Gilead Friends Church celebrates 200 years

Gilead Friends Church opened its yearlong Bicentennial Celebration at its April 14 worship service with speaker Dr. Greg Miller, president of Malone University in Canton, Ohio.

Miller surprised the congregation with a black and white slide projection photo of Malone students in the 1970s. It included several students who came from Gilead Friends Church. Members in the room called out people they recognized, including Jerry Wenger and Dr. Marty Mooney, who is a Gilead Friends member and a member of the Malone University Board of Trustees.

“Gilead Friends Church has many connections with Malone University,” Miller said.

He added the mission of Malone University is “to provide an education based on Biblical faith. We are Bible based and evangelical. That sets us apart.” Miller said student numbers are growing, and last year, there was record breaking giving to Malone, increasing by 40%.

“Lessons from the farm” was Miller’s topic. He spoke of growing up on a farm in western South Dakota. He based his message on the parable of the Sower in Mathew 13. He described how Jesus used stories based on agriculture for his parables because farming was what everyone in his time participated in and understood.

He showed how the Sowers of seed, and the Prodigal Son parables have similarities in showing the generosity of God and Gods patience in the timing of harvest. Miller said we can’t measure success in numbers. We just need to keep sowing the seed.

“All of us are called to be Sowers (of the Gospel of Jesus), Miller said. “We can all tell our own story of God’s faithfulness.”

The afternoon program, following a potato bar luncheon, was a celebration honoring 52 past and present members of Gilead Friends Church. Dr. Marty Mooney read the names on the Scroll of Remembrance beginning with the first Friends (Quakers) families. All the names on the scroll were identified in their service as pastors, missionaries, professors, teachers and tentmakers.

Emcees and hosts for the day’s celebration were Brad and Judy Mosher. Brad Mosher’s fifth great-grandfather, Asa Mosher, was a founder of Gilead Friends in 1824, then known as Gilead Preparative Meeting.

Gilead Friends Lead Pastor Wayne Evans shared his connection as a graduate of Malone College, now Malone University. Evans, along with Miller and Harvey Mosher, shared stories about the Gilead Friends connection to the committee, which worked on the translation of the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible.

Harvey Mosher’s uncle, Ralph Earle Jr., served on the committee for the NIV Bible Translation. Earle attended the Cleveland Bible Institute, which is now Malone University. Earle met Harvey’s aunt, Mabel Mosher, at Cleveland Bible Institute where he graduated in 1932.

Evans made an additional connection to both Malone and Earle as he told about attending an alumni function at Malone in 1987 when Ralph Earle was the featured speaker.

The Gilead Friends celebration of heritage concluded with missionary Ann Brantingham, who had sung a moving rendition of the hymn “Great is thy Faithfulness” at the morning worship. She taught English in China with the Northwest Yearly Meeting for 19 years, returning to the United States during the pandemic.

Brantingham attended Gilead Friends Church with her mother and grandmother as a child and later as a young adult. She thanked Gilead Friends for its support of her ministry over the years. She remembered the “feeling of leaving the incubator of the church” as she left to begin teaching in China in 2003.

Brantingham will be returning to China with a team of art educators from Otterbein University in the next few weeks. She read from Romans 12 about the ways one body has many parts, and how as one body in Christ, we have many gifts and many ways to serve.

“This church does this service in so many ways very well,” said Brantingham before the congregation gathered around her for a blessing as she returns to mission work.

Evans concluded the first day of the Bicentennial Celebration by noting the many ways there are to tell the story of Gilead Friends Church’s 200 years “in our past, our present and our future.”

The next bicentennial event of Gilead Friends Church will be Sunday, June 9, with speaker Jerry Wenger, a Gilead Friends alumnus and pastor emeritus of East Richmond Evangelical Friends Church in St. Clairsville, Ohio.

Alberta Stojkovic is a correspondent for The Morrow County Sentinel. She can be reached at [email protected].