(left
to right) Bishop Richard C. Looney, Frank and Emily
van Dalen
Erskine
Seminary Holds Missions Conference Oct. 6, Ford
Lectures Oct. 13-14
Erskine Theological Seminary will host two mission
and ministry events, the annual Missions Conference
and the Ford Lectures, during the next two weeks.
The 1999 Missions Conference, co-sponsored by
Erskine Theological Seminary and World Witness, the
Board of Foreign Missions of the Associate Reformed
Presbyterian Church, will be held Oct. 6 in Bowie
Divinity Hall on the seminary campus. Missionary
Frank van Dalen, currently pursuing a Ph.D. at
Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, will be the
featured speaker.
Registration for the Missions Conference will
begin at 9:30 a.m., with the program starting at 10
a.m. van Dalen will speak on “Christ's Great
Commission: His Power” at 10:15 a.m.;
“Christ's Great Commission: His Practice”
at 11:30 a.m.; and “Christ's Great Commission:
His Presence” at 1:45 p.m.
van Dalen and his wife Emily began missionary
service with World Witness in 1986, when they were
assigned to Sahiwal, Pakistan, moving on to Karachi,
where they served until 1998. He supervised church
planting and theological education in the Karachi
Presbytery of the Pakistan Synod of the Associate
Reformed Presbyterian Church.
The Ford Lectures will be held Oct. 13-14 in Bowie
Divinity Hall. Established in 1995 to honor the late
Rev. Wilborn McCree Ford and his widow, Mrs. Lyllian
Virginia Rosen Ford, the Ford lectures focus on
ministry in the small membership church. The Rev.
Ford was a graduate of Erskine College and Seminary
and spent 46 years as a pastor of Presbyterian
churches.
This year's Ford Lecturer is Bishop Richard Carl
Looney, who will speak Oct. 13 at 11 a.m. on the
topic “What Makes a Church Vital?” and
again Oct. 14 at 11 a.m. on “The Unique
Characteristics of the Small Membership Church.”
Looney is a native of Hillsville, Va., and is a
graduate of Emery and Henry College and Candler
School of Theology. He undertook additional study at
the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and at Union
Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va.
A member of the Holston Conference of the United
Methodist Church, he was ordained deacon in 1955 and
elder in 1959. He has served churches in Georgia,
Tennessee, and Virginia, and was elected to the
episcopate in 1988 and assigned to the newly created
South Georgia area.
President of General Council on Finance and
Administration for the quadrennium, he is a member of
the College of Bishops, the executive committee of
the Council of Bishops, and a member of the Joint
Commission for Dialogue between the World Methodist
Council and the Roman Catholic Church. He has shared
pulpit exchanges in England and Australia and work
missions in Peru, Libera, and Sierra Leone.
For further information on the 1999 Missions
Conference and the Ford Lectures, please contact Dr.
Loyd Melton, Associate Dean, Erskine Theological
Seminary. His phone number is 864-379-8883. His
e-mail address is: melton@erskine.edu
