How much do you know about the pastors and lay leaders from your district? Here are 10 questions about Grace Brethren leaders who attended the recent Focus Retreat in San Juan Capistrano, California, one of five such retreats being held around the U.S. this year. Answers below.
- What pastor rode his Harley-Davidson motorcycle diagonally across the entire Los Angeles basin on “the 5 Freeway” to attend the Focus Retreat?
- What Southern California pastor also helps direct a business of nearly 400 employees–alternating two weeks in China with two weeks at home and with his church?
- What pastor is a medical doctor who has for many years seen patients as a pediatrician one day a week, in addition to pastoring his church?
- What seminary-trained Japanese pastor just received his R-1 visa, permitting him to be in the US for the next three years, helping Cecil O’Dell reach Japanese nationals in the Long Beach area?
- What pastor led his father to the Lord, and now both are in ministry as elders in Grace Brethren churches?
- What pastor’s church is in a shopping mall, where shoppers and passers-by can look in on worship services, including footwashing at communion?
- What pastor has a tri-lingual church in which three separate ethnic congregations meet (Anglo, Hispanic, Mandarin Chinese), with at least one service a year (at Pentecost) occurring simultaneously in three-language translations?
- What Grace Brethren pastor last year performed 120 weddings and 157 funerals?
- What pastor, as a result of sitting with his wife beside Dr. Phil McGraw’s wife at the taping of a Dr. Phil show, was given a tractor-trailer load of toys to distribute to Katrina victims in Louisiana and Mississippi?
- What pastor is the incoming chairman of the Association of Grace Brethren Ministers who will take office at this summer’s Celebrate06 national conference?
- Pastor John McIntosh from the Grace Brethren Church of Simi Valley, CA
- Mitch Cariaga, pastor of Mosaic, a Grace Brethren church in Rialto, CA
- Dr. Glen Shirk, pastor of Ripon (CA) Grace Brethren Church
- Nao Makino
- Ed Waken, pastor at ValleyLife Grace Brethren Church in Peoria (Phoenix), Arizona and his father, Jerry, is an elder at the Community Grace Brethren Church, Long Beach, Calif.
- Pastor Chris Ball of Dimond Grace Fellowship in Anchorage, Alaska
- Pastor Terry Daniels of the Grace Brethren Church of South Pasadena
- Pastor Roy Halberg of the Alta Loma Grace Fellowship
- Pastor Wayne Ayer of the Norwalk, CA, Grace Brethren Church
- Pastor Joel Richards of the La Loma Grace Brethren Church, Modesto, CA