relocate in a few cases — before erecting its long-standing meeting place in 1941.

As Poston greeted guests in the fellowship hall, old photos, letters and documents surrounded her. Two centuries of mementos recounted past and present ministers, elders, deacons, song leaders, mission efforts and children’s programs.

“I’m in there,” she said, pointing at a black-and-white Vacation Bible School picture from 1960, “but I was like 11 years old at the time.

“Have y’all seen this Bible?” she added, turning to a different part of the exhibit. “This was actually my grandmother’s, and her daddy gave it to her. Hang on, and let me show you the inscription.”

Poston’s links to the congregation extend through two sides of her family, including four generations of Raglands and five generations of Neals. 

Two other multigenerational families still active in the church — the Bobos and the Harlans — also trace their lineage to the flock’s early days.

Carolyn Ragland Poston and her husband, Terry, admire the church’s history exhibit.

Poston helped gather recipes for a 150-page cookbook produced for the recent 200th anniversary celebration. 

It features handwritten recipes such as Maggie Lou Whitefield Kirkpatrick’s angel biscuits, Virginia Powell Waters’ chicken dressing casserole and Leigh Nora Miller’s peanut butter Rice Krispie bars.

Poston views the cookbook as a way to preserve the memory of beloved fellow Christians.

“We’ve got members now that don’t have a clue who any of these people are,” she said, “and I want them to know how important they were in structuring us as children.”

Members and visitors mark the 200th anniversary of the Bethlehem Church of Christ.

Restoration pioneer

The Bethlehem church’s history stretches all the way back to frontier preacher Barton W. Stone. 

It’s one of only 24 Churches of Christ nationwide — out of roughly 12,000 total — that have met continuously for at least 200 years, according to a national directory published by 21st Century Christian. Some of the others have roots in other religious bodies dating prior to the Restoration Movement. 

In the early 1800s, Stone — who believed the Bible, not human creeds, should be the basis of Christian practices — traveled through this Wilson County community.

Members pose in front of the Bethlehem Church of Christ in 1980.

One of the key figures of the Restoration Movement, Stone stayed at the home of John and Sarah Sweatt Scoby. 

Before retiring for the night, the minister suggested reading Scripture and praying with the couple. He ended up studying New Testament doctrines with the Scobys and their friends and neighbors for several days.

Related: 21st Century Christian’s full data sheet on the oldest Churches of Christ

Christian families in the area met sporadically from house to house until they organized as the Bethlehem Church of Christ in 1823, according to a historical marker dedicated by the congregation and community dignitaries. 

“I have no idea how the Bethlehem Church of Christ got its name,” said elder Charles Poston, who is a cousin of Carolyn Poston’s husband, Terry. “There are several churches in Wilson County named after places mentioned in the New Testament, such as Bethany, Rome, Philadelphia and Bethel.”

Of course, Bethlehem in the hill country of Judea was the birthplace of Jesus.

While located in the unincorporated community of Tuckers Crossroads, Tennessee’s Bethlehem church has a Lebanon address. The Wilson County seat, established in 1802 on an overland stagecoach route, was named for the biblical Lebanon.

At its 200th anniversary, the Bethlehem church remains committed to its original convictions — among them baptism by immersion at the age of accountability, singing without instrumental accompaniment and partaking of the Lord’s Supper each Sunday.

“We are simply called Christians and practice simple New Testament worship,” the church’s website declares. “We love one another and are dedicated to show the love of God to all. It is our prayer that you would come and join us on our journey.”

Aaron Johnson walks across the church parking lot in the rain.

For the congregation’s bicentennial, church members gathered under a large white tent on the church lawn. On a rainy, 72-degree Saturday afternoon, they listened to special presentations on the congregation’s history and applauded 200th anniversary proclamations issued by county and state officials.

Area minister Mark Adams spoke on the significance of the Restoration Movement — sometimes called the Stone-Campbell Movement in recognition of Stone and Alexander Campbell, another prominent minister and reformer.

“It was their conviction that the existence of so many church options, all claiming to study the same Scriptures and follow the same Lord … was ultimately harmful to our witness to the world and went against the will of Christ.”

Adams, an amateur church historian and pulpit minister for the Tusculum Church of Christ in Nashville, characterized the Restoration Movement as “an attempt to unify Christians from all denominations.”

“It was their conviction that the existence of so many church options, all claiming to study the same Scriptures and follow the same Lord … was ultimately harmful to our witness to the world and went against the will of Christ,” said Adams, who earned a Master of Divinity degree from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, Tenn., and a doctorate in ministry from Lipscomb University in Nashville. 

“In John 17, when Jesus prayed for all future Christians … his will for the church was that we would be one,” the preacher told Bethlehem members. “So, many people came together in an attempt to unify Christians, and this effort has now a very global footprint that we’re all still participating in today.”

Another speaker, Jane Elam Hundley, 79, reflected on her late grandfather E.A. Elam, a former president of Lipscomb and editor of the Gospel Advocate. Hundley displayed a suit that Elam wore when he preached at Bethlehem a century ago.

“I want to say how wonderful it is today to celebrate 200 years with this church,” said Hundley, who attended the congregation regularly as a first grader. “It is such a gift that we all bring here to celebrate.”

Jane Elam Hundley speaks at the 200th anniversary celebration. A suit worn by her late grandfather a century hangs behind her.

Surviving and thriving

Pal Neal, 65, is one of the Bethlehem church’s three elders and has attended the congregation all his life. His father and great-grandfather also served as elders.

“So many churches out in the rural areas like this didn’t survive the last 50 years,” Neal said. “We’ve been able to maybe not grow that much but, you know, to keep everything going. We’ve got a lot of young people now, so we’ve been blessed for sure. The Lord has given us everything we need.”

Neal has fond memories of former longtime preacher Kenneth Head training the church’s children to serve the Lord. Head, who returned for the 200th anniversary festivities, served the congregation for more than 50 years starting in 1966.

“I remember the young people’s class that he had,” Neal said. “He’d bring everybody down front on Sunday night at 5:30 before the 6 p.m. service and teach us memory verses and play games with us. He just related to the young people and kind of kept everybody interested, which is part of the reason we’re still here today.”

Neal and his wife, Sheila, have three children and six young grandchildren. 

Neal thanks God that all are a part of the Bethlehem congregation.

“You see so many of these congregations, and it’s just a bunch of old people, and they start dying off.”

“You see so many of these congregations, and it’s just a bunch of old people, and they start dying off,” the church elder said. 

“I don’t know why,” he said of Bethlehem defying that trend. “I guess it’s the luck of the draw. And then we’ve had some good programs for the youth down through the years.”

The Neal family alone takes up two full pews on Sunday mornings.

“It’s a really close-knit community,” said Sheila Neal, interviewed while cuddling one of her grandchildren. “Everybody just cares for each other. If someone needs them, they’re not lost here.”

Heidi Neal plays with her grandmother Sheila Neil’s necklace during Sunday worship.

Focusing on Jesus

Tyler Alverson, the 26-year-old son of Bethlehem elder Travis Alverson, is now a preacher in Kentucky.

He serves the Seven Oaks Church of Christ in Mayfield.

But many of Alverson’s formative faith experiences occurred at the Bethlehem church — be it playing football with fellow teens outside the building or attending youth rallies inside its walls.

He worshiped with the congregation from age 4 until he left to attend Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn. 

He was baptized at Bethlehem, preached one of his first sermons in its auditorium and got engaged to his wife, Leslie, on the church’s front steps.

“We got married here, too,” he said.

Church leaders invited Tyler Alverson to fill in for pulpit minister Donnie Rhoten and deliver the Sunday morning sermon at the 200th anniversary celebration.

Tyler Alverson, who grew up in the Bethlehem church, preaches at the 200th anniversary service.

A crowd of 152 people — nearly double the normal attendance — squeezed into the pews and extra folding chairs brought in for the occasion. Afterward, they enjoyed a catered meal under the tent.

Past and present members shared hugs, handshakes and memories. They sang familiar hymns such as “Give Me the Bible,” “Jesus, Hold My Hand” and “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus.”

The guest preacher titled his lesson “Who is Jesus?” and took his text from Colossians 1:13-20.

“It’s amazing to see a group of Christians when they come together … for a common purpose to glorify God and further the cause of the Gospel.”

“As I’m sure is true for you, this congregation holds a special place in my heart, and it always will,” Alverson told the congregation. “So I’m thankful to be here today, thankful for all the work that has gone into this celebration. It’s amazing to see a group of Christians when they come together … for a common purpose to glorify God and further the cause of the Gospel.”

While extolling the congregation’s long history, Alverson urged against putting too much emphasis on the “Bethlehem” in its name and not enough on the “Church of Christ.”

“If we leave here today with a greater knowledge of this congregation, but we don’t leave with a greater knowledge of our Lord Jesus … do you think we’ve placed our emphasis on the wrong part of that description?” he asked.

The purpose of the church, Alverson stressed, is to love and serve Jesus.

“We want to grow in our knowledge of Jesus,” he said. “We want to fall deeper in love with Jesus. We want to form relationships with Jesus. We want to follow in Jesus’ footsteps (and be) more faithful and more devoted on a daily basis.”

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby@christianchronicle.org.

More photos

Pulpit minister Donnie Rhoten unveils a historical marker for the Bethlehem Church of Christ in Tuckers Crossroads, Tenn., about 35 miles east of Nashville. The rural congregation recently celebrated its 200th anniversary.

The crowd stands to sing during the Sunday morning assembly at the Bethlehem church.

Old photos are displayed in the Bethlehem church’s fellowship hall during the 200th anniversary celebration.

A girl attends the Sunday morning service of the Bethlehem church.

A woman opens the front door of the Bethlehem church after the Sunday morning assembly.

The post One of America’s oldest Churches of Christ celebrates its 200th anniversary appeared first on The Christian Chronicle.

Friends and theologians shared memories and tributes to a man known for his warm voice and intense, genuine interest in each person with whom he came in contact.

Landon Saunders

Mike Cope, director of ministry outreach at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., reflected on 40 years of friendship with Saunders that included holidays shared with Cope’s family and summer hikes on the Appalachian Trail.

“What seems unmatched in Landon’s life is that his authenticity was the same in every setting,” Cope recalled. “He could lift a crowd of thousands with words that would age well. Every sermon he preached from the ’60s could be on YouTube today. He focused on the Gospel and the meaning of putting Jesus in the center of everything.” 

Saunders was born July 26, 1937, in Charleston, W.Va., and grew up in Appalachian poverty in Teays Valley. He graduated from Freed-Hardeman and Harding universities and later attended Harding School of Theology. He received Harding’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1981 and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Abilene Christian University in 2023.

In the wake of his passing, professors and theologians from the breadth of Churches of Christ and beyond were among those who paid tribute to Saunders’ impact over seven decades.

Milton Sewell, Freed-Hardeman chancellor, recalled first hearing Saunders as a “young effective preacher” in the 1950s when he was a student at FHU. 

“He has been back on campus, and we have visited since and observed the dynamic way he has impacted the Kingdom,” Sewell said. “He will be missed by many Christians whom he helped to bring to Christ.”

David Wray, past Summit director and professor emeritus at Abilene Christian University in Texas, first knew Saunders during his own graduate school days.

“How do you describe the kind of things he did across the nation and the world — addressing culture in a way churches were not able to?” Wray said. “In a day when we’re talking about divisions in culture — he was able to cut through all of that and center on things that mattered. Very few people have been able to do that.”

“How do you describe the kind of things he did across the nation and the world — addressing culture in a way churches were not able to? In a day when we’re talking about divisions in culture — he was able to cut through all of that and center on things that mattered. Very few people have been able to do that.”

Ross Cochran, professor of practical theology at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., said “a person like Landon comes along once a century.” 

“Through ‘Heartbeat’ he focused on speaking good news to people he assumed would never enter a church building and did so using language they would understand and receive,” Cochran said. “He embodied really well the joy that he wanted others to experience. I’ve heard him say joy is not an end we pursue — it’s an energy we apply.  He did that in every conversation, every interaction.”

Beginning in 1971, Saunders was the voice of “Heartbeat,” the first evangelistic radio program ever accepted for broadcast as a commercial message by NBC. Created in connection with Herald of Truth Ministries, the program became Heartbeat Inc. and was expanded to include events worldwide.  

Landon Saunders in his rocking chair at his Vermont home.

Saunders was recruited to begin the ministry by Herald of Truth president Clois Fowler. “Heartbeat” was designed as a different type of program than the more traditional Herald of Truth broadcasts.

The TV program of the 1970s featured luminaries from Churches of Christ like Batsell Barrett Baxter, Harold Hazelip and Joe Barnett, all well-known ministers from Tennessee and Texas. 

Barnett, now in his 90s, is the only one still living. He also pointed to Saunders’ authenticity as key to his effectiveness.

“One of the main reasons his messages resonated with everyone was that they sensed that he was authentic. There was no deception,” Barnett said. “Everyone sensed that he was credible. You sensed that what he said was what he lived. He not only spoke the message, he lived the message.”

That credibility extended beyond the broadcasts, Barnett said. “It was also true in his dealings within our fellowship. Some disagreed with his methods, but no one could find his person disagreeable.’”

“Heartbeat” was not Saunders’ first foray into media. For nine years he produced a 15-minute program for a station in Corning, Ark., the small northeast Arkansas community where he preached and also taught sixth grade for a year. From there he embarked on 15 months of international travel encompassing 60 nations, a trek he described as evangelistic but also as an opportunity “to observe churches at work in the world and to search for universals of the Gospel.”

He was on that journey, in India, when Fowler contacted him and persuaded him to come to Abilene and begin the program that became “Heartbeat.” Its first broadcast launched Jan. 3, 1972, after a year of research and planning. In 1975, the program was accepted by NBC radio, and in 1979, CBS radio donated free public service time for it to be aired nationwide.

Don Williams, longtime Heartbeat Inc. board chair, described Saunders’ message as focused on “how to have joy and human flourishing at the center of your life because that is the very nature of God.”

Landon Saunders at home in his living room.

Williams said Saunders “was a Christian humanist, meaning people were first, not the message first.”

“That’s pretty rare in theological circles, especially in our fellowship.” Williams added. “It was always about helping people. … He was always about people, never about money or growth or the size of ‘Heartbeat,’ but always how he could be useful.” 

Prior to launching “Heartbeat,” Saunders preached at Churches of Christ in Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas. In the 1970s, he preached in Abilene, Texas, at the Minter Lane Church of Christ and spoke frequently at the Highland Church of Christ, where his Wednesday night college class drew more than 1,000 students weekly.

Most recently, he was a member of the Brookline Church of Christ in Massachusetts. 

Brookline member Bob Randolph, chaplain emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Saunders was, at heart, “an evangelist to those who seldom found their way into a church building. His ministry through ‘Heartbeat’ — on the radio and through gatherings across the nation — opened eyes and hearts that needed to see and hear a grace filled message.”

Randolph said Saunders “changed lives by having the courage to proclaim a simple truth: You are loved by God.”

Saunders lived in the Northeast for the last decades of his life, making his home in Vermont where he walked the property and reveled in its beauty. He was a fellow of the Caris Life Sciences Foundation and served on the board of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

Miroslav Volf, director of the Yale center and Henry B. Wright professor of theology, called Saunders “a man of insuppressible hope and joy” and an invaluable member of the center’s community.

Robert Rhodes, ACU provost (left) and president Phil Schubert surprised Landon Saunders with an honorary doctorate during the annual Friends of the ACU Library event where the university announced creation of the Landon Saunders Center for Joy and Human Flourishing.

“He shared with us a deep conviction that modern cultures suffer from the neglect in study of and striving for deeply flourishing life and that a compelling vision of flourishing is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ,” Volf said. 

In 2023, Abilene Christian established the Landon Saunders Center for Joy and Human Flourishing, an academic center described as dedicated to “preserving his legacy and forwarding his vision to develop generations who will learn how best to live as human beings.”

In one of the final things he wrote — a column for ACU Today magazine — Saunders described his joy at the creation of a center that would enrich students. He recounted his time in that 1,000-plus Wednesday night Bible class as “one of the great joys of my life. Their bold and questing spirits thrilled me. Conversations with them greatly influenced me and the work I was creating.”

He characterized the connection between joy and human flourishing that had guided his life’s work:

“Joy is love’s great ally! Joy holds no condemnation, judgment or fragility. Joy provides the atmosphere in which love grows, stays healthy and endures. Joy surrounds love, paves the way to love, evens out the bumps along the way of love. Joy steps in when love is strained; it keeps us balanced when anticipated love comes up short. In the presence of that joy, love is at its best.

“Joy is love’s great ally! Joy holds no condemnation, judgment or fragility. Joy provides the atmosphere in which love grows, stays healthy and endures. Joy surrounds love, paves the way to love, evens out the bumps along the way of love. Joy steps in when love is strained; it keeps us balanced when anticipated love comes up short. In the presence of that joy, love is at its best.

“I have made joy the default setting of my heart. No matter what happens, no matter my failure, no matter my loss, no matter my sadness, no matter the disease that now weakens my body, my heart returns to joy. Joy has room for all our disappointments, grief, tragedies, depression and fears.”

A memorial service for Saunders is being planned for 2 p.m. Jan 13 at the Light of the World Church of Christ in Dallas. Those wishing to honor Saunders’ memory may do so with a gift to Heartbeat, P.O. Box 64895, Lubbock, TX 79464, or the Saunders Center at acu.edu/give, adding a note that the gift is for the Saunders Center.

The post Heartbeat’s Landon Saunders put ‘Jesus in the center of everything’ appeared first on The Christian Chronicle.

They prayed and took the unleavened bread representing Jesus’ body, then the fruit of the vine symbolizing the Savior’s blood — a practice they’d witnessed their parents follow countless times. 

Jane, 87, had passed away 17 days earlier. They knew their father was close behind. 

@christianchronicle SEARCY, Ark. — Hundreds of former missionaries and students of Howard and Jane Norton gather to celebrate the couple’s life of ministry. Howard, 88 and Jane, 87, passed away 17 days apart in October 2023. They were married for 67 years. #howardnorton #janenorton #hardinguniversity #searcyarkansas #collegechurchofchrist #brazilmission ♬ original sound – The Christian Chronicle

As they shared the Lord’s Supper in remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice, “our father went home to be with God,” Tom Norton told The Christian Chronicle, the publication Howard Norton once served as editor. “Happy he’s with Mom and surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses as he is united with God.”

Jane and Howard Norton in 2016

Howard, 88, died Oct. 22 after a long battle with cancer and other ailments.  

“Outside of my family, he positively changed my life more than anyone else,” said David Duncan, minister for the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston. When Duncan was 12, his father died, and at 17 he enrolled at Oklahoma Christian University.

As his Bible professor, Norton became “the biggest male influence in my life,” said Duncan, who followed in Norton’s footsteps as a missionary to Brazil.  

“He would sit with me and other students outside of class for hours and talk about spiritual matters and church work,” Duncan said. “He helped us believe we could do more for the Lord than we had imagined.”

Dogs, guns and gospel

The couple met on the campus of Abilene Christian University in West Texas. They sold Bibles door to door as they trained to serve as missionaries.

“We got used to dogs and guns,” Howard Norton said with a chuckle as he reminisced with his wife in 2021. Jane chimed in, “You might say, ‘Not easily discouraged.’”

Budo Perry, an engineer who did mission work in Brazil in the late 1960s, prays during a time of fellowship among family and friends of the São Paulo team during the team’s 60-year reunion in 2021. At right is Howard Norton.

The couple spoke to the Chronicle during the 60th anniversary of the São Paulo mission. The Nortons were part of a team of 26 adults and 18 children who journeyed to the Brazilian metropolis in 1961.

“We brought the church with us,” Howard Norton said. When team members disagreed, “we’d go to the mat for our ideas, but then, after the fight, we’d go get coffee or we’d have lunch together, or maybe we’d go to each other and apologize. I think the Brazilians saw that — that we respected each other, but that we also made mistakes and knew how to resolve those mistakes.”

Lynn and Phyllis Huff and other surviving members of the 1961 Brazil mission team sing along with an a cappella recording of “It is Well With My Soul” before the memorial service for Howard and Jane Norton.

About 350 Igrejas de Cristo (“Churches of Christ” in Portuguese) came into existence due in large part to the team’s efforts, said Michelle Mickey, the daughter of one of the missionary families.

The team’s work inspired the creation of Great Cities Missions, a nonprofit that prepares teams to teach, preach and plant churches throughout Latin America. 

The São Paulo team also influenced future missionaries, including Bob Eckman, who serves a Church of Christ in Nottingham, England.

“I was at the dockside in the Port of Houston when the Nortons sailed for Brazil,” Eckman said. “It had a profound impact on my life, but I never dreamed then that I would spend more than 57 years on the mission field.”

Family and friends of the Nortons listen to stories about the couple’s years in Brazil during the memorial service.

Teaching and Chronicling  

The Nortons served in South America for 16 years, returning to the U.S. in 1977 to work for Oklahoma Christian University in Oklahoma City. Jane taught Portuguese, and Howard was a professor of Bible and missions. From 1992 to 1996 he served as chair of OC’s College of Biblical Studies. He also served as pulpit minister for the College Church of Christ, now the Memorial Road Church of Christ.

In the late 1970s, John and Dottie Beckloff, missionaries to Nigeria, took oversight of the Chronicle. Despite their efforts to keep the paper alive, a lack of subscribers and funds forced the couple to cease publication in 1980. 

The front page of the October 1993 issue of The Christian Chronicle.

Howard Norton and his cousin and former Brazil teammate, Don Vinzant, made plans to buy the newspaper and keep it going, only to learn that the Beckloffs had given the publication to Oklahoma Christian. Terry Johnson, the university’s then-president, tapped Norton to serve as editor.

The paper resumed publication in 1981. In his first editorial, Norton called for Churches of Christ to “awaken again to its responsibility and assume its divine role as the body of Christ.

“The church is not a political party, a civic club nor a country club. It is to be the body of Jesus.”

“The church is not a political party, a civic club nor a country club,” he wrote. “It is to be the body of Jesus.”

Norton served as editor until 1996. A year later, he and Jane moved to Searcy. Howard served on the Bible faculty at Harding University and directed the annual lectureship. He edited Church and Family magazine.

One more mountain in Honduras

In 2008, Howard Norton preached a sermon at the College Church of Christ in Searcy, Ark., titled “Give Me This Mountain,” inspired by the teachings of minister Reuel Lemmons.

“Even as I preached, I was thinking to myself, ‘I really would like to have another mountain,’” Norton told the Chronicle the next year in the Central American capital of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. In 2009, Norton accepted the offer to serve as president of Baxter Institute, a school that prepares preachers and their wives for ministry in Iglesias de Cristo (“Churches of Christ” in Spanish) across Latin America. He and Jane served in Honduras through 2012.

Christians worship during a Sunday service on the campus of Baxter Institute in Honduras during Howard Norton’s tenure as president of the ministry training school.

Among the Baxter students the Nortons influenced is Yariel Olivera, a preacher in Cuba. “He told us many stories, jokes, songs,” Olivera said of Howard, who also taught that Jesus can “unite his children — no matter what country, race or political system we come from.”

Preaching and living the word

As tributes for the Nortons poured in from around the globe, their children, who shared communion at their parents’ kitchen table, reflected on the couple’s legacy.

Ted Norton, right, and his family sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness” during the memorial service for Howard and Jane Norton.

“Dad was the front man … groomed his entire childhood to ‘preach the Word,’” said Ted Norton. “Mom loved Dad and supported her front man in everything.” 

As they reminisced about Jane’s life, “Dad told us … that there were two times in his life that Mom ‘carried’ him,” Ted Norton said. “He told us the first time and then lost the thought on the second. The three of us suggested several possibilities … and Dad said, ‘Well, she did then also’ for each of them. She carried him many times so that he could continue preaching the Word.”

Laurie Diles spends time with her father in his final days.

Laurie Diles, the Nortons’ daughter, said that Howard “was a lot of things to a lot of people, but he was my Daddy. … He thought I could do literally anything.”

Diles and her husband, Allen, served for 11 years as missionaries in the Czech Republic. She earned a doctorate and teaches in Harding’s communication department.

She and Howard “spent many, many hours together these past six months as he recovered from a ruptured aneurysm, learned to live life at a different pace, joined me for visits with Mom at rehab,” Diles said. “I am so happy for him that the days of weakness are behind him forever. 

“His constant advice was that the most important thing is to be faithful in Jesus. He was faithful.”

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Most importantly, a lifelong follower of Christ.

Jane and Howard Norton in 2016

Howard Norton, who served multiple roles on multiple continents for Churches of Christ and their associated universities during his 88 years on earth, died Sunday morning, Oct. 22.

His sons, Tom and Ted, and his daughter, Laurie Diles, had gathered in Searcy, Ark., to say farewell to their father.

“A few minutes ago, while Laurie, Ted and I with my wife were having communion at my parents’ breakfast table, our father went home to be with God,” Tom Norton said in a message to The Christian Chronicle, the publication where Howard Norton once served as editor. “Happy he’s with Mom and surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses as he is united with God.”

Jane Norton, Howard’s wife of 67 years, died a little more than two weeks earlier on Oct. 5. She was 87.

A joint memorial service is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 27, at the College Church of Christ in Searcy. Visitation is at 1 p.m. and the service begins at 2 p.m. 

The couple met on the campus of Abilene Christian University in Texas. They sold Bibles door-to-door as they trained to serve as missionaries.

“We got used to dogs and guns,” Howard Norton said with a chuckle as he reminisced with fellow members of the Sao Paulo mission team during the group’s 60th reunion in 2021. The Nortons were part of a team of 26 adults and 18 children who sailed to the Brazilian metropolis in 1961 to spread the Gospel and plant churches.

“We moved in with a team. We brought the church with us,” Howard Norton said. When team members disagreed, “we’d go to the mat for our ideas, but then, after the fight, we’d go get coffee or we’d have lunch together, or maybe we’d go to each other and apologize. I think the Brazilians saw that — that we respected each other, but that we also made mistakes and knew how to resolve those mistakes.”

The Nortons in Brazil during the 1960s.

About 350 Igrejas de Cristo (“Churches of Christ” in Portuguese) came into existence due in large part to the team’s efforts, said Michelle Mickey, the daughter of one of the mission families, during the reunion.

The Nortons served in the South American nation for 16 years, returning to the U.S. in 1977 to teach at Oklahoma Christian University. Jane taught Portuguese and Howard was a professor of Bible and missions. From 1992 to 1996 he served as chair of OC’s College of Biblical Studies. During his time in Oklahoma he served as pulpit minister for the College Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, later renamed Memorial Road Church of Christ.

Howard Norton (front row, near center) was a guest speaker during the 50th anniversary celebration of the Memorial Road Church of Christ in 2013.

In the late 1970s John and Dottie Beckloff, missionaries to Nigeria, served as publisher of The Christian Chronicle. Hurting for subscribers and funds, the Chronicle ceased publication in 1980. Howard Norton and his cousin and former Brazil teammate, Don Vinzant, began making plans to buy the newspaper and keep it going, only to learn that the Beckloffs had given the publication to Oklahoma Christian. Terry Johnson, the university’s then-president, tapped Norton to serve as editor.

The paper resumed publication in 1981. In his first editorial, Norton called for Churches of Christ to “awaken again to its responsibility and assume its divine role as the body of Christ.

“The church is not a political party, a civic club nor a country club,” he wrote. “It is to be the body of Jesus.”

Norton served as editor until 1997, when he and Jane moved to Searcy. Howard served as Bible faculty at Harding University and directed the annual lectureship. He edited Church and Family magazine.

In 2008, Norton preached a sermon at the College Church of Christ in Searcy, Ark., titled “Give me this mountain,” inspired by the teachings of renowned minister Reuel Lemmons.

Howard Norton speaks to an attendee at the Baxter Institute’s annual seminar in Tegucigalpa in 2011.

“Even as I preached, I was thinking to myself, ‘I really would like to have another mountain,’” Norton told the Chronicle the next year in the Central American capital of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. In 2009, Norton accepted the offer to serve as president of Baxter Institute, a school that prepares preachers and their wives for ministry in Iglesias de Cristo (“Churches of Christ” in Spanish) across Latin America. He and Jane served in Honduras through 2012.

In recent years Howard and Jane Norton battled cancer and other ailments. Staffers from the Chronicle visited Howard on Sept. 12 at a rehab facility in Sherwood, Ark. In vivid detail, Howard recalled his days with the newspaper, which had fewer than 4,000 subscribers when he began his tenure as editor.

Howard Norton

He praised his coworkers, including Bailey McBride, Sue Johnson and Lindy Adams, who wrote stories and designed the newly revived Chronicle in the 1980s. The publication currently has about 132,000 subscribers.

“If I had been able to print one more copy, I would have had exactly 15 years with the Chronicle,” Howard Norton said. “I really love the Chronicle. … It was great fun.”

This is a developing story. Check back for memorial service details and additional information.

The post Howard Norton dies at 88 appeared first on The Christian Chronicle.

And I can see Ruth Wyrick.

Related: Listen to our related podcast (starting at 11:40 mark)

She’d be strategically seated at a fold-out table near the auditorium, which ensured that you saw her and she saw you. Ruth would then proceed to educate us about which candidate she supported and the importance of voting.

Well before the noise of the internet and myriad of political commentators, Ruth introduced generations to the true definition of servitude in the church and her community.

Ruth Wyrick

Dr. Ruth Laverne Wells Wyrick went home to be with the Lord on April 14, 2023, at 88.

After graduating from Southwestern Christian College in Terrell, Texas, Ruth relocated to Dallas, where she met and married fellow alum Ernest “Deacon” Wyrick. They were married for 59 years before his transition in 2020. They had two children, Narleski and Natesha (Shay) and were the proud grandparents to five grandsons and one great-grandson.

Ruth and Deacon were faithful members of Marsalis Avenue Church of Christ in Dallas, and Ruth supported her husband in his work as a deacon, elder and focus leader.

Ruth’s daughter, Shay, said, “She took her role as a godly wife very seriously. Her only brother (Dr. R.C. Wells) was a preacher, and he began preaching as a preteen. She knew the Bible backward and forward and loved the fellowship of the saints.”

Ruth was the chief fundraiser for Southwestern, having raised approximately $1.5 million for the college in the last 25 years. In 2012 she was awarded a doctorate of humane letters for her service.

Ruth was actively involved in the community as well as local and state politics. She worked on many historical local campaigns and helped to elevate the political activity of members of the church.

Shay added, “If candidates could get Ruth Wyrick’s endorsement, they likely got the Dallas Black Churches of Christ.”

She served as a Democratic precinct chair for 50 years and a Dallas County election judge for every municipal, state and partisan election in South Oak Cliff through 2021.

When asked what political cause she would consider the most important to Ruth, Shay responded, “Representation of the people mattered. She worked with redistricting committees on all levels to make sure our community had our representation of choice. Once the maps were drawn to give our community our own voice, she worked to elect the person who would speak for us.”

Ruth was proud to be appointed to the City of Dallas Martin Luther King Jr. Board by councilman Al Lipscomb and was appointed as chair of the MLK Board by Ron Kirk, the first Black mayor of Dallas.

I asked Shay how she would like her mother to be remembered.

“For her love of family, the church and Southwestern,” she said. “And for her voting influence.”

TANEISE PERRY is a member of The Christian Chronicle’s board of trustees. She worships with the Kingdom Church of Christ in Charlotte, N.C. She is owner of The Church Pew, an online faith apparel store.

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DeMeco Ryans is back with the Texans after playing as the NFL team’s middle linebacker from 2006 to 2011. It was during that time he first placed membership with the Fifth Ward Church of Christ, which had its beginnings amid the 1930s tent revivals of the notable Black evangelist Marshall Keeble.

Gary Smith, minister of the Fifth Ward Church of Christ in Houston, and his wife, Karen

At first, the church members didn’t realize who he was, said Fifth Ward minister Gary Smith.

“One of our members came to me one day, he said, ‘You know DeMeco Ryans, a rookie that plays with the Texans, he’s attending here?’” Smith recalled. “So he introduced me to him the next week, and he’s so humble, you know, and of course he didn’t want any fanfare about it.”

It stuck out to him that Ryans would come to worship on Sunday evening even after playing a big NFL game that day.

Ryans later played for the Philadelphia Eagles and served as an assistant coach for the San Fransisco 49ers. The Texans is his first head coaching position, what he called his “dream job” in a statement, adding that his family “is thrilled to be back in H-Town.”

Newly named Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans, center, is presented a jersey by team owner Cal McNair, left, and general manager Nick Caserio, right.

Smith said Ryans — along with his wife, Jamila, two sons and daughter — have been around some in the meantime and never withdrew membership from Fifth Ward. Ryans has also continued to serve on the board of the Discovery Youth Foundation, a summer enrichment program for teens started by Smith and his wife, Karen.

But now, the congregation is excited to have him back long-term.

“They were just so elated,” said Smith, who attended the recent news conference officially announcing Ryan’s hiring.

“He’s very humble, so he’s not going to want too much attention. … But he’s proud that he’s a member of the Church of Christ.”

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Born in Kansas in 1928, Hunter attended high school in California before earning a bachelor’s degree in business at Abilene Christian College, as it was known at the time, in 1952.

He went on to serve in the Navy during the Korean War of the early 1950s before returning to Abilene Christian in various roles over an academic career that spanned more than three decades: director of special events, director of alumni relations, assistant to the president, vice president for public relations and development, vice president of the university and finally senior vice president.

Bob Hunter attends the opening assembly at ACU’s Moody Coliseum for the last time on Aug. 29, 2022.

Hunter also served 20 years in the Texas Legislature beginning in 1986, helping to build a community college campus in Abilene and chairing the state’s budget for higher education.

In 2006, Abilene Christian named its Hunter Welcome Center in honor of his contributions to the school, and last year, it announced the Bob Hunter Sing Song stage, which will be used for the annual musical performance he began.

Calling him “Mr. ACU,” former ACU President Royce Money said Hunter “was the epitome of tradition and authored many of the ones we love today at the university.”

“He stood for everything this Christian university stood for. I admired him because he used every phase of his life in a productive way. Look at what he spanned, especially politics and multiple generations. Students, alumni, donors from every age respected him and what he stood for and dedicated his life to.”

Hunter was preceded in death by his wife of 67 years, Shirley. Together, they had two sons, Kent and Les, and a daughter, Carole Phillips — all ACU alumni.

Read Hunter’s full obituary on ACU’s website.

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Franklin Florence

A pivotal figure in Rochester’s civil rights movement, Florence died Feb. 1. Memorial services are planned for 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, at the Central Church of Christ there. A second service will be conducted at 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, at Rochester’s Riverside Convention Center.

“Minister Florence was a giant among giants in Rochester’s proud legacy of social justice and civil rights,” Rochester Mayor Malik Evans said in a statement shortly after Florence’s death.

“When we use the expression ‘standing on the shoulders of giants,’ we are talking about men like Minister Franklin D. Florence, bar none.”

“Minister Florence was a giant among giants in Rochester’s proud legacy of social justice and civil rights.”

Florence was born in Miami, Fla., on Aug. 9, 1934, to Hozel and Bertha Florence. As a teenager, he moved to Nashville to attend the Nashville Christian Institute and was mentored by evangelist and educator Marshall Keeble.

Florence studied at NCI from 1948 to 1952 and later attended Pepperdine University in Los Angeles for two years before returning home as the minister for the 18th Street Church of Christ in West Palm Beach, Fla.

He was only 25 when he moved with his wife and children to Rochester in 1959 to become the minister for the Reynolds Street congregation.

Like the Florence family, many African American families migrated to the New York area in that era to search for better lives. In 1964 those ambitions confronted a painful reality when a bloody race riot resulted in five deaths, four of which occurred in a helicopter crash. More than 300 people were injured and 900 arrested in two days of rioting.

Violence had begun when the Rochester Police Department attempted to make an arrest during a July 24 block party.

After the riots, Florence led the organization FIGHT, which stands for freedom, independence, God, honor, today. During his career, he took on corporate giants like Bausch and Lomb, Xerox and Kodak, forcing them to do better in terms of hiring and dealing with discrimination in their companies.

Historians credited him with forcing Kodak and Xerox, the dominant employers in Rochester at the time, to train and hire Black people, which in turn spurred changes across corporate America.

In 1971, Florence was an observer during the Attica Prison riot where, on Sept. 12 of that year, he delivered a sermon to the protesting inmates.

Florence was a member of the anti-poverty group Action for a Better Community and the Rochester Northeast Development Corporation.

In 1972, he ran for New York State Assembly and lost. He also worked for Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign.

In his later years, Florence protested against police brutality in Rochester. In a 2018 interview, his son and fellow minister Clifford Florence Sr. told a local television journalist that his father shared a special bond with a number of civil rights leaders, from Malcolm X to Al Sharpton.

“There was great connection and great history with Mr. Sharpton and my dad,” he said.

Clifford Florence Sr., who is now the minister for the Central Church of Christ in Rochester, said Malcolm X’s  last stop before his assassination was in Rochester, where he spoke standing next to Franklin Florence and Connie Mitchell, the first African American to be elected to the Monroe County Legislature.

Fittingly, Florence’s name and image are embedded in the city landscape on a mural on the outer wall of East High School alongside Mitchell and Malcolm X and as the namesake of the Minister Franklin D. Florence Civil Rights Heritage Site at Baden Park.

William Jones, minister for the North Greece Road Church of Christ in Rochester, told The Christian Chronicle, “Brother Florence was a central figure in the battle for equity and civil rights in this area.”

New York State Sen. Jeremy Cooney said in a tweet, “Minister Florence was a giant in the fight for equality. He will be dearly missed, my prayers are with his family and loved ones.”

In his statement, the mayor said, “Since his arrival in Rochester in the 1950s, Minister Florence graced our community and the national stage with a dynamic voice that championed the concerns of Black Americans and the universal causes of social justice.”

Alluding to the words of the late Congressman John Lewis, Evans said Florence “was never afraid to get into ‘good and necessary trouble’ to expose racial and systemic injustice across various issues. These included: quality housing; criminal justice and corrections; fair labor practices; equitable education, child welfare and generational poverty.

“The city of Rochester is truly blessed to have been the home and canvas of grace of Minister Franklin D. Florence, a giant among giants.”

Florence’s papers and those of the Reynolds Street Church of Christ are part of the special collections of the University of Rochester.

HAMIL R. HARRIS is a Christian Chronicle correspondent and a veteran journalist who spent two decades with the Washington Post. He preaches regularly for the Glenarden Church of Christ in Maryland.

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Richard A. Rose Sr.

A native of Atlanta, Rose attended public schools in Detroit before beginning his training at the institute — which educated Black primary and secondary students from Churches of Christ from the 1940s to the late ’60s — at 13.

Keeble, the famous Black evangelist who baptized an estimated 30,000 people before his 1968 death, served as the institute’s president and would often bring a few of his protégés with him to gospel meetings across the U.S.

After graduating from the Nashville Christian Institute, Rose studied at Alabama Christian College in Montgomery — now Faulkner University — the Central Ohio School for Preachers and Teachers and Cincinnati Christian University. He went on to preach at several congregations in Ohio and Michigan and sing in the gospel quartet Sons of Praise before retiring to his home state of Georgia.

Marshall Keeble sits with a few of his “boy preachers,” including Hassen Reed and Robert McBride, both standing, and Robert Wood and Fred Gray.

Rose is survived by his wife of 50 years, Everly Jean, two sons, seven grandchildren, two brothers and three sisters.

Read Rose’s full obituary here.

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Laura had home-schooled both her sons from kindergarten through high school. York College was dear to Laura’s heart and part of her story. Both her parents and other family members were alumni. Laura treasured her years as a student and the lifelong friendships begun there. After graduating from Harding University in Searcy, Ark., she also taught at York for two years and there began dating her future husband, Chuck, when he was on campus for homecoming.

In the fall of 2018, Laura was also busy in her home congregation, the East Hills Church of Christ in St. Joseph, Mo. She had always worked tirelessly to serve and encourage those around her. She was always brainstorming new ideas to spread joy.

Each year, Laura made plans for the youth to take Valentines to members in nursing homes and to carol there for Christmas. She and Chuck helped organize the holiday adopt-a-family program each year. One of her favorite ideas was planning a 1970s theme surprise birthday party for the East Hills preacher, Keith Percell. She helped get kids to youth rallies, Leadership Training for Christ and York for Panther Days.

In the fall of 2018, the thief came who tried to steal Laura’s joy. Her breast cancer diagnosis was devastating. The years that followed were filled with appointments, surgeries, radiation, scans, hospital stays, lab work, disappointment, chemotherapy, plasma transfusions, hair loss, emergency rooms. Heartbreak. But in the moments in between, Laura stayed busy.

A collage of supporters wearing “Team Laura” shirts in honor of Laura Morris in her fight with cancer.

She sought joy daily, even when her body rebelled and energy waned. She sat front and center every night of York’s Songfest because Conrad was one of the hosts.

She returned to campus for homecomings, choir concerts and theater performances because Caden was on the technical crew, and her nephew was on the stage.

She attended the weddings of Conrad’s college friends, and then was overjoyed to attend Conrad’s own wedding.

In the four years after the fall of 2018 she traveled to Playa del Carmen, Maine, Florida, Colorado, South Dakota, Hawaii, Tennessee, New Hampshire, Montana, Chicago, Vermont and Minnesota. She hosted her aunts, uncles and cousins at her house in the country. She flew to Houston to help take care of a new baby nephew. She sat in a theater to watch “Top Gun: Maverick,” twice.

The late Laura Morris, pictured with her husband, Chuck, found joy despite her suffering.

In the fall of 2019, Laura began spreading joy to others with a new project. She belonged to online groups of other cancer patients and was saddened by how many lacked a positive support system. She was so grateful for her own army of support and wanted to make a difference for others. She began assembling “Joy Packs” to deliver to the oncology office for distribution to newly diagnosed breast cancer patients or those facing a hard prognosis.

Laura filled bags with items of comfort: lip balm, cozy socks, chocolate, tissues, a coffee gift card and a personal, handwritten note. Over the years as friends and family learned of her ministry, they began contributing items for the Joy Packs, and Laura faithfully delivered bags when she went in for her own medical appointments.

It brought her such joy whenever she saw a patient carrying one of her Joy Packs or met someone she had encouraged.

She adopted a mantra from the words of an author and speaker Emory Austin: “Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.”

In the fall of 2022, the congregation that loved Laura so dearly gathered in the church auditorium after potluck on a cloudy Sunday in October. They gathered to continue her work.

A month earlier, this same room had been filled to overflowing with Laura’s friends and family as they grieved her together. But that Sunday they formed an assembly line to fill Joy Packs, tucking in a personal note that included Laura’s own words:

“I am so sorry that you are also walking this difficult journey. I hope this Joy Pack will be an encouragement to you. As I write this, friends are praying specifically for you. I hope this brings you comfort.”

Within an hour, the tables were stacked with Joy Packs, and when they were done Percell prayed for the other Lauras who would receive them.

DONNA EMBRAY is a member of the East Hills Church of Christ in St. Joseph, Mo. She grew up the daughter of a minister who preached in small congregations in South Dakota. She earned her bachelor’s degree in religious studies from York College in 1992.

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Walker served as minister for the Wyoming Avenue Church of Christ in Detroit for 46 years, but his influence extended far beyond the Motor City.

In August, members of the Detroit congregation conducted a “Love, Honor and Appreciation,” service for Walker that he attended.

Leonardo Gilbert, minister for the Sheldon Heights Church of Christ in Chicago, said Walker was one of several ministers from Montgomery, Ala., who dramatically impacted congregations across the brotherhood, likening him to Daniel Harrison, Fred Gray and others.

“Dallas Walker was a teacher of the word. He was a preacher’s preacher, and yet his most powerful attribute was his humility,” Gilbert said. He added that Walker was a strong supporter of the biannual Crusade for Christ under Harrison’s leadership.

Fred Gray speaks at the Nashville Christian Institute’s final reunion.

“They were great friends,” Gilbert said.

Gray, 91, a prominent civil rights advocate, attorney for Rosa Parks, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was a childhood friend of Walker.

“Dallas Walker was an outstanding evangelist,” Gray said. “He grew up in the same congregation I grew up in, the Holt Street Church of Christ in Montgomery.

“I will be 92 on the 14th of December, and I have talked to him for years,” Gray said. “I called him recently because I have a Martin Luther King speaking engagement on Jan. 16, and I was trying to locate a church.”

Many of Walker’s sermons may be found on YouTube with such titles as “God Made Us, Let Him Shape Us for Him,” “The Love of God” and “The Gospel Truth.” A particularly well-known message was one he preached in 2017 at the Elwood Park Church of Christ in Detroit — a sermon titled “Remarkable Things.”

Walker was born Aug. 6, 1939, in Vernon, Ala. He attended Lamar County Training School. After graduation, he enrolled in Southwestern Christian College in Terrell, Texas.

He went on to earn degrees in psychology from the University of Detroit and a master’s degree in counseling education from Wayne State University, also in Detroit.

In 2015, the Detroit City Council named a portion of Wyoming Avenue after Walker.

Brenda Jones, then the council’s president, attends the Wyoming Avenue church.

Jones called the dedication historic and well deserved because of Walker’s long years of service to the congregation and because it was “the first street in the city of Detroit with a secondary street named for a Church of Christ minister.”

Walker was preceded in death by Beverly A. Walker, his wife of 64 years. He is survived by numerous family members and children.

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Joy McMillon, 1941-2022

Those were the final words that Joy McMillon said to Scott Young, worship minister for the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, when Young visited her in the hospital.

McMillon, a counselor, teacher and encourager of countless Christians worldwide, suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with leukemia just before her death on Dec. 10. She was 81.

“Joy was one of the greatest women our church has ever known — a pillar in this church, in this community for many, many, many years,” said Phil Brookman, preaching minister for the Memorial Road church. For those who knew her, McMillon provided a “breathtaking portrait of the gentleness and the wisdom of God,” Brookman said.

Among her many roles — in teaching and in ministry — McMillon served as a reporter and editor for The Christian Chronicle. As recently as last month she proofread pages for the newspaper. She also helped with processing gifts for the Chronicle, an international newspaper for Churches of Christ.

She was born Oct. 15, 1941, in Wichita Falls, Texas, and grew up in Midwest City, Okla. She attended Oklahoma Christian College (now University), graduating in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree. She earned a master’s from Central State College (now the University of Central Oklahoma).

Joy and Lynn McMillon in 2021.

She married Lynn A McMillon on Sept. 1, 1962. She taught English and supported her husband as he attended graduate school in Memphis, Tenn., and later at Baylor University in Texas.

Her husband’s career brought him to Oklahoma Christian University, where Joy served in a variety of roles and ministries, accumulating nearly 40 years of service spread across seven decades. She worked as an instructor of English and a public relations officer. For nearly a decade she served as coordinator of the Oklahoma Christian Women’s Association (OCWA).

Joy McMillon, with Scott LaMascus, during her time as managing editor of The Christian Chronicle.

Shortly after the university acquired The Christian Chronicle in 1981, Joy served as the newspaper’s managing editor and later as associate editor. After stepping back from that role, she continued to serve as an administrative assistant.

She was an active member of the Memorial Road church. For 16 years she directed and delivered the main weekly lesson for the church’s Center for Women’s Bible Study. She was a widely sought-after presenter at women’s conferences and national events. She and her husband also conducted marriage enrichment seminars for church groups nationally.

She made 32 international trips, most of which involved teaching, mission oversight and encouragement. She and her husband led four international campaigns of Oklahoma Christian students to Australia, Greece and England.

She and a friend once owned and operated a consignment dress shop, dubbed The Snooty Fox. They joked that they wore more of the clothes than they sold.

Lynn and Joy McMillon with their family in 2021.

She and her husband recently celebrated their 60^th anniversary. Other survivors include their sons, Jeff (Sydney) McMillon of Tulsa and Greg (Regina) McMillon of Edmond, Okla.; grandchildren Shelby (Michael) Cooper of Oklahoma City, Savannah (Jordan) Phillips of Edmond, Hannah McMillon of Edmond, Haley McMillon of Edmond (engaged to Walker LaRue), Caden McMillon of Edmond, Sydney Massey of Shawnee and Kaylea Massey of Edmond.

In 2019, at a dinner celebrating Lynn McMillon’s retirement as president and CEO of The Christian Chronicle, Oklahoma Christian University President John deSteiguer hugs Joy McMillon after announcing that a conference room on campus will bear the McMillon name.

Joy McMillon had a heart for missions and was a longtime supporter of the Village of Hope, a ministry that serves orphans and at-risk children in Ghana, West Africa. In lieu of flowers, gifts may be sent through Heartbeat for Hope, a nonprofit that supports the Village of Hope. Make donations online or mail checks to Heartbeat for Hope, P.O. Box 2071, Edmond, OK 73083.

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A Missouri native and graduate of Harding University in Searcy, Ark., Olbricht taught at his alma mater and the defunct Northeastern Christian Junior College in Villanova, Pa. He preached in Arkansas, Missouri and New Jersey and directed Campaigns Northeast/Southeast evangelism teams. He also authored books with biblical analysis, including Truth for Today’s commentaries on Colossians and Philemon.

Dan Cooper, retired minister and current elder of the Pitman Church of Christ in Sewell, N.J., is one of many who felt Olbricht’s personal impact.

“Owen taught me more about life, ministry and evangelism than I ever learned at any semester of university training,” Cooper said.

Admirers of Olbricht had even organized a Facebook fan page dedicated to him.

One of his brothers, the late Tom Olbricht, founded the Christian Scholars’ Conference.

Gifts in Owen Olbricht’s honor can be made to Truth for Today World Mission School, 2209 Benton Ave, Searcy, AR 72143.

Read Olbricht’s full obituary here.

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Two days before her death at her ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn., the 90-year-old country-music legend posted two verses, repeating the second verse to stress her point.

Loretta Lynn accepts the Crystal Milestone award during the 9th Annual ACM Honors at the Ryman Auditorium on Sept. 1, 2015, in Nashville, Tenn.

Lynn’s final Instagram post said: “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. John 3:20-21”

The feisty superstar experienced plenty of darkness and light and shared the gritty details in a career that changed the role of women in Nashville. Lynn was raised poor in the Kentucky hills and spent years in church pews before she started singing in honky-tonks. Her husband Oliver “Dolittle” Lynn struggled with alcoholism, but they stuck together in a union that inspired songs about love and loyalty, as well as break-ups and fist fights, such as “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind).”

Lynn vowed to tell the truth about both sides of her life. She loved to sing hymns and gospel music, while critics hailed the rhinestone feminism of her hits such as “You Ain’t Woman Enough,” “The Pill,” “Rated X” and “You’re Looking at Country.”

In her “Coal Miner’s Daughter” memoir, Lynn described her faith journey: “I believed it all, but for some reason I was never baptized. After I started in music, I got away from going to church and reading the Bible. I believe I was living the way God meant me to, but I wasn’t giving God the right attention.”

In that same 1976 memoir, she added: “I’m trying to lead a good Christian life, especially since I got baptized two years ago. So there ain’t too much spicy to tell about me — just the truth.” Christian Chronicle editor Bobby Ross Jr. noted that she later added a strong kicker to that: “Nobody’s perfect. The only one that ever was, was crucified.”

Anyone who explored the details of Lynn’s life and music knew that she wasn’t a good fit in the “elite feminist establishment” or among advocates of a “status-quo idea of domesticity,” noted Russell Moore, Christianity Today’s editor in chief.

“Lynn endured more than anyone should have to bear,” he wrote. “She will be remembered for seeing the pain around her and within her and challenging people to stop seeing all that pain as ‘just the way things are.’”

Consider, noted Moore, the working-class realities woven into Lynn’s song “One’s on the Way,” written from the viewpoint of mother who feels abandoned in her own home.

“The girls in New York City, they all march for women’s lib / And Better Homes and Gardens shows the modern way to live / And the pill may change the world tomorrow, but meanwhile, today / Here in Topeka, the flies are a buzzin’ / The dog is a barkin’ and the floor needs a scrubbin’ / One needs a spankin’ and one needs a huggin’ / Lord, one’s on the way.”

The flip side of that hit record was that Lynn never gave up on her marriage and she never lost faith in the family ties that bind.

“Mostly, she sang about home, and all that entails. It was this ability to connect with the broken hearts of her hearers that propelled her to stardom as the leading lady of Music Row,” said Anglican theologian Brandon Meeks, writing for The American Conservative magazine.

“Life was never easy for Loretta Lynn. But she took all of its punches standing up, absorbing the hard knocks, and giving them back to the world as melodies of hope. She taught us to receive whatever dark obstacles Providence lays in our path as diamonds in the rough.”

In a free-flowing Facebook post, Marchetti wrote: “It was so surreal because yesterday mom was talking and very animated telling us I am ready to go to heaven. Doo is coming to take me home. They told me I’m really going home. She really said that yesterday. She knew. She just knew and was happy.”

TERRY MATTINGLY leads GetReligion.org and lives in Oak Ridge, Tenn. He is a senior fellow at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi.

Universal syndicate column, used with permission of the author.

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“Our precious mom, Loretta Lynn, passed away peacefully this morning, October 4th, in her sleep at home in her beloved ranch in Hurricane Mills,” her family said in a statement posted on Twitter.

In her 1976 autobiography, Loretta Lynn, then 44, reflected on her “funny beliefs,” which she said sometimes mixed religion and superstition.

Loretta Lynn discussed her decision to be baptized in her 1976 autobiography “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” which became the basis for an Oscar-winning film.

“I’m trying to lead a good Christian life, especially since I got baptized two years ago,” she wrote. “So there ain’t too much spicy to tell about me — just the truth.”

Elsewhere in the book, she proclaimed, “Nobody’s perfect. The only one that ever was, was crucified.”

Lynn grew up in the coal-mining community of Butcher Holler, Ky., also known as Butcher Hollow. 

She attended church on Sundays and listened to preacher Elzie Banks “tell us about God and the devil.”

“I believed it all, but for some reason, I was never baptized,” she said. “After I started in music, I got away from going to church and reading the Bible. I believe I was living the way God meant me to, but I wasn’t giving God the right attention.”

But then her band member John Thornhill, twin brother of her band leader Dave Thornhill, was baptized. 

For about a year, Lynn studied the Bible with John Thornhill and — sometimes — argued over the Scriptures in the back of her bus.

John Thornhill stopped drinking and staying out late. He began praying whenever he got the chance. He bought grape juice and crackers for the Lord’s Supper on Sundays. 

For about a year, Lynn studied the Bible with John Thornhill and — sometimes — argued over the Scriptures in the back of her bus.

Eventually, the country star decided to be baptized.

“I was real nervous because the Bible says you have to be immersed, and like I’ve said so many times, I’m scared to death of water,” Lynn wrote.

“I’ve tried to keep up my religion since then,” she said in the 1976 book. “I can’t get to church most Sundays because of my traveling, but I’ll read the Bible whenever I can.

“I want to make another religious album someday, but it will have to be without instruments. The Church of Christ feels you should make music in your hearts, but they’re against instruments for religious music.”

Terry Rush

Terry Rush, retired minister for the Memorial Drive Church of Christ in Tulsa, Okla., went to see his friend Dave Thornhill before one of Lynn’s concerts in the 1980s.

Dave Thornhill introduced Rush to Lynn, and the preacher and the singer became close friends, Rush said in a 2021 interview with The Christian Chronicle.

“She just adopted me because I was a preacher in the Church of Christ,” said Rush, who for many years directed the now-defunct Tulsa Workshop, originally known as the “International Soul Winning Workshop.” “I ended up going out to her farm in Tennessee and meeting her husband.

“The neat thing,” he added, “is that she really was serious about her faith and a devout member of the church.”

Update: Rush posted this tribute on his Facebook page after learning of Lynn’s death:

THE PASSING OF LORETTA LYNN

Loretta Lynn was a very kind and gentle lady. While fame was hers in abundance, she maintained a consistently beautiful spirit of humility.

We were good friends. Loretta would ask me to meet with her between shows at Branson. In between shows, we would sit backstage and visit up a storm. Too, she would invite me to her house when I would be scheduled to speak in Nashville.

Her life was a mixture of fame coupled with hardship. In the midst of both extremes, her faith in God was strong. She blessed people world-wide via her talent and her attentive compassion.

Loretta’s reach was far beyond her imagination; yet she maintained her ability to do life as the Coal Miner’s Daughter.

Rest In Peace my friend.

Read more details on Lynn’s life and death via The Associated Press.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby.ross@christianchronicle.org.

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From the earliest days of his dual careers in ministry and education, Hazelip had a profound impact on the lives of thousands.

Hazelip, who served as president of Lipscomb University, which is associated with Churches of Christ, from September 1986 to May 1997, died Sept. 21. He was 92.

The university’s leaders remember Hazelip for his gentle spirit, deep faith and huge influence.

Harold H. Hazelip, former president of Lipscomb University, has died at age 92.

“We mourn the loss of someone who has had a tremendous impact on the Lipscomb community — from starting our study abroad program to adding academic accreditations to leading our first master’s degrees at Lipscomb,” Lipscomb President Candice McQueen said. “And, personally, Dr. Hazelip will always be ‘my president’ as I was blessed to be a Lipscomb student under his outstanding leadership.

“He led with quiet confidence and a strong vision for an academically advancing university,” McQueen added. “In my first year serving as Lipscomb president, he has been a friend, a supporter and encourager. His wise words — whether speaking as a leader, a Bible teacher, a minister or a mentor — will forever be with me.”

Hazelip became president of Lipscomb in 1986 after serving 14 years as dean of Harding School of Theology in Memphis. He retired from the presidency in 1997 and assumed the role of chancellor. He also served a three-month stint as interim president in summer 2005 and most recently served as president emeritus.

“Harold Hazelip was gifted in preaching God’s story, wise in his leading an academic community and gentle in his spirit with people,” said L. Randolph Lowry, chancellor and president from 2005-2021. “He provided wise counsel to me as a new president — counsel that can only be provided by someone who had walked the leadership path in a thoughtful and effective way.

“Lipscomb has evolved into a nationally recognized university because of the foundation established through his vision, diligent work and careful guidance,” Lowry added. “We are the beneficiaries of his generous leadership and thank God for his exemplary life.”

Read an expanded obit on the Lipscomb website.

KIM CHAUDOIN is vice president of public relations and communications at Lipscomb University.

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A service honoring his life is planned for 1:30 p.m. July 9 at The Hills Church of Christ’s North Richland Hills campus, preceded by a private burial at Laurel Land Memorial Park.

Depending on the era, Faulkner’s friends and colleagues at Abilene Christian University may remember him as a teacher, minister, colleague or the much taller half of the Marriage Enrichment Seminar he began with his college roommate and friend, Dr. Carl Brecheen.

To many, he was the Bible professor who could command a full house of freshmen in ACU’s Cullen Auditorium. Others knew him in his second career as founder of Resources for Living, an employee assistance counseling service.

Dr. Carl Brecheen and Dr. Paul Faulkner presented their Marriage Enrichment Seminar to more than 2 million people in seven nations.

His oldest friends remember the collegiate track and field champion whose titles included the Drake Relays, Texas Relays (three times) and Kansas Relays (twice). He was the Wildcats’ best in the javelin throw and pole vault 1949-52, holding the school record for each by the time he graduated.

Inevitably, they remember his voice: big, deep, slow and likely to burst into a long, head-shaking laugh at himself at any moment.

He was born Sept. 24, 1929, in Fort Worth, Texas, and was a track and field star at Paschal High School. Faulkner was headed to Rice University when his older sister persuaded him to attend Abilene Christian. He often recalled that she persisted late into the night on the subject until he finally told her, “Fine. If you’ll let me go to bed I’ll go to ACC.”

In Abilene he began dating fellow Paschal graduate Gladys Shoemaker (’52) and they married July 12, 1952, after completing their degrees. And at ACU he met classmate Brecheen, the other great partner of his life, as they walked to church from their dormitory the first week of their freshman year.

He earned a master’s degree from ACU in 1961, and master’s and doctoral degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1966 and 1968, majoring in psychology.  He was a licensed marriage and family therapist and a clinical and supervisory member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, founding the Marriage and Family Institute at ACU in 1979. For many years, the institute was one of only two nationally accredited MFT programs in Texas.

Before and even after joining ACU as a faculty member and for seven years as dean of men, he preached for Churches of Christ in Kansas, North Carolina and Texas.

Faulkner had a major role in founding ACU’s Marriage and Family Institute in the Department of Marriage and Family Therapy.

In 1974, he and his lifelong friend Brecheen conducted their first Marriage Enrichment Seminar. Five years later, a seminar at the Abilene Civic Center that drew 1,600 in attendance was videotaped and became part of a video series that was seen by more than 2 million people worldwide. Seminars were conducted in 33 states and seven countries over 32 years.

He retired from ACU in 1992 after 35 years on the faculty but continued teaching as an adjunct professor after founding Resources for Living, a counseling and consulting service for major American businesses including Walmart, McLane Trucking and Kroger Grocery Stores. His syndicated, one-minute radio broadcast, “Making Life Work for Your Family,” was heard on more than 600 stations nationally and he spoke for seminars and national conventions of numerous corporations. In 1996, he moved the company to Austin and he and Gladys settled in nearby Dripping Springs where they purchased a home on a small ranch they called Cypress Springs. He sold the company in 2008 and retired again.

A passion in the last 30 years of his life was supporting minister couples through the Ministers’ Renewal Workshop, a weekend retreat he and Gladys conducted with three other couples, welcoming those whose life in ministry brought stress or pain that often could not be shared in the churches where they served. The workshops provided a time of healing and counsel. The Ministers’ Support Network, a part of ACU’s Siburt Institute, is heir to that ministry.

Faulkner Meditation Garden, an outdoor contemplative space alongside Lunsford Foundation Trail and Faubus Fountain Lake at ACU, was dedicated in 2019 to honor the ministry of Paul and Gladys.

Faulkner was one of ACU students’ most beloved Bible professors for his personable, breezy classroom style and sharing life experiences. He was named the university’s Teacher of the Year in 1982.

He received the Trustees Teacher of the Year Award in 1982 and was a 1994 inductee into the ACU Sports Hall of Fame. Faulkner and Brecheen, together with their wives, also received the Christian Service Award in 2001. He received Distinguished Christian Service Awards from Harding and Pepperdine universities and an honorary doctorate from Pepperdine. His publications include three books, one of which was co-authored with Brecheen: “What Every Family Needs: Whatever Happened to Mom, Dad & Kids?”

Of all his accomplishments, family was his greatest. He made every effort to build relationships, and provide place and space for gathering, celebrating, playing, laughing and conversation. He and Gladys traveled the globe with their grandchildren and attended every sporting and musical event they could.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Fred and Consuelo (’50) Faulkner; Gladys, his wife of 64 years; sisters Dr. Dartha Fay Starr (’41) and Jean Faulkner; and a brother, Fred Faulkner (’49). Among survivors are two daughters and two sons and their spouses: Debbie (Faulkner ’76) and Randy Clinton (’77) of Keller, Texas; Von (’78) and Dorsi Faulkner of Austin, Texas; Brad (’83) and Denise Faulkner of Henderson, Texas; and Connie (Faulkner ’86) and Larry Brown (’88 M.A.) of Flower Mound, Texas. He is also survived by eight grandchildren: Michael and Nick Catanese, Dylan Faulkner, Hunter and Jessica Clinton, Charles Rotenberry, M.D., (’12) and Hailey (Clinton ’12) Rotenberry, Corban (’14) and Haley (Dale ’16) Brown, Daniel (’17) and Brenna Brown, Ashton and Cris Bruyere; and Zane Faulkner; and by seven great-grandchildren: Caden and Charlee Catanese, Campbell and Ford Rotenberry, Violet and Kit Clinton, and Archie Brown.

Those wishing to honor his memory may do so by loving and caring for their families, and supporting the marriages and families of others around them, and by a gift to the Paul and Gladys Faulkner Center for Marriage and Family (ACU Box 29132, Abilene, Texas 79699-9132 or bit.ly/PaulFaulkner).

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Though he was 89 years old, his May 27 death shocked former students and colleagues around the world. As more than one remarked, it just seemed he would live forever. He will, just not with us for the next little while.

Professor Charlie Marler served as the chair of Cheryl Mann Bacon’s master’s thesis more than 40 years ago.

Charlie was my teacher. He chaired my master’s thesis. He hired me to be his graduate assistant and to ACU’s JMC faculty. He was my elder, mentor, editor and friend. I met him in the fall of 1974 when I was a cocky yearbook editor and he was a freshly minted Ph.D. on a mission.

Forty-eight years later, I spoke at his memorial service.

In preparation, I scrolled through Facebook posts by and about “Doc,” as his students called him, and came across a post he wrote when I retired. He related with remarkable detail our almost five-decade friendship and concluded by discussing four priorities we shared:

• The love of civil discourse.
• A passion for the First Amendment.
• Writing well and teaching others to write well.
• Family.

Dozens of tributes posted by former students reprised those themes.

Paul Anthony is a former editor of The Optimist, ACU’s student newspaper. He’s now a doctoral student himself. He recalled a conversation in Doc’s office when he was working through his views on some difficult topics.

He said Doc “never felt the need to make clear his own position. He knew that what I needed was an ear, not an opinion. The result was that I came away from those talks a more tolerant, more compassionate, more open-minded person.”

Marler began his ACU career in the publicity/communications office, and was the first full-time sports information director at the university.

That was typical. Charlie had no patience for shallow thinking. However, he loved a civil but challenging conversation with students or colleagues who might disagree with him.

Many students described that civility as kindness. The student who was struggling to pass received exactly the same kindness as the one he was encouraging to go to grad school.

He often paraphrased Deuteronomy and said we must teach our students in the classrooms, the halls, the labs, our offices, the sidewalks, the parking lots and our homes. His civility and kindness were like that, too. Everywhere and at all times.

Then there was his passion for the First Amendment.

I remember him vividly describing his visit to James Madison’s grave on the grounds of Montpelier in Virginia. When I had the chance to visit there a few years later and stood in that small family cemetery, I could just imagine the conversation that must have transpired in Charlie’s mind as he stood by the grave of his hero.

Charlie understood that nothing else about our constitutional form of government works if we fail to honor and protect those freedoms — of religion, speech, the press and the right of the people to assemble and petition for redress of grievances.

At May Commencement in 1987, Dr. Charlie Marler was named ACU’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year.

He believed passionately that all truth is God’s truth — and if the truth is hidden or suppressed, then we cannot make informed decisions — about government, religion or life.

That passion inspired his philosophy of student journalism, which demanded absolute excellence of his students — and occasionally drove university presidents absolutely crazy.

But he believed that if we want students to go out into the world prepared to speak truth to power they have to practice it — free and unfettered.

Optimist staff members consistently rose to that challenge because they knew he would go to the mat for them — and to the president’s office, if necessary — and because disappointing him was unthinkable.

At the heart of not disappointing Charlie was writing well. Professional journalists all over the country hear Doc’s voice in their ears when they recall that:

• A lot is two words.
• That and which are not interchangeable.
• Redundancy wastes the reader’s time.
• Always cite your sources.
• And my personal favorite — avoid dead construction.

Grammarians call passive constructions like “‘It is” and “There are,” etc., expletives. But Charlie called them dead because excellent writing should never have a vague subject and a passive verb. Excellent writing — and an excellent Christian life — should be focused, vibrant and alive.

His was.

Finally, Charlie wrote about family. Anyone who was around Charlie for even a little while knew that he adored his wife, Peggy, and he loved being a dad and a grandfather. Great journalism was important. Family was more important.

My friend Lance Fleming, one of Charlie’s successors in his early role as ACU’s first sports information director, wrote that when he sought Doc’s advice about a job change, “He agreed that my time on the road was better spent being at home with Jill, Ashley, and Ryan.”

Cheryl Mann Bacon succeeded Charlie Marler as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University.

For two years, Doc and Peggy had prayed every day for Rex, Lance and Jill’s oldest son, and for two years Doc ended every email or text to Lance with the words, “God, please kill Rex’s cancer.”

On the morning after Rex died, Lance had this message from Doc:

“Wow, God is good. Rex is healed forever; you guys now have an even more special connection to heaven. You know hope is real. You will be finding new ways to touch Rex every day.”

“Wow, God is good. Charlie is healed forever. We now have an even more special connection to heaven. We know hope is real, and we will find new ways to hear Doc’s words in our ears every day.”

So with an uncharacteristic catch in my voice, I closed my remarks with a very careful edit of Charlie’s own words:

“Wow, God is good. Charlie is healed forever. We now have an even more special connection to heaven. We know hope is real, and we will find new ways to hear Doc’s words in our ears every day.”

CHERYL MANN BACON is a Christian Chronicle correspondent who served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University. She succeeded Charlie Marler, who had served for 19 years. Contact cheryl@christianchronicle.org.

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ABILENE, Texas — Dr. Charlie H. “Doc” Marler, revered professor emeritus of journalism and mass communication, and influential historian who taught and mentored Abilene Christian University students for 58 years, died May 27, 2022, in Abilene, Texas, following a short illness. He was 89.

Marler was born April 13, 1933, in Garfield, Arkansas, and graduated from Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1951. He wed Abilene Christian classmate Peggy Gambill on Dec. 30, 1954, in Fulton, Kentucky.

He earned a B.A. in English (1955) and M.A. in history (1968) from ACU and a doctorate in journalism from the University of Missouri (1974). Marler’s distinguished 58-year career on the Hill in Abilene — the fourth-longest full-time role in university history — included 48 years of full-time service (1955-2003) and part-time senior faculty teaching (2003-13), followed by nearly daily volunteer work as an unofficial historian until the day of his passing.

He was hired by his alma mater in 1955 as assistant director of publicity, then took leave to serve in the U.S. Army’s 8th Infantry Division in Colorado and in Goeppingen, Germany (1956-57), and in the Army Reserve’s 490th Military Affairs and Civilian Government Company in Abilene (1958-59).

Marler began his ACU career in the publicity/communications office, and was the first full-time sports information director at the university.

Marler returned to campus to serve as ACU’s first sports information director (1958-63), associate director of development (1963-64) and director of information and publications (1964-71). Another leave (1971-74) allowed him to complete doctoral work at the University of Missouri, where he also was a research assistant in the Freedom of Information Center.

His full-time JMC legacy began in earnest in 1974 as assistant professor, then professor (1979) and chair (1987-98). His teaching specialties of communication law, opinion writing and publication design made him a department icon known for meticulous standards, tough grading and indefatigable commitment to principles that guided his work. He was named the university’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year in 1987.

“He treasured and honored the First Amendment of the Constitution second only to Scripture because he understood and taught each one of us that freedom and truth are inextricably entwined,” said Dr. Cheryl Mann Bacon, professor and chair emerita of JMC.

During the 22 years he advised The Optimist, Marler was famous, and at times feared, for the elaborate rating system he used for print issues. He panned each page in mandatory staff meetings and, once the Don H. Morris Center opened in 1978, posted them in the JMC hallway after each edition. Yellow, blue and red dots marked each blunder, with the biggest red ones flagging the most heinous – “the Pullet Surprise.” Green dots noted the best writing, design and editorial work.

“Charlie spent his career pointing out the errors and mistakes of his students, and yet, to him, none of us were the sum of our errors and mistakes. … He saw each of us aspirationally, as what we someday would be, what God would do through us.”

“Charlie spent his career pointing out the errors and mistakes of his students, and yet, to him, none of us were the sum of our errors and mistakes,” said Dr. Kenneth Pybus, J.D., associate professor and chair of JMC. “He saw each of us aspirationally, as what we someday would be, what God would do through us. Even when I was a student, he treated me as a colleague when he had no business doing so. That, as much as anything, drove me to maturity, professionalism and to a level of excellence that I would not have even aspired to without him.”

As an undergraduate, Marler was the only student to serve as editor of The Optimist newspaper and Prickly Pear yearbook. Years later, with Marler as a faculty advisor of both, the flagship student publications became steady winners of juried competition by the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association and the Associated Collegiate Press. Marler’s dream was for the JMC department to earn accreditation by the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, which it did in 2001, one of 100 such collegiate JMC programs in the world to be recognized.

“Only two other church-affiliated universities had earned that distinction,” said Bacon, who followed Marler’s large footsteps as department chair. “Every decision he made, every class he crafted, every faculty member he hired was enveloped in that grand vision to make ACU a place where excellent journalism and Christian journalism were understood to be not only possible, but essential.”

Dr. Jessica Smith, associate provost for curriculum and assessment, is one former student who earned her doctorate, returned to JMC to teach, and is building her own legacy on the Hill, thanks to Marler.

“I took three of Charlie’s classes,” Smith said. “Only one was a writing class, so although I’ve felt the bite of some of his famous editing, critical thinking was his legacy to me. His rigorous research requirements prepared me for graduate school — which I pursued after he was the first to tell me that I might find academic life satisfying.

“The idea that he planted is one of the reasons I’m where I am today: I’ve been a student, editor of The Optimist, professor and administrator at ACU,” she said.

At May Commencement in 1987, Dr. Charlie Marler was named ACU’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year.

Marler was a visiting lecturer or journalist-in-residence for Bethany College (1988), the USIA’s U.S. Speaker Program in Brazil and Argentina (1993), and the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities’ Summer Journalism Institute (1998-2000). He also taught in ACU’s study abroad programs in Switzerland (1995), and in Prague, Poland, and the former East Germany (1996).

Marler’s Horizons magazine, the forerunner of ACU Today, was an early pacesetter for Abilene Christian’s longtime tradition of earning national recognition for excellence in publication design, writing, photography and marketing communications, starting with alumni magazine awards for Horizons, sponsored by Time/Life (1966) and Newsweek (1970).

A master historian, he was editor of “No Ordinary University: The History of a City Set on a Hill,” a 1998 book by Dr. John C. Stevens about their shared alma mater. He was a member of ACU’s Centennial Commission, chaired its Centennial Collection Taskforce (2005-06) and received one of 17 Hashknife Awards in 2006 for “heroic and pioneering contributions to the preservation of archives and artifacts documenting the history of the university.” The last 26 years, he worked daily on updating and expanding the digital ACU AnswerBook, a nearly exhaustive style guide and important historical source for JMC students and the campus.

“The way he taught and shepherded generations of students would have been enough of a gift to the university and each of us who knew him. But Charlie has also kept our history. He has read and interviewed thousands of sources. And … he’s made sure that many of us still here know our story, too.”

“The way he taught and shepherded generations of students would have been enough of a gift to the university and each of us who knew him,” Smith said. “But Charlie has also kept our history. He has read and interviewed thousands of sources. And in tales told over lunches and trips to cemeteries and in 26 editions of the AnswerBook, he’s made sure that many of us still here know our story, too.”

A prolific writer and a researcher of newspapers around the globe, he also edited a 1989 book, “Lone Star Christmas: The Seasonal Editorials of Frank Grimes.” The late Grimes was editor of the Abilene Reporter-News for more than 40 years.

The Charles H. Marler Scholarship was established in 2001 by the Southwestern Journalism Congress, for which he served five terms as president. He held numerous other offices and leadership roles in professional organizations, including president of the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association and Southwestern Education Council for Journalism and Mass Communication. He also was chair of the American Journalism Historians Association board.

In 2003, he was inducted into the TIPA Hall of Fame along with Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers, joining others including Dan Rather, Bob Schieffer, Scott Pelley, Sam Donaldson and Jim Lehrer, along with President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson.

Marler was inducted in 2006 into the ACU Sports Hall of Fame for distinguished lifetime achievement, noting his legendary knowledge of Wildcat sports history and leadership role in establishing a nationally respected athletics media relations office. Marler was press chief for the 1960 U.S. Olympic Trials in women’s track and field, hosted by Abilene Christian at Elmer Gray Stadium. And he penned the name of the Southland Conference, the NCAA league ACU co-founded in 1963 with Arkansas State, Texas-Arlington, Lamar and Trinity.

Marler’s dream for the JMC department was realized in 2001 when ACU became one of the few church-related universities accredited by the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

In 1993 he pioneered the creation of ACU’s Gutenberg Award, which annually recognizes the distinguished professional achievements of JMC alumni. Recipients each October at homecoming are presented a wooden scale model of a Gutenberg printing press, made all the more a treasure because Marler assembled them by hand in his home workshop. The honorees — many of them his former students — are among the university’s most noteworthy graduates, including best-selling authors; educators and business leaders; media and entertainment industry standouts; members of the Grand Ole Opry and Gospel Music Hall of Fame; and nominees or winners of Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, Tellys and MTV awards, and the Pulitzer Prize.

He and Peggy were members of University Church of Christ, where he served as an elder for many years.

“Charlie was a unifier, a good friend and an illustration of how one’s personal qualities can improve a group effort,” said former UCC elder Dr. Gary McCaleb, vice president emeritus of the university.

As a fellow elder, McCaleb recalls Marler emphasizing the importance of clear, timely and open communication between themselves and the congregation. He also demonstrated his knowledge of, and respect for those who had preceded him and the decisions they had made. And his skills as a historian improved the relationship between shepherd and flock.

“His insistence on accuracy with regard to minutes kept, and a general reliance on written records rather than risking imprecision of collective memory, made an important difference,” McCaleb said.

Marler’s community service focused on the Boy Scouts of America and as scoutmaster of Abilene’s Troop 201 that met for years in a small hutment on Cedar Crest near campus, developing scores of young men who became Eagle Scouts and leaders in all walks of life. He earned scouting’s Silver Beaver and Faithful Servant awards, and pioneered the Members of Churches of Christ for Scouting and its Servant Leadership Awards and curriculum for scouts and the adults who mentor them.

“In everything he did — whether it was advising and teaching students, leading the department for two decades, shepherding the faculty, his church or a scout troop — he was always a standard-bearer.”

Judge Paul Rotenberry of the 326th District Court in Abilene said there is no telling how many young men were influenced by Charlie’s example and life lessons through the years as a scoutmaster.

“He was an Eagle Scout-producing machine who had boundless energy and grit for camping trips with boys in some of the worst weather conditions imaginable,” Rotenberry said. “Adults and youngsters alike learned from him. Many years ago, I was one of his scouts. I will always be grateful for the way he served as a father figure for me at a formative age. Charlie Marler helped set the trajectory of my life.”

Pybus saw a thread woven into every aspect of Marler’s influence.

“In everything he did — whether it was advising and teaching students, leading the department for two decades, shepherding the faculty, his church or a scout troop — he was always a standard-bearer,” Pybus said. “To Charlie, ‘good enough’ was never good enough, and it indeed never should be.”

“Few men of his stature cast such a long shadow,” Bacon said.

In 2003, Marler was inducted with Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers to the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association Hall of Fame.

He was preceded in death by his parents, William Owen Marler and Velma Valentine Marler McCabe, and a granddaughter, Callie Faith Marler. Survivors include Peggy of Abilene, Texas, his wife of 67 years; sons and daughters-in-law Dr. David Marler of Easton, Pennsylvania; Todd and Lee Ann (Mills) Marler of Kingwood, Texas; and Scott and Lori (Cain) Marler of Lansing, Kansas; and sisters Doris Waggoner of Wichita, Kansas, and Shirley Buchanan of Tulsa, Oklahoma. His grandchildren include Lindsey Marler of Dublin, Ohio; Ashley and Shane McLaughlin of Chamblee, Georgia; Michael Marler of Kingwood, Texas; Jeremy and Emilie Marler of Kelso, Washington; and Jacob Marler and Crystal Stipe of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He also has three great-grandchildren: Addelyn Marler, Raegan Marler and Finnigan Marler of Kelso, Wisconsin.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Charlie and Peggy Marler Endowment for JMC (ACU Box 29132, Abilene, Texas 79699-9132 or bit.ly/CharlieMarler).

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A condition called hemifacial microsomia, caused by a blood clot before he was born, kept parts of his face from developing properly. He was legally blind and deaf. He had a cochlear implant attached to his skull. He could be difficult to understand. You noticed these things about him right away.

But eventually you stopped noticing …  because you saw him all the time.

John Hayes stands with his bike.

John was a Journeyman. That’s what we call the adult helpers who corral the kids in Journeyland, our ministry for elementary age children at the Memorial Road Church of Christ. I’ve served as a Journeyman in six-week increments. It’s tiring.

John did it constantly, even when the kids asked brutally honest questions about his condition. He also helped out in the audio/visual booth in the auditorium. (Yes, the A/V booth.)

He rode his bike everywhere, or he walked at a quick pace. He always seemed to be in a hurry.

In recent weeks we’ve covered so much tragedy — from mass shootings in Uvalde and Tulsa to the war in Ukraine. It would be easy to overlook John’s tragedy.

On June 6, while crossing the street to get to a doctor’s appointment, John was struck by a minivan and died. He was 61.

He had been hit by cars at least three times before. People just didn’t seem to see him.

I regret that I didn’t know him better. I’m thankful for my brothers in Christ who did, including Nathan Ison. Nathan and his wife, former Christian Chronicle digital news editor Chellie Ison, co-direct our church’s Celebrate Recovery program. Nathan was John’s sponsor.

“His entire life seemed to be defined by tragedy,” Nathan said of his friend. John’s father served in the military and died when John was a year old. John endured abuse from his mother and stepfather. Social services removed his sisters from their home.

As a teen John endured multiple surgeries and went months without seeing or hearing from his parents as he recovered. His attempts to cope with the trauma led to addictions.

Nathan could say a lot more about John’s tragic circumstances,“but I want you to know about John’s courage,” he said. Friends guided John to the church. He gave his life to Christ, “even though the concept of God wanting to be his Father was incredibly difficult for him to accept.” After his conversion, “John had the courage to reach out for help when he was hurting, struggling or feeling overwhelmed, which, for the trauma he had endured, was often daily or weekly.”

Tim Herbel was a brother in Christ who became like a flesh-and-blood brother to John. Tim is executive director of Not Your Average Joe, a nonprofit coffee shop that employs people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. John worked there and became known as a “kitchen ninja.” He used the skills he earned in college to set up the point of sale systems for the business. He set prices and coordinated inventory.

John was fiercely independent and extremely funny, Tim said. He also was “the best worshiper on the planet.”

John Hayes works at Not Your Average Joe in Oklahoma City, which was featured in December of 2021 by The Curbside Chronicle. Hayes’ name tag read “Not Your Average John.” He died in an auto-pedestrian accident June 6.

“Because he was deaf, John could not sing in tune,” Tim said, “but his was the most beautiful worship I’ve ever heard. He came to the cross broken and found healing.”

John had plenty of reasons to be mad at the world. Perhaps he was at times. As I ponder this latest wave of insanity, I try to comprehend the darkness, the evil that drives people as young as 18 to commit the all-too-common unthinkable.

John didn’t let that darkness define him. I appreciate these words from Dan Lovejoy, another of his friends from the recovery ministry:

“John had a chosen family — that he chose, that chose him. He was loved and he loved. John was rescued from hell on earth by that family and by the church — the embassy of heaven. And once he was rescued, he joined the work — every work he could. He quickly became a rescuer.”

In so many ways, John didn’t “conform to the pattern of this world,” as the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12. He lived a life of sacrifice and service — “true and proper worship.”

John Hayes was different.

ERIK TRYGGESTAD is president and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact erik@christianchronicle.org, and follow him on Twitter @eriktryggestad.

A celebration of life for John Hayes begins at 10 a.m. Central on June 18 at the Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City. Memorial gifts may be made to Not Your Average Joe, a 501(c)3, at 509 Wilkinson Dr., Moore, OK 73160 or to the Memorial Road chapter of Celebrate Recovery, 2221 E Memorial Rd., Edmond, OK 73103. Please note “John Hayes” on contributions.

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This past Saturday, March 12, Eugene Lawton, longtime minister for the Newark congregation, picked up McClendon, his partner in the Gospel, at Newark Liberty International Airport. Lawton dropped off McClendon at his hotel and headed to the church building. As Lawton, 85, walked up the building’s steps, he suffered a fatal heart attack, church leaders said.

Hours after the minister’s passing, Newark church leaders met and decided to go forward with the four-day workshop, “Doing Evangelism as You Go,” which began Sunday morning during the Bible study hour.

Newark church leaders said they plan to have “a glorious celebration” for Lawton at a date in the future, but this week the focus is on the workshop that concludes Wednesday.

“We were talking evangelism as we came from the airport,” McClendon told those gathered on Sunday. “Brother Lawton would say we should continue to save souls and keep souls saved. Saving souls is our business, Luke 19:10. We need to do this in honor of Brother Lawton.”

“He is not here in person, but he is here in spirit,” said McClendon, who serves as senior minister and an elder of the Northside Church of Christ in Jacksonville. “I believe he would want us to use this as an opportunity to save more souls.”

Moreover, Lawton would want the church to be unified, McClendon told the audience.

“He would want us to be together because we are well aware of the devil and how the devil can get among us.  … He would want us to love one another. We want to build on the foundation that Dr. Lawton has laid.”

During the Sunday morning Bible class, which also was streamed on YouTube, McClendon said Lawton had inspired men all over the brotherhood.

“But we are not here because of brother Lawton,” he reminded the audience.  “We are here because of Jesus Christ.”

Citing Romans 15:1-7, he told them, “Members must learn to receive one another…We got to be patient with one another If we are going to be of one mind in saving souls.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4xlGNbgxE8

Newark church member Michael Graves was one of several who prayed before the lesson began.

“We are joyful that brother Lawton ran his race and finished his course,” Graves said. “Lord, we are thankful for this man who touched many lives. Help us to heal our hearts. We don’t grieve without hope. Brother Lawton has earned his mansion, robe and crown.”

Fellow church member Weston Paton prayed for the Spirit “to carry on this great work.”

“Lord, have mercy upon us. We have learned so much from this hard-fighting soldier. We stand in the unity of one Lord, on faith and one baptism. Let his life be an example to us.”

“We mourn the loss of a great soldier,” Paton said. “Lord, have mercy upon us. We have learned so much from this hard-fighting soldier. We stand in the unity of one Lord, on faith and one baptism. Let his life be an example to us.”

During his sermon, McClendon said the day brought mixed emotions, both sad and joyful.

“I have been coming here since 1978,” the late minister’s friend said. “Brother Lawton wanted souls to be saved. This workshop is done in his honor. Brother Lawton spent his whole life working to get people to be baptized.”

Lawton had conducted his final service at Newark on March 10 at a Thursday-night Bible study.  Seated in his large, high-back chair in the pulpit, he opened his Bible and talked on topics ranging from presidential politics to the war in the Ukraine.

“You don’t have to worry about who is in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.,”  Lawton said.

“I am going to my grave believing that there is power in prayer. How many of us are praying about the situation in Ukraine,” Lawton said, quoting Psalms 37:25. “I was young but now I am old but I have never seen the righteous forsaken.”

When Lawton extended the invitation that evening for baptism and restoration, he knew those who responded by their names. Then before the closing prayer, his final words to his congregation encouraged them to attend the workshop and to learn how to save souls.

In 2019, the late Eugene Lawton, minister for the Newark Church of Christ in New Jersey, delivers a keynote at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn.

“You come, and bring somebody with you,” Lawton told them. “This is a soul-winning event. If you don’t know how to win souls for Christ, this is your opportunity to do so.”

HAMIL R. HARRIS is a Christian Chronicle correspondent and a veteran journalist who spent two decades with the Washington Post. He preaches regularly for the Glenarden Church of Christ in Maryland.

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Eugene Lawton

“He is now ‘sounding his trumpet’ in his new heavenly home,” members of the Newark Church of Christ in New Jersey, where Lawton served for over a half-century, posted on the congregation’s website.

Lawton, known for his honest, “no-nonsense” approach to preaching, was fond of the trumpet analogy for proclaiming the Gospel — a term echoed in Scripture throughout the Old and New Testaments. On Saturday the phrase appeared repeatedly on social media as friends shared their memories of Lawton.

“’Let me sound my trumpet’ are the words that resound in my head from a little girl to a woman of God!” said Felicea Robinson. Lawton was “not just a soldier of the cross, but a man of God who was not afraid to tell it like it is and encouraged all to do the same.”

A native of St. Petersburg, Fla., Lawton was baptized by the late S.J. Dudley and studied at Southwestern Christian College in Terrell, Texas, the only historically Black Christian college associated with Churches of Christ. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Pepperdine University in California and a doctorate in ministry from Trinity Seminary in Indiana.

A young Eugene Lawton, right, shakes hands with Nokomis Yeldell, Yeldell, who preached for the Norris Road Church of Christ in Memphis, Tenn., died in 2007 after 50-plus years of ministry,

He ministered for the East 7^th Street Church of Christ in Oklahoma City from 1959 to 1961 before moving to the Newark congregation. He has served in numerous capacities for Southwestern Christian, including a two-year stint as academic dean. He was a regular speaker at the National Lectureship, an annual gathering of predominantly Black Churches of Christ, in addition to youth conferences and Gospel meetings in locales across the U.S., the Caribbean and Africa.

Eugene Lawton celebrates his 85th birthday.

On Jan. 28, his 85^th birthday, Lawton posted to Facebook: “After all that I have been through, I thank God for his majestic grace and his marvelous goodness to wake me up this morning.

“I am still clothed in my right mind, got a roof over my head, got food on my table, got the activity of my limbs and still preaching every Sunday — oh praise his holy name.”

As recently as March 2, Lawton was on social media promoting an upcoming Church Growth Seminar hosted by the Newark congregation and featuring Charlie McClendon, minister for the Northside Church of Christ in Jacksonville, Fla. The theme: “No Pandemic Can Lockdown My Soul!”

Funeral arrangements are pending. Check back for updates.

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“I’m truly thrilled for Daddy to receive his heavenly reward.”

“Daddy passed,” Rhonda Zorn Fernandez, a member of the Concord Street Church of Christ in Orlando, Fla., said in a text message. “Pray for us.

“I’m truly thrilled for Daddy to receive his heavenly reward,” she added. “I knew I would feel broken. I just did not know I would feel shattered.”

Zorn, famous in Churches of Christ for his bright red blazer, died peacefully at the Orlando-area home where he lived with Fernandez and his son-in-law, Halo Fernandez.

Jack and Frances Zorn pose at an annual convention of Lads to Leaders in Atlanta.

Roy Johnson, executive director of Lads to Leaders and brother of Zorn’s late wife, Frances Zorn, said the family and the Lads to Leaders staff “are heartbroken at the loss but know what a legacy his life has been in the lives of thousands upon thousands of Christians!”

From its humble start, Lads to Leaders/Leaderettes Inc., based in Montgomery, Ala., now hosts eight annual regional conventions in the U.S. and four in other countries.

Through the program, young members of Churches of Christ memorize Scripture, practice song leading and participate in other Bible-based activities.

“The church has lost a giant today.”

Over the past half-century, at least a quarter-million children, parents, ministers and church leaders have participated in the program, according to Johnson.

“Dr. Zorn mentored so many young men and women in his life and even managed to convert some caregivers to the Lord while he was incapacitated,” Johnson said. “The church has lost a giant today.”

Jack Zorn, Roy Johnson and Frances Zorn are shown in an undated photo provided by Lads to Leaders.

Baptized at 17

Born in Geneva County, Ala., on Nov. 8, 1934, Zorn was raised on a sharecropper’s farm.

His father suffered from alcoholism, and his mother struggled to instill Christian values in the family. In 1951, at age 17, Zorn was baptized at a gospel meeting held by Bill Hatcher.

He later attended Alabama Christian College (now Faulkner University) in Montgomery, where he met fellow student Frances Johnson. Zorn lost his wife of 61 years in 2017, when she died at age 80.

Besides his bachelor’s degree from Faulkner, Zorn earned a master’s from Harding School of Theology and a doctorate of religious education from the International Bible Institute and Seminary.

After graduating from college, Jack Zorn preached full time in four states and did mission work. While preaching in Warner Robins, Ga., he founded Lads to Leaders in 1968. The youths he helped train for the program gave their first public speeches on Sunday morning, Jan. 5, 1969.

Frances Zorn helped train the first Leaderettes — participants in a version of the program for young women.

Jack and Frances Zorn, with daughters Resa, Rhonda and Sonya.

“When Jack decided to give up preaching and teaching to devote his life to spreading Lads to Leaders, he had no funding,” Roy Johnson said in 2017. “Frances took on three jobs — working days, nights, and weekends — to provide enough money to feed the family and travel money for Jack to visit churches and hold workshops across the nation.

“Without this awesome sacrifice, there would be no Lads to Leaders today.”

After retiring from the ministry for health reasons, the Zorns settled in Sylacauga, Ala. They were active in the Hollins Church of Christ for many years. The Christian Chronicle featured the family in 2016 in a series on Christian caregivers. In that article, Rhonda Fernandez discussed the challenges of caring for aging parents.

Jack and Frances Zorn, then married for 58 years, wear matching T-shirts as they pose for a photo at their home in Sylacauga, Ala., in 2015.

Earlier this year, Faulkner, which is associated with Churches of Christ, honored Jack Zorn as its Alumnus of the Year. Zorn, who served on the university’s board of directors, was honored for his “lifetime of service dedicated to the Lord’s work, his ingenuity and his love for young people.”

In 2017, Harding University in Searcy, Ark., presented Zorn with an honorary Doctor of Laws for his contributions to the development of Christian leaders through his groundbreaking work with Lads to Leaders and Leaderettes.

Survivors include two other daughters, Resa Byrd and Sonya King; two sisters, Ina Griffith and Betty Brown; a brother, Buddy Pryor; five granddaughters; 10 great-grandchildren; and lots of nieces and nephews. Zorn was preceded in death by his twin sister, Chasie Walker.

Funeral services will be at 2:30 p.m. Aug. 28 at the University Church of Christ in Montgomery, with visitation beforehand starting at 12:30 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Lads to Leaders’ Zorn Memorial Fund.

BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. Reach him at bobby.ross@christianchronicle.org.

Three-year-old Joshua Johnson of the Deerfoot Church of Christ in Birmingham, Ala., leads a song earlier this year at the Lads to Leaders convention in Little Rock, Ark. His red blazer was a gift from Lads to Leaders founder Jack Zorn, his late wife, Frances, and their daughter, Rhonda Zorn Fernandez, lifelong friends of Joshua’s parents. COVID-19 canceled the 2020 Lads to Leaders and Leadership Training for Christ conventions, which draw thousands of participants from Churches of Christ. This year some churches hosted mini-conventions at their buildings. A few of the larger conventions resumed with reduced attendance, social distancing and the occasional superhero mask.

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Emch, 68, worked with a Church of Christ in Rostov-on-Don, a port city on the Sea of Azov in southwestern Russia. She recently relocated to Dallas, where she planned to continue serving the Prestoncrest Church of Christ as the congregation’s librarian. Days before her death she had served as a volunteer for the church’s Vacation Bible School, preaching minister Gordon Dabbs told The Christian Chronicle.

Eileen Emch visits Mount Ararat in Turkey in 2019.

In a June 4 social media post, Emch wrote, “I’ve been in Russia 22-plus years, including the weird and wacky COVID year. My Prestoncrest ‘missions heroes’ have nudged me to consider relocating and I agree. This seems like the right time to move back. Lots of thoughts, emotions and memories.”

This is a developing story. Check back for additional details.

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Fern Hill

The Riverhead, N.Y.-based ministry, supported by Churches of Christ, serves abused and neglected children and is named after one of the Hills’ children, Timothy, who died after a tragic accident at age 13.

 Fern Hill was “a mentor and friend to thousands and a beacon of love and kindness,” her obituary reads.

One of those thousands is David Shannon, president of Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn. Here, Shannon shares his memories of “Aunt Fern.”

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Everyone who knew Fern has stories about her that sound fictional unless you knew her.

David Shannon, 16th president of Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn.

She was Aunt Fern to me and my sister, Rebecca. I was born in Riverhead. We lived on Wildwood Trail a few houses down from her and Uncle Jerry. I have been held and nurtured by this woman longer than any — other than my mother and sister. I have lived in their home.

I remember asking my mother to explain how the Hills were my uncle and aunt. Boy, was I surprised to learn that we weren’t related.

But Fern would be the first to say we are both family of the King.

The combination of the names Jerry and Fern impacts our world like Aquila and Priscilla or even Paul and Barnabas. They powerfully impacted the Lord’s church — even from their college days when they taught a Sunday school class in their car because the church building didn’t have a classroom. They served the Graymere Church of Christ in Columbia, Tenn., where my parents first met them and decided to move to Long Island and serve as vocational missionaries.

Their son Timothy passed at 13 years of age. I remember my mother answering the phone and in stunned silence. She sat on a chair and cried. I had never seen my mother cry before. He was a great young man whose good works still follow him.

Another of their sons, Tom, was my first friend. He passed away recently, and his last season of life was filled with peace that no doubt was an answer to thousands of Fern’s prayers.

Prayers and hospitality

I remember Aunt Fern’s prayer life. She has written a book about God’s work in prayers, “Gifts from Glory.” Being a witness to a few of these stories is amazing.

The combination of the names Jerry and Fern impacts our world like Aquila and Priscilla or even Paul and Barnabas.

While Tracie and I worked for the Timothy Hill ranch I would snoop around a large, beautiful, abandoned house next to the ranch. Fern began to pray for God to provide this house to the ranch. She learned that the owner was willing to sell it. She presented the request to the board of directors of the ranch, but it was denied.

She believed that the board didn’t understand all the good that could come from this facility, but she knew the Lord did. So she prayed for God to simply give them the house. A few days later a stranger walked into Uncle Jerry’s office, laid the paperwork for the house on his desk, and asked if he would accept this house as a gift. It was the first time they had talked.

(Jerry and Fern Hill discuss thankfulness in a “fireside chat” in a November 2020 video. Fern discusses one of her favorite Bible passages, Philippians 4:6-7, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”)

This home became the hospitality house where the Hills lived and hosted thousands of guests. There is no way to count the number of times Fern has washed sheets, folded towels, prepared breakfast.

Youths gather during a retreat at Timothy Hill Ranch.

But her guests experienced so much more. They enjoyed a chapter out of the living Word, a home-cooked breakfast, a few of Jerry’s jokes and a song. It might be “Welcome to the Family.” “Bless be the Tie” or “Til We Meet Again.” And they could sing.

Focused and sporadic, fun and serious

Aunt Fern had a way of bringing the Lord into situations without it seeming like it was her idea. She could pick up hitchhikers and, within a few miles, all would be singing “Amazing Grace.”

She connected with those who were 80 and lived their whole life as faithful Christians and the next hour she could comfortably talk to an addict who had no place to stay.

Aunt Fern was dignified and beautiful. She was focused and sporadic. She was fun and serious. She had faith that moved mountains. To be loved by her was one of the great gifts from above.

Once, while at a conference, our toddler fell in a large hotel pool in the courtyard. Fern, fully clothed for the conference, jumped in to rescue him. She exited with grace as if it were no big deal to save a baby or swim in a long skirt. (How many hundreds of miles did she swim across the lake at Wildwood?)

Aunt Fern was dignified and beautiful. She was focused and sporadic. She was fun and serious. She had faith that moved mountains.

She and Uncle Jerry lived a healthy life. For decades she ate Cambridge bars and shakes. In a kidding way I said to her one morning, “Aunt Fern, you know it doesn’t matter how many Cambridge bars you eat, you are still going to die one day.”

She smiled that confident smile she would flash when she knew she had checkmate.

“No, I am going to live forever,” she said. “I’m the daughter of the King.”

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Howard and Dorothy King

75 years

Howard and Dorothy King

Howard and Dorothy (Sarchet) King are celebrating their 75th wedding anniversary. They were married May 12, 1946, in Agra, Kan., after Howard had completed his service with the Navy during World War II.  

Howard attended Fort Hays State College and began teaching industrial arts in Dighton, Kan., and later moved to Scott City, Kan., where he taught for more than 25 years. He retired from teaching and purchased King’s Aluminum and Glass, which they owned for 10 years. He was also a rural mail route deliverer. He loves to do woodworking, and has continued making segmented bowls as his hobby.  

Dorothy was a busy mother, volunteering for leadership roles in Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, Welcome Wagon, Pink Lady and teaching Bible classes. She was also a seamstress extraordinaire. She made all the clothes for her family and also costumes for many high school musicals.  

They have seven children: Ken, Jim, Ron, Carmen, Karen, Carla and Jeff.  They also have 12 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. 

They have been members of the Church of Christ in Scott City for 70 years, where Howard served as an elder. They are a wonderful example of a loving, Christian couple.

Memorials

Samuel ‘Ray’ Frizzell, Jr. 

1929-2021

Ray was a dedicated, Christian servant who was in his 75th year of preaching the gospel of Christ. At the time of his death, he was in his 28th year of preaching for the Shackle Island Church of Christ in Tennessee. Ray passed away on April 8, 2021, at the age of 92. 

Kenneth Joines

1935-2021

Kenneth Joines

Kenneth Joines was born Dec. 27, 1935, near Belton, Ky., to Guy and Truly McElwain Joines. He grew up there, graduating from Hughes-Kirkpatrick High School. 

In his senior year, he met Janrose Forgy, and they married the following December while he was a student at David Lipscomb College. It was during the following year, while still 18 years of age, that he answered the call to become the full-time preacher for the church at Butte, Mont. 

He later served churches in Claremore, Okla.; Augusta, Kan.; Sebring, Fla.; Elizabethtown, Ky.; Merkel, Texas; Greenville, Ky.; Hixson, Tenn.; and the Whitehaven Church of Christ in Memphis, Tenn., which later relocated and became the Goodman Oaks Church of Christ in Southaven, Miss. 

He preached for Goodman Oaks for 29 years. During his ministry, Goodman Oaks grew to become the largest congregation of Churches of Christ in Mississippi. Following retirement in 2004, he remained at Goodman Oaks while doing interim work for the Woodland Hills Church of Christ in Memphis, twice in Sebring, Fla., and twice in Lake Placid, Fla., as well as preaching by appointment in states from Florida to Alaska and from Texas to West Virginia. 

In addition to studying at Lipscomb, he took additional training at Central Christian College (now Oklahoma Christian University), Abilene Christian University, and Murray State University. 

An avid big-game hunter, he enjoyed numerous trips to Colorado and Wyoming where he took bull elk and antelope as well as numerous mule deer. He was commissioned a Kentucky Colonel by Governor Louie Nunn and served two terms as president of the Whitehaven Civitan Club. For several years he served the Shelby County Juvenile Court as Auxiliary Probation Officer, working with numerous young men in rehabilitation.

In 2012, his first wife, Jan, died of pulmonary fibrosis. Two years later he married Sue Noto, a member at Goodman Oaks. Many times he observed, “It is almost unbelievable that God gave me two of the very best women to walk and work beside me. I am blessed and have never been happier.” Ken died April 2, 2021.

Ken was preceded in death by his parents and by his older brother Virgil, sister Marjorie Rhoads, and son-in-law Robin Enochs.

He is survived by his wife of six years, Sue; son Mike of Seattle; daughters Laura of Denver, Pam (Steve) Peraza of Abilene, Texas, and Jennifer Enochs of Tupelo, Miss.; as well as stepsons Joseph (Bethany) Noto of Bono, Ark., and Matthew (Christina) Noto of Olive Branch Miss. He is also survived by his sister Shirley (Eugene) McPherson of Greenville, Ky., and  brother Jimmy (Mary) of Snellville, Ga., as well as four granddaughters, one grandson and two great-grandchildren. 

Barbara Oteka Kee

1930-2021

Barbara Oteka Kee

Barbara Oteka Kee, 91, passed away April 28, 2021, in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Barbara was born April 25, 1930, in Bartlesville, Okla., to Charley Lindsey and Lola McFarland. She attended Florida Christian College, Central Christian College (now Oklahoma Christian University) and Harding College (now University), where she met her husband Robert Windle Kee. The couple married June 6, 1953, in Tulsa, Okla., at the Eastside Church of Christ.

The couple began planting churches in the Northeast, including Levittown, Penn., Salisbury, Md., and Collinsville, Ill. They then spent 20 years as missionaries in Cameroon, West Africa. They later worked in Belize. 

The couple also lived in Onalaska, Texas, until they retired to Wichita Falls. Throughout Barbara’s life, her genuine love for literally everyone she met endeared her to many and led her on countless unscripted adventures!

Barbara was preceded in death by her parents and her sister Lee Myers.

Barbara is survived by her husband of 67 years, Windle; her two sons Carl Kee and wife Pat of Lubbock, Texas, and Paul Kee and wife Janet of Cameroon; her daughter Alicejoy Taylor and Joe of Wichita Falls; a brother Bud McFarland and Sarah, of Edmond, Okla.; five grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, as well as many beloved nieces and nephews; and a large spiritual family around the world.

Memorials in Barbara’s name may be made to the Cameroon Mission Fund through the Faith Village Church of Christ, 4100 McNiel Ave, Wichita Falls, TX 76308.

Ken Vanderpool

1936-2021

Dr. Kenneth Gene Vanderpool

Dr. Kenneth Gene Vanderpool died Thursday, April 8, 2021, at 84 years of age from complications of advanced Alzheimer’s. 

Ken was born Sept. 3, 1936, in Comanche, Okla., in a two-room shack. He was named after two of his mother’s favorite singing cowboys: Kenneth Maynard and Gene Autry. Ken grew up dirt poor but became a self-made man, accomplished in education, church ministry, athletics, and music.  

Ken graduated from Addington High School in Oklahoma and earned bachelor’s degrees in physical education and Bible from Harding College in Searcy, Ark. He earned his M.Ed. and Ed.D. in health and physical education from Temple University in Philadelphia. 

While at Harding, he met the love of his life, Lucia DuBois, while working in Patti Cobb Cafeteria. Before either one completed school, they married at the College Church of Christ in Searcy on May 26, 1957. 

Ken had 60 years of higher education teaching in the areas of exercise kinesiology, physiology, and anatomy and physiology. Most recently, he retired from Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis, Tenn. He also taught at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.; Northeastern Christian Junior College in Villanova, Pa.; Northeastern University in Boston; Navajo Community College in Tsaile, Ariz.; Shelby State Community College in Memphis; and Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss. 

Ken was preceded in death by his wife, Lucia DuBois Vanderpool, daughter Melanie Denise Vanderpool Jerden, grandson James Gilbert Hodge, and nephew Mark Rockford LaMarr; his parents, Jesse James Vanderpool and Nancy Adelaide Hatfield; sister Jessie Fay Vanderpool, and half-brother Billy Ray “Bill” Hibbert. 

He is survived by his children 

Suzanne Vanderpool Hodge (Wally), Kenneth Gene Vanderpool, Jr. (Jo Ann), and Nancy Kathleen Vanderpool Manning. Ken is also survived by seven grandchildren plus a large number of nieces, nephews, cousins, and in-laws. 

Family and friends gathered Saturday, May 1, for a memorial service at Memphis Funeral Home and Memorial Gardens where they paid tribute to an amazing father, husband, brother, uncle, and Christian man. You may read his full obituary on their website.

With Appreciation

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