Great Preachers of the Missionary Church

Reflections 9 (Spring and Fall 2007) 4-17
Great Preachers of the
Missionary Church
Dr. Paul Erdel
Over the last century the Missionary Church has produced
preachers in numbers and quality that have belied its small size. Many
worked diligently within the denomination. A few have left long shadows
across the evangelical world. But all of them have nurtured three hallmarks
of great preaching in the Missionary Church: a call to holiness, a
commitment to the Spirit-filled life, and the challenge of proclaiming Christ
to the nations. They have been preachers of the Word more than
dogmatists, men of action more than oration. In their persistence, skill, and
integrity in calling people to follow the Lord, these men and women have
much to teach us today.
The Farmer Preachers
Dalliel Brenneman
4
Awakened from their Anabaptist
slumbers by Methodist enthusiasm from
without and by spiritual rebirth within,
the farmer preachers were shunned by
their more traditional Amish and
Mennonite brethren. In the midnineteenth century these warm-hearted
men began to find one another across the
United States and Canada. Perhaps the
most outstanding among them was Daniel
Brenneman, one of the founders of the
Missionary Church.
By all accounts Brenneman was a gifted
preacher: "eloquent, aggressive, a good
singer, and full oflife" (Hartzler and
Kauffman 1905,339). He conducted the
Erdel: Great Preachers
mE:etlI1§~s ever
Mennonite Church in the United
States. Soon he was in demand as a speaker in churches and meeting
centers in an area stretching from his home in Elkhart County, Indiana to as
far as Pennsylvania.
After ten years of cutting-edge ministry in the Mennonite Church,
Brenneman was told on 25 April] 874 that he was being excommunicated
from it for his evangelistic preaching (as well as for singing bass and
preaching in English). He promptly fainted for the only time in his life.
Recovering, he was soon speaking in homes, barns, schoolhouses, and
rented churches-wherever there was an opening, leaving a trail of newlyformed congregations. He was the most popular preacher for funerals in his
county. Once he was called from the road, work clothes and all, to conduct
a funeral service in a home which he was passing, since the designated
speaker had failed to appear.
Brenneman's counterpart in Ontario was Solomon Eby, whose
church in Port Elgin broke out in revival when he himself was converted in
1869. Soon a whole generation offanner preachers, caught up by the Spirit
more than taught by men, was following Brenneman and Eby into a new
fellowship eventually called the Mennonite Brethren in Christ.
Out ofthe Canadian Amish came one of the greatest farmer
preachers of all. Young Joseph Ramseyer was converted while following the
plow in 1885 in the burned-over thumb area of Michigan. Six years later in
July, 1891, kneeling in a willow bush, Ramseyer was overwhelmed by a
powerful filling of the Holy Spirit. He remembered singing a song "the
words and music of which I had never before nor since heard" (Lugibihl
and Gerig 1950,23). At once he began to preach wherever people gathered
to listen.
Nourished by contacts with the early Christian and Missionary
Alliance, for several years Joseph Ramseyer's inspired preaching blazed a
revival trail across Midwestern "Egli Amish" congregations and beyond.
The "Egli Amish" were followers of Bishop Henry Egly, himself expelled a
generation earlier from his original Adams County, Indiana Swiss Amish
community for persistently preaching, "You must be born again!" Wherever
Ramseyer spoke people were healed, whole families came to Christ, and
young people began to train for service at the Bethany Bible Institute in
Bluffton, Ohio. Nothing held these young enthusiasts back. When loudcroaking frogs drowned out Ramseyer's voice in a revival tent pitched
beside a pond, his farm-wise song leader, Peter Eicher, stilled them by
throwing rocks into the water all through the sermon.
Conservative pastors among the Egli Amish expelled Joseph
Ramseyer (and Joseph Egly, Henry's son) from their fellowship in 1895, but
his powerful ministry continued. Spirit-filled believers gathered about him,
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Preachers alld
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and before long he was leading both the newly-formed Missionary Church
Association and the Fort
Bible Training School (now Taylor
University Fort Wayne). "Daddy" Ramseyer continued both
responsibilities until his death in 1944.
Joseph Ramseyer left his mark on a long generation of Missionary
Church preachers, among them S. A. Witmer, himself a giant among
American Christian educators. "One soon has the measure of most men.
But not so with this humble man of
God with simple tastes and habits.
His character is not easily
circumscribed. There was an
indefinable element of greatness
about him. He had a breadth of soul,
a loftiness of vision, a depth of
conviction, and height of moral
stature that transcended the
ordinary ... "It was in the realm of
the Spirit that J. E. Ramseyer was a
specialist .... thousands bear the
imprint of his godly life" (Witmer in
Ramseyer 1948,23). A sampler of
Ramseyer's sermons is found in
Joseph Rail/seyer
Dwell Deep, but his real legacy is
traced in the Spirit-filled ministry of
strong pastors and missionaries of both the former Missionary Church
Association and of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ.
The sturdy corps of farmer preachers finally faded away, but it was
forceful to the end. When years ago an ungodly old farmer fell from his hay
wagon in the Berne, Indiana, community and was killed, A. M. Clauser
preached his funeral sermon from Proverbs 29: l-"He, that being often
reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without
remedy."
The Evangelists
The twentieth century brought a new generation of evangelists.
Edison Habegger, a young roughneck from a Berne furniture factory, was
converted in the late I920s. At Fort Wayne Bible Institute, he further yielded
to the Spirit's sanctification and discovered his gift of evangelism. With a
machine-gun delivery and his crystal-clear storytelling of the gospel, Habegger
drew people to Christ. Teaming up with the dynamic Cleveland Colored
Gospel Quintette in 1934, Eddie and his African-American friends stormed
through North America and Europe, appearing in humble chapels, massive
6
Erdel: Great Preachers
halls, and even before
audiences. Their rendition of old-time religion
resonated with multitudes. Eddie later became a popular radio evangelist, a
district superintendent on the West Coast, and the president of Cascade
College. His identity, however, was always tied up in evangelistic preaching
tours.
During World War II a new army of young American evangelists
swept into action, launching Youth for Christ and other crusades for Christ.
Caught up in this tide were youth from the Fort Wayne Bible Institute,
among them Richard Reilly and Harold Walker. Reilly was a Detroit
newsboy who wandered into a Mennonite Brethren in Christ church in
Detroit and was saved. Quickly recognized as a gifted speaker, he became a
popular evangelist, prophecy teacher, and missionary to India. Returning
home because of illness, he became the Foreign Secretary of the United
Missionary Society. His challenge-"When God wants something done,
first he looks for a man!"-was repeated time after time in passionate
sermons.
Another passionate preacher in the Missionary Church was
Harold Walker. Never married, Walker gave his whole life to earnest
evangelism. Walker was respected for his warm sincerity and his
willingness to go anywhere with the Word. He could wring a gospel
challenge out of almost any passage of Scripture. I once heard him give a
Sunday morning sermon in which he traced Christ through every book of
the Bible. Many came to Christ through his long years of witness, and not
a few young preacher boys were buoyed by his encouragement.
In the 1950s a new generation of evangelists added to the rich
tradition of great Missionary Church preaching. Paul and Joan Grabill,
graduates of Fort Wayne Bible Institute, warmed the denomination with
their preaching for 19 years. While Paul's voice boomed in a church's
sanctuary, Joan captivated children in the basement below.
As a student at the Fort Wayne Bible Institute Eddie Jones read
the Apostle Paul's words to "do the work of an evangelist" and knew they
were God's personal call to him. He took his charge seriously, serving
twenty years in itinerant evangelism and preaching over 4,000 evangelistic
sermons. One memorable service was a four-hour youth meeting at Beulah
Missionary Church where the altar was filled repeatedly with fresh waves of
seekers.
Jack French spent 35 years as a bilingual evangelist in North
America and Brazil. Trained at Bethel College, French built long-term
friendships with many churches, returning to individual congregations up
to six or eight times. The tent meetings he held as a missionary to Brazil left
a trail of churches across that country. A highlight of his ministry was
7
Preachers ({nd P""(J('hil1"
helping organize a conference for itinerant evangelists sponsored by Billy
Graham.
Two Torch bearers
Quinton 1. Everest and Jared Gerig are the two men who set the
pace for great preaching in the Missionary Church. Both grew up in the
191 Os as Indiana farm boys and went on to graduate from Fort Wayne Bible
Institute in the late I920s. Each left his imprint on a long generation of
young preachers.
Everest had yet to preach his first sermon when his district
superintendent asked him on the very day he graduated from college to
preach the next two Sundays in rural Chapel Hill. To Everest's surprise he
remained there for the next two and one-half years. In his next charge he
began the weekly Your Worship Hour radio program, which continued for 50
years. Eventually the program was heard over 125 North American stations
and over missionary radio stations around the world. Until retirement age,
Everest pastored several growing local churches in northern Indiana and
served as an evangelist for several denominations across the United States
and Canada. His passionate sincerity, his riveting golden voice, and his
f10wing thought made him one of the most popular preachers in America.
He was the leading founder of Bethel College and the chairman of his
denomination's mission board. Despite his accomplishments, he was
profoundly kind and humble. Yet he spoke with a prophetic voice regarding
the role of preaching in the Missionary Church. In 1967 at a convention at
Yale, Michigan, Everest declared, "With all the emphasis that I know how to
say it, the one great need of our churches ... is a ... convincing, HolySpirit empowered ... ministry of sane, sound, Scriptural, evangelistic
preaching." Everest preached his own great radio messages standing
before a pulpit in an empty church auditorium. This seems appropriate, for
the pulpit was his home.
If Quinton 1. Everest set the example in the Missionary Church for
great preaching, Jared Gerig taught young men how to do it. Gerig honed
his own preaching skills at pastorates in Auburn, Indiana; Cleveland, Ohio;
and Phoenix, Arizona. Wherever he served as pastor, he attended local
colleges. By 1945 he had earned a master's degree and had become dean at
the Fort Wayne Bible Institute. Gerig was also the school's professor of
homiletics. His students loved him, partly because he took his students
seriously and felt their sermons. When young Don Rohrs preached a
practice sermon in class, using a striking illustration of his desire to burn
out for Christ, even Gerig wiped his eyes and was reluctant to critique it. In
weekly chapel messages, he modeled strong expository preaching. In the
classroom he taught it. Tossed a Biblical text by his students, within a few
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seconds he had isolated its central theme. Within a minute or two he had
worked out the main divisions ofthe text, often three phrases and almost
always alliterated. The following outline from a September 15, 1956, sermon
entitled "Christ at the Center" in the Missionary Worker was vintage Gerig:
"Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:27)
Christ must be the center of any soul-saving creed.
Christ must be at the center of any life-giving consecration.
Christ must be at the center of any world-evangelizing church.
Christ must be at the center of any age-enduring civilization.
His "Outlines for Discussion on Expository Preaching" still stands
the test of time, arguing that the expository style of preaching "majors on a
full and complete
presentation of the Word of
God" and "furnishes the
ring of authority so badly
needed in the preacher's
message."
Gerig's preaching
carried him first to the
presidency of the
Missionary Church
Association, then to the
presidency of Fort Wayne
Bible College, and finally to
Jared Gerig
the leadership of National
Association of Evangelicals. After his formal retirement, his preaching built
a strong congregation in Sun City, Arizona. His heritage lives on in his son,
Wes Gerig of Taylor University, Fort Wayne, a beloved theology teacher
and interim pastor for many area churches.
Great Ambassadors ofthe Evangelical World
Though modest in size, the Missionary church has been the
mother of many outstanding evangelical spokespersons. The earliest was
Jasper A. Huffman, the champion of higher education in the Mennonite
Brethren in Christ and across the American holiness movement.
Huffman began the twentieth century as a twenty-year-old pastor
with an eight-grade education. Breaking his Mennonite mold, he graduated
from Bonebrake Seminary. After further training, in 1914 he began a
professional odyssey as a "pied-piper" theological professor attracting
Mennonite Brethren in Christ youth to a series of Christian colleges where he
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· Preachers alld Pnwchilli'
taught: BlufIton College, Marion
and Taylor University. Typical of
these students was Ward Shantz fron1 Ontario, who later founded
Emmanuel Bible College and became a leader in the Missionary Church.
Similar to Wilbur M. Smith of Moody Bible Institute, Huflman also
became a popular proponent for evangelical scholarship. For many years he
was either dean or president of the Winona Lake School of Theology, a
respected summer seminary program. The author of many books, for
decades Huffman spoke in Bible conferences across the nation. He also
helped launch Bethel College near the end of his life.
Clyde Taylor, born in the Missionary Church, was recognized by
United Press International as one of the ten most influential Protestants in
the post- World War II generation. Reared in the Phoenix Missionary
Church in Arizona, in 1932 he became a missionary with the Christian and
Missionary Alliance in Colombia. During World War lIthe t1edgling
National Association of Evangelicals needed a spokesman in Washington,
D.C. to help secure missionary visas. Tapped for this job, Clyde did the
work of several men for the next 3S years. His crisp country-by-country
surveys of world missions were breathtaking. He knew all the important
Washington officials and how to approach them. He was in touch with
Christian leaders across America and around the world. Somehow he still
had time to befriend the Missionary Church, of which he was a lifelong
member, and to serve for three decades on the Fort Wayne Bible College
Board.
Kenneth Geiger rose through the ranks of the Mennonite Brethren
in Christ Church to become District Superintendent of the Indiana District,
then General Superintendent of the United Missionary Church, and finally
President of the Missionary Church after the 1969 merger of the United
Missionary Church and the Missionary Church Association. He was an
effective parliamentarian who knew how to transact business efficiently in
the many conferences of the districts and the denomination that he chaired.
Iiis leadership skills were recognized by the National Association of
Evangelicals and the National Holiness Association, two organizations on
whose boards he served for many years. His ministry was cut short by a
tragic auto accident while on a missions visit to Nigeria, West Africa.
Safara A. Witmer was the man who saved the Bible institute
movement after World War II. FIe was an intellectual preacher with an
encyclopedic mind and an iron will. By 1948 he had spent more than 20
years at Fort Wayne Bible Institute, the last three as its president. He saw
that his kind of school would soon be squeezed out in the higher-education
rat race if it could not secure accreditation, which the regional accreditation
agencies were denying. His first step over the next two years was to secure
a Ph.D. from the prestigious University of Chicago, while continuing at the
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Erdel: Great Preachers
same time to keep his firm grip on the administration of his own school.
Then, armed with his new credentials and his formidable mind, he almost
single-handedly created an accrediting association for Bible institutes and
Bible colleges that would insure their future to this day.
Timothy Warner, a missionary to Sierra Leone, became a popular
missions teacl1er and respected administrator, first at the Fort Wayne Bible
College and then with Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. His keen sense
of New Testament balance in both missiology and theology has served
evangelicals well. In time, together with his wife Eleanor, he became an
authority on the occult. Their messages have helped many to spiritual
health, especially in areas of the world where satanic influence is more
overt.
An airman who survived a near-fatal parachute jump in World War
II, AII' Rees became a missionary to India in 1954. There he founded the
Calcutta Bible Institute, a correspondence school that evangelized many
thousands of Indians. Returning to
Toronto in 1967, for the next quarter
century he was the pastor of the historic
Banfield Missionary Church. It became a
large multicultural congregation of
Canadians and of immigrants from Asia,
Atl'ica, and the Americas, who
worshipped together in warm fellowship.
Beginning in 1972, he also became
affiliated with Crusade Evangelism
International, holding more than 150
evangel istic campaigns for them,
Along the way Alfbecame a passionate
spokesman for the Missionary Church of
Canada, which separated Il'om the U,S,
church. In 1983 he was elected its
president, and a few years later AII' led his
recently- independent denomination into a
All Rees
successful merger with the Canadian
Evangelical Church. It was pure Rees charisma that swept away the logjam
of "marriage" negotiations between the two groups by his abrupt proposal
"Let's just elope!" So they did (Shirton 1997, 183). In April, 2000 AII' Rees
was declared Emmanuel Bible College's "Alumnus of the Century," a fitting
honor for the father of what is now the Evangelical Missionary Church of
Canada.
In 1947 Bill Pannell, of Native American, AtI-ican, and Spanish
heritage, was a keen high school graduate in Sturgis, Michigan. He turned
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Prcachcrs and Pr",whi""
down a scholarship to play basketball at Michigan State in order to attend
the Fort Wayne Bible Institute. Upon graduation he became a popular
evangelist in the Missionary Church Association. A modern Moses during
the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s, Pannell wrote My Friend,
the Ene/ny, an indictment of white evangelicalism's poor history ofrace
relations. His book helped propel him to a post at Fuller Theological
Seminary, where he became a respected professor and dean of the chapel.
Jay Kessler grew up in Auten Chapel (now Hillside Missionary
Church) in South Bend, Indiana, and still holds membership there today. A
graduate of Taylor University, he rose through the ranks in Youth for Christ
to become its president. Family Forum, his daily radio program heard
across America for many years, gave down-to-earth counsel on the gritty
issues facing modern youth. President of Taylor University from 1985 to
2000, he helped keep the college on course for Christ. Under his
sympathetic leadership, the financially-troubled Fort Wayne Bible College
(by then Summit Christian College) found a safe haven by becoming Taylor
University, Fort Wayne.
With roots in several evangelical traditions and experience as a
pastor and district superintendent in the Missionary Church, Gordon Bacon
found that he could share a vision with deep conviction. For 20 years he
traveled across America representing the National Association of
Evangelicals as its field director. Since 1989 he has served as vice-president
for church relations with Bethel College, a compelling spokesman for the
school's remarkable renaissance.
At Campus Crusade's Explo 72 young Bob Laurent captured wide
attention as a dynamic youth evangelist. Since then his striking sermons
have stirred people at more than 1,000 conferences. He has been a chaplain
for several major league teams, including the Chicago White Sox and the
Chicago Cubs. A college professor since 1986, first at Judson College and
now at Bethel College, he teaches with the same intense, passionate
enthusiasm as he preaches. Said Jay Kessler of Laurent: "He is poised and
experienced for the task of communicator, and his message is clear."
William Lane Craig attended the Mt. Olive Missionary Church in
Peoria as a boy, "reading books in the balcony while I preached," said his
pastor. Converted at age 16, he went on to earn degrees at Wheaton
College, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, the University of Birmingham
in England, and University of Munchen in Germany. Armed with European
doctorates in philosophy and theology, Craig has concentrated on
scholarly defenses of the Christian faith, debating courteously with any
atheist or agnostic who is willing to do so. He maintains ministerial
credentials and friendship with the Missionary Church, but in truth he is
Christ's champion for the holy catholic church of the ancient creeds. From
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farmer preachers to world-class apologists is a long pilgrimage, but each
share a common faith in God and the Bible.
Ministering Sisters
With a condescending chuckle a merger committee dropped the
"ministering sisters" category from the newly-formed Missionary Church.
Rev. Mae Shupe would have
scolded them. Shupe was a feisty
preacher in the Michigan District, a
woman who seemed to "run rather
than walle" In 1933 she wrote a fiery
paper on "The Need of Progressive
Women Ministers in our Church."
In it she declared, "The church
needs women's ministry. It needs
real women, strong intelligent
women, consecrated women, who
are willing to use their every talent
and attainment to the glory of God."
Shupe was one of the last
ofa fifty-year-old corps ofwomen
across the Mennonite Brethren in
Christ who operated city missions,
pioneered new churches, and held
evangelistic campaigns. They
included young evangelist Janet
Douglas, whose preaching in Ohio
Rev. Mae Shl/pe
and Michigan won many converts, as well as Mary Finlay and Miss
Chapman, heroines of Canada West. The ministering sisters dressed in
black hats and uniforms, whose style the district conferences dictated to
the last detail. They lived on a pittance and were more often than not
replaced by male pastors as soon as their f1edgling chapels could pay a
living wage. The early decades would count over 500 women with
credentials for ministry, an astounding number gi ven the size of either the
Mennonite Brethren in Christ or the Missionary Church Association at that
time.
For those brief decades the "ministering sisters," as they were
frequently called, functioned as the denomination's spiritual shock troops.
But in time the corps of ministering sisters withered away. Now that the
Missionary Church has launched its greatest church-planting campaign
ever, Mae Shupe would tell its leaders, "Put the ladies back to worle!"
I3
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Witnesses Around the
There have also been great preachers to and from the many
autonomous Missionary Church congregations around the world. They
include:
Seymour Hanson, the new pastor of Hopewell Missionary Church in
Jamaica. Hanson preached repentance until his people protested. He
persisted, and revival came. Eighty-four converts were baptized in
three months, and local tavern owners complained. Even Billy Graham,
vacationing at a nearby resort, came to hear a sermon by the famous
Seymour Hanson, who had merely wanted people to repent and receive
Christ as their Savior.
Hector Canola, an arresting orator whom local communists wanted to
send to Cuba to prepare for revolution in Ecuador. Never! Canola's
great voice belonged to Christ, and he lifted it only to call his
countrymen to the Lord. The Missionary Church may have never had a
more powerful open-air preacher.
Pronoy Sarkar, the congenial spokesman of/ndia's Missionary church
for over 40 years. His testimony of how his mother was found as an
abandoned waif in an Indian railroad station by early United
Missionary Society missionaries, and later reared by them, particularly
inspires American audiences.
Willis Hunking, a Canadian missionary to Nigeria who proclaimed,
"This year we're going for a million souls through New Life for All."
Saturation evangelism was born in Latin America, but it reached its
potential under Hunking and his companions in Nigeria.
Jacob Bawa, a scholar, teacher, preacher, diplomat, and administrator.
Born motherless and nearly buried alive by an evil witch doctor, he
went on to serve his native Nigeria as ambassador to Spain, the
Vatican, and Chad, serving his Lord as a respected leader and gifted
speaker.
John Bontrager, a missionary to Nigeria. Every Sunday John preached
to the largest Missionary Church congregation in the world, which met
in the Ilorin Theological College's chapel in Nigeria.
Henry Zehr, the first Missionary Church Association volunteer to be
sent overseas. His stirring sermon, "The Christian Soldier," preached to
missionary colleagues from many backgrounds in China, was circulated
widely as a tract for several years. Its impact deepened when Zehr died
from smallpox after two years in China.
Hannah Bracy, a spiritual mother to many pastors in Angola. Bracy
trained scores of young men for the ministry. Her true stories of lions
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Erdel: Great Preachers
and life in the African bush thrilled American audiences while she was
on furlough.
Pastors in the
In addition to preachers overseas and in the broader evangelical
church, the Missionary Church has enjoyed hundreds of talented preachers
in its American congregations. In 1932 Fort Wayne Bible Institute
graduated several men who went on to become sterling preachers and
teachers-Cyril Eicher, Eddie Habegger, Clinton Moser, John Nussbaum,
and Russell Sloat-but it was Mark Burgess of that class who became the
Missionary Church's benchmark pastoral pulpiteer. Mention Burgess and
people's faces light up. Why was he so special? Parishioners remember:
"He had a warm personality and was easy to listen to"; "He knew Scripture
so well that he quoted his sermon texts rather than read them"; "Even
children understood his messages"; "He was a very good expositor and
liked to preach straight through a book of the Bible"; "He lived what he
preached."
Larry DeWitt reached the denomination's prestige pulpit early in
his ministry. Though he was still a young man, his frank, fresh sermon style
and innovative spirit had already made him the senior pastor of the historic
First Missionary Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. People loved him. "We
had never heard such preaching before," said the DeSelm brothers, his two
young associates, gifted preachers themselves.
DeWitt envisioned a church so open that everyone could feel
comfortable during their very first visit. In 1976 he left Fort Wayne and
moved to California. There he picked up the last embers of the Thousand
Oaks Missionary Church and launched Calvary Community Church.
Preaching mere Christianity with all the modern idioms, in tune with each
new cultural vibration, Larry's relevant preaching of the basic gospel over
the years built a congregation of 3,500 people by the early twenty-first
century. It was DeWitt who did the most to introduce the Missionary
Church to the modern seeker-friendly approach to church growth.
Leonard DeWitt was a Canadian farm boy from Gallahad, Alberta,
who turned down a banker's career to become a pastor. Graduating from
Mountain View Bible College, he found a Missionary Church pastorate
across the border in the state of Washington. He was still just a face in the
crowd when one day he told a friend, "If you ever find a church where the
people are more desperate to do what God wants than any thing else in the
world, let me know." One day he received a phone call: "There is a handful
of people in Ventura, California, who are what you asked for." So he went.
Disciplined by hard years and personal sorrow, but buoyant in
faith, DeWitt began to weave powerful messages with personal stories,
15
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Preaehers and Prpm,j";",,
biblical truth, and great vision, punctuated by warm expressions of love for
his peoplc, His sermons were irresistible. In a few years the Ventura
Missionary Church had grown to 1,700 people with a program of
counseling, education, and evangelism that impacted its extended
community. In 1981 Leonard was elected president of the Missionary
Church. His people skills and inspiring sermons were a breath offresh air to
the denomination, but he missed his people in California. He cut short his
second term as denominational president to return to his first-love in
Ventura.
Joel DeSelm, a school teacher turned pastor, took his lively
classroom style into his pulpit. He pinpoints truth and then drives it home
with human-interest stories, often wry tales from his own life. Six hundred
people come each Sunday to the small-town Woodburn Missionary Church
to hear what Pastor Joel will tell them from the Word and to hear what
hilarious thing their pastor will say next. They're not often disappointed.
His clever pen enlivens Missionary Church Today, the denomination's
monthly, and he serves as the denomination's vice-president.
Todd Habegger has always stood tall, first as an All-American
basketball player and now as pastor of Village Church in Gurnee, Illinois, a
congregation which he founded in 1983.
A graduate of Fort Wayne Bible College
and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School,
Habegger's strong preaching attracts
1,500 people each Sunday, including
numerous Trinity professors and their
families.
Although Habegger is the respected
pastor of world-class theologians, nonacademics like his sermons equally well.
Those in the pew say he shares God's
Word in an organized, very practical way.
According to them, his messages are
fresh, challenging, and driven home with
puns, alliteration, and memorable
illustrations. "His sermons bless us," they
say.
The remarkable Engbrecht family counts
several
strong preachers in its fold. David
David Engbrecht
Engbrecht represents them well. Indeed,
he is the dean of preachers in the contemporary Missionary Church. In 1979
Engbrecht became pastor of the Nappanee Missionary Church, which then
had an attendance of some 80 people. Today 2,800 people attend, and the
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church sponsors
programs over a number of radio stations. David
has surrounded himself with talented
but it is his powerful
preaching which pulls the church forward.
What makes David Engbrecht such a good preacher? He is a great
communicator. Mike Peters of the North Central District office, who attends
the Nappanee church, explains, "He connects with the congregation
personally, so people feel he really knows them. Every message is tied
closely to Scripture. He preaches on topics that touch people where they
are. He uses humor well. He sometimes acts out sermons, such as a face-toface demonstration of sharing his faith with another person. He reads
widely and uses a variety of illustrations. Overall, he is committed to
excellence."
Engbrecht's preaching has turned his people from preoccupation
with themselves to interest in others. Nappanee is an arsenal church which
pours its resources and people into great missionary and humanitarian
ministries around the world. Engbrecht and his church are setting an
example for the entire Missionary Church.
From farmer preachers to radio personalities to outstanding
pastors, the Missionary Church has enjoyed a rich tradition of great
preaching. May it always be so!
A retired World Partners missionm}1 to EcuadO!; DI:Paul Erdel is eurrently Dean oj"
the Bible institute Escuela de Ministerios "EI Camino" and eluster leader/ilr
Hispanic ministers in the North Central District oj"the lvlissionary Church.
Reference List
Hartzler, Jonas Smucker, and Daniel KaufTman. 1905. ivfennonite Church
HistOly. Scottdale, Pa.: Mennonite Book and Track Society.
Lugibihl, Walter H., and Jared F. Gerig. 1950. The Missionary Church
Association: Historical Account olfts Origin and Development.
Berne, Ind.: Economy Printing Concern.
Ramseyer, Joseph E. 1948. Dwell Deep: A Series ofDevotional Messages
on the Deeper Christian L!fe. Compo and ed. by S. A. Witmer. Fort
Wayne, Ind.: Bible Truth Publishers.
Shirton, Wayne F. 1997. Tried, Tested, 7humphant: The Eventfit! Life ofAll
Rees. Markham,Ont.: Steward Pub.
17
· Preachers and Prcachinl'
"In 1926 the District established a Superannuation Fund.
know that word it means retirement. To be eligible for
belle tIts, one had to be an ordained elder
40 years or his
per year in service annually. So 40 x $5
benefit was
In the 1926 Conference Journal that belonged to one of the
ministering
Loretta
there was this bit of verse:
For the mission girls
feel sorry
For
have done the best they can
But most of them are nearing the forties
And not one of them have
a man.
They have
long years in the service
And their service is
well done
But they must malTY a preacher
If they want to come in on the fund.
But this
say
will never
And some what go up in the air
So this conference can do nothing
But leave them alone in UC;O!)(lll.
Such sentiments must have helped sway the men, for in
1927 the conference voted to add
Sister to
the eligible list of the Superannuation Fund."
From Michigan District 'f1l1f;"'Pl1f,p}ournal, 1926: p. 21
t8