News Stories
Lawhorn and Soard to be commissioned as missionary and deaconess, respectively, at 2012 General Conference in Tampa
4/23/2012
Carolyn Gander Lawhorn and Eric Soard of the Memphis Conference are among 23 new missionaries and 17 deaconesses and home missioners from 11 countries being commissioned by the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) during the 2012 General Conference in Tampa, FL, in late April.
This is according to an April 18 announcement from Thomas G. Kemper, General Secretary of GBGM.
The commissioning will take place at Palma Ceia UMC in Tampa on Sunday, April 29, at 2 p.m. The worship celebration will also be webcast at umcmission.org/live.
Carolyn Gander Lawhorn
Carolyn Gander Lawhorn of Jackson, TN will be commissioned as Deaconess and Home Missioner. Her placement is as Parish Nurse/Community Organizer at Wesley Chapel UMC in Jackson.
Lawhorn says she came to realize her parish nursing ministry would only put a
Band-Aid on issues facing uninsured members of her congregation.
“I now embrace my additional calling as a community organizer, serving as a voice pushing policies for broader healthcare, promoting youth mentoring, and peacefully protesting discrimination of the oppressed,” she said.
Lawhorn aims to connect the local church to the community through social
justice issues.
Eric Soard
Eric Soard will be commissioned as Church Planter and Discipleship Trainer in Tarime, Tanzania in the Tanzania Provisional Conference. He shares this assignment with his wife, Elizabeth Soard from the Arkansas Conference.
Soard said he clearly remembers the first time he realized God loved him. More important in his faith journey, though, he said, was the first time God asked him to “share His love with others.”
A member of the Medina First UMC in Medina, TN, Soards an his wife have already spent two years as mission volunteers in the Tarime area of Tanzania. He says he is excited about the challenge to form new “communities of faith that can spread the reality of God’s adoption of his children in this world.”