It's been a delight for me to see many of my high school classmates again after all these years, and I would like to share with you some of my life story.

 

During high school I had serious dreams of becoming a musician, and often thought of running off to Nashville to write songs and sing. It sounds silly now, but it was a serious matter for me at that time. However, during my junior year I experienced a profound feeling that I should become a minister. I finally surrendered to this "calling," as my church referred to it, and chose to devote my life to the ministry.

 

My family attended the Church of Christ in Christian Union out on Belle Avenue, so right after graduation I enrolled in our denominational school, Circleville Bible College, in Circleville, Ohio. I spent five years there, and loved it! I vividly remember preaching for the first time in the fall of 1961, and to my amazement the sermon lasted over 30 minutes! Frankly, I didn't know I could talk that long. My next sermon lasted all of six minutes, and although I was very disappointed, it taught me that preaching was more than just "open your mouth and the Lord will fill it!" 

 

I also learned that ministry involved much more than just preaching. In my junior year of college I began to sense that my future ministry would include writing and teaching. To test these feelings, I asked the editor of our church periodical if he would publish an article for me, and he encouraged me to submit it for consideration. He published the article two months later, and also published several other articles over the next few years. His name was Lewis Brevard, and he and other professors at the school encouraged me to write, and strongly urged me to go on for further education.

 

In 1965 I married Miss Charlotte Strouse, a farm girl from near Chillicothe, Ohio, also a student at the Bible College. We shared like dreams and aspirations for ministry, and we began our married life working at Maywood Mission in Lancaster, Ohio. Here our first child, Jonathan, was born, and he transformed our lives. I graduated Bible College the next year, and we accepted our first full-time church in Bluffton, Indiana. The next six years found us serving churches in Canton and Lima, Ohio, and our second son, Nathan, was born in Lima in 1969. While in Lima I began an eight year tenure as president of Dunkirk Camp Meeting in Dunkirk, Ohio, and that helped flame my deep and lasting historical interest in revivalism in America, especially the camp meeting movement.

 

In 1972 Charlotte and I transferred our denominational membership to the United Methodist Church. We had become frustrated with the teaching that the Christian life largely consisted of obedience to a list of rules, such as not wearing a wedding ring, not owning or watching television, not going to movies or the theatre, not attending dances, etc. We felt the Christian life was a matter of growth, relationship and personal choices, and those kind of decisions should be ours to make.

 

I had long wanted to go to Seminary to begin the process of further education, and changing denominations opened that door. The same year we became United Methodists, I was accepted as a student at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, and received my first appointment as a Methodist student minister. Our first United Methodist parish involved five small churches in southern Ohio, and the parsonage was located in a small town called Sinking Springs. This was a "student parish," and I lived at Asbury Seminary during the week, coming home to my family Friday through Monday. We lived there four years, and I matured as a minister while serving this parish. They raised money to send me on a month long tour of the Holy Land, sponsored by the Seminary, and in many other ways endeared themselves to me and my family.

 

In 1976 I graduated from Asbury Theological Seminary, and my mother got to attend the ceremony. She died later that summer. Immediately following graduation I accepted a teaching position at Vennard College in University Park, Iowa. We lived there three years, and I headed the program of youth ministries, and also taught several classes in English Bible. During the summers my family and I got to minister at camp meetings in various states, and we greatly enjoyed these experiences. My first book was published while we were at Vennard, the HISTORY OF THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST IN CHRISTIAN UNION, my former denomination. The earliest leaders of that church had been "Copperheads" during and after the Civil War, and much of their story centered around the hot times in Ohio. Mr. Brevard had recommended me for the task, and it was a delight to work with him. I thoroughly enjoyed the research. 

 

Two vivid memories stand out from the years in Iowa. First, it could be bitterly COLD in the winter, and sometimes we scraped ice off the inside of the windshield of the car. (And yes, the heater worked just fine.) Second, we all became fast friends with a student at Vennard named Jim Lazaro. He was from India, and had been lead guitarist and singer in a rock group there. Jim taught my boys how to play guitar, and we began to sing and perform together as a family.

 

The United Methodist Archives are housed at Drew University, at Madison, New Jersey. I wanted to do research in that library, and do my graduate studies under the direction of Dr. Kenneth Rowe, the outstanding Methodist historian who directed the library. In 1979 I applied and was accepted into the doctoral program at Drew University, and also appointed to the Oxford, New Jersey United Methodist parish while I went to school.

 

By this time Jon and Nathan were really good on the guitar and drums. I could chord guitar pretty well, but Jon far surpassed me. We sang together as a family at all sorts of church and community functions, and the boys and I wrote a lot of songs together. Charlotte and I started collecting antiques, and while she loved furniture and gadgets, I focused on books, antique guns and the Civil War. Selling this collection later gave us a nice down payment on a home. I have to tell you, I still miss those old Kentucky rifles.

 

As soon as classwork was finished at Drew, I applied for a teaching position at the newly formed United Methodist University in Zaire, Africa. We could not believe it when we received the acceptance letter, and four months later we had all our belongings packed in barrels while we headed to language school in southern France. The boys took their guitars with them. We got to spend three full months in France, and it was one of the most delightful experiences of our lives. We simply fell in love with the place, its people, and the quaint little shops that sold the best bread and cheese we ever ate!

 

Charlotte got desperately ill while we were in France, and we decided to come back to the states for treatment. She would never have survived had we gone on to Zaire, and it proved a very wise move to come home. We purchased a house in Easton, PA, and over the next eight years served two United Methodist parishes in northeastern Pennsylvania. About this time, Charlotte decided to finish college, and she, too, started the path towards becoming a minister. I am proud to say she pastored two different churches before diabetes claimed her eyes and forced her into retirement. She passed away in 2001.

 

While pastoring in Pennsylvania, I finished my research on camp meetings and wrote two books on camp meeting revivalism. One is entitled HOLY GROUND, TOO; THE CAMP MEETING FAMILY TREE, and the other is INSKIP, MCDONALD, FOWLER: "WHOLLY AND FOREVER THINE." It is the story of John S. Inskip and the old National Holiness Camp Meeting Association, founded in 1867. Numerous American denominations can trace their history to the work of this organization. Over the next four years I wrote three books, numerous articles for various journals, and edited four other books, all them related to the camp meeting movement. One of them is the HISTORY OF CAMP SYCHAR, located at Mt. Vernon, Ohio. I have served as Bible teacher at that encampment on three different occasions, and currently serve as historian of the association. It is the oldest camp meeting of its kind in the nation.

 

I hope soon to publish the diary of Martha J. Inskip, wife of the Reverend John S. Inskip. He was a prominent national figure in his day, and although Methodism did not ordain women back then, Martha picked up his mantle of revivalism and carried on the work in a remarkable way. She well deserves to be remembered.

 

I am now officially retired, and thoroughly enjoying life. My oldest son and his wife live in Texas, and I am very proud of my two teenaged grandchildren. My youngest son lives near Allentown. I am looking forward to our fiftieth reunion, and I sincerely hope to see you there. 

 

Ken Brown

 

What a wonderful story, Ken.  Thanks for sharing.