Grace and Truth Gospel Chapel, KS

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Earliest Brethren

In 1865, Thomas Elwood Broadfoot (b. 1842 Huron County, Ontario, Canada - d. 1927 Wichita, KS) married Charlotte Ritchie (b. 1842 ON - d. 1925 Wichita, KS) in Prescott, Ontario, her parents were born in Scotland. Thomas was a son of James Broadfoot (b. 1803 Scot.) and Janet Broadfoot (b. 1817 Scot.), and the family relocated to Kansas somewhere between 1865 and 1879, as in the latter year, William Martin recalled in an evangelistic letter (reprinted in May 1967 Words in Season) to his younger brother Dr. A.E. Martin visiting Thomas near Abilene, Kansas and being led to Christ. A.E. subsequently received tracts and books including C.H. Mackintosh's "Notes on Exodus" that resulted in him also being led to Christ.

In 1884, Thomas' brother Alexander "Sandy" Broadfoot obtained his medical degree in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and settled in Enterprise, Kansas to setup his practice. It is presently unknown when they were introduced to the Brethren, but eventually Sandy became a popular itinerant preacher throughout the Midwest.

Tunbridge-Wells Exclusives

From about 1894 thru 1973 there was an exclusive brethren family in Dickinson County, Kansas, Judson & Laura M. Bowker Alden. Judson was born around 1835 in New York, and employed as a carpenter by 1870 in Rockford, Illinois, and married Helen "Hattie" Hazard, who was was born in Rockford in 1850. They relocated to the Dickinson county area by the 1890's, and presumed to have setup an exclusive brethren table in their home which was located initially in Manchester from 1894 thru 1904, then there was an exclusive brethren split in 1908/1909 in which the Alden's were included in affiliating with the Tunbridge-Wells brethren (which is the largest exclusive brethren group in the United States today). The Alden's relocated to Talmage from 1908-1923, and Mrs. Alden continued as correspondent thru at least 1933, along with their daughter Grace Alden who continued as a contact for the TW brethren thru 1973 in Abilene.

Grace and Truth

1910's

From 1910 thru 1917, the aforementioned Alexander "Sandy" Broadfoot, commuted from Iowa to Kansas to visit and hold Gospel meetings in schoolhouses including the Bonnacord schoolhouse, and many were saved. Robert Alexander Robson, of Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian, left to assist George McBoyle, Frank H. Nicholson and others to construct an assembly that met for a time in the large home of Alexander McBoyle, known as the Bonnacord Assembly. Eventually the McBoyles donated land at what is now at the corner of Deer & 1400 where they built the Grace & Truth Gospel Hall.

Other early families included Roggendorf, Miller, Emig, Jury, and Deardorff. It is also believed that George Gruen may have been among the early saints also, who had relocated from the St. Louis area of Illinois to farm, who was involved with exclusive assemblies in the Highland, Illinois area. It is remembered that when George first came to Abilene, he settled with an established Grant exclusive meeting in the area, which may have been among those who eventually started Grace & Truth.

From the Topeka State Journal, Sept. 14, 1914: "Abilene Preacher Egged: Saloon Rowdies at Breckenridge, Minn., Insult Kansas Minister on Street": "While Rev. F.H. Nicholson of Abilene, a preacher of the Plymouth Brethren denomination, was speaking in the street here, eggs were hurled at him from a saloon in front of which he was standing. A crowd of more than a hundred present at the time, was not slow in showing that their sympathies were with the speaker rather than the rowdies. Rev. Nicholson has been preaching for about fourteen years and is well known in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri and Iowa."


1920's

Elm Springs Bible Hall

A gospel outreach of Grace & Truth south of Carlton, and east of Roxbury in the mid to late 1920's by Frank Nicholson resulted in home Bible studies, and eventually a group of believers meeting in the Elm Springs schoolhouse, which became known as Elm Springs Bible Hall. Others who assisted from Grace & Truth included Robert Robson and Dan Emig. In 1937, a plot of ground a mile south of the schoolhouse was donated, and lumber from Carlton was used to build a meeting place on the property which would become , constructed by Daniel Cornelius Wedel (b. 1885 McPherson, KS - d. 1950 Logan, KS). Daniel's daughter Edna (b. 1920) would later marry Menno Dyck who would serve as an elder at Grace & Truth.

Visiting itinerants at Elm Springs would include Ed Bucheneau, John Walden (founder of a children's home in Colorado), Harry Ironside (Moody pastor and author), George MacKenzie, Tom Carroll, Walter Wilson (founder of Calvary Bible College), Leonard Lindsted, Tom McCullagh, O.E. McGee, and Richard Burson (founder of Kansas Bible Camp & Hutchinson Gospel Chapel in the mid-1940's).

1927 split

Around 1927, George Gruen, Benjamin F. Jury (1870-1947), and Linneas Engle (b. 1862 PA) took their families from Grace & Truth down the road to rent a space at the old Newbern Brethren in Christ church building, and setup an exclusive table that met thru about 1932. Christopher Frederick Schwarz may also have been involved with this separate meeting, who had emigrated in 1884 to Solomon.

1930's

Leaders at Grace & Truth included Frank H. Nicholson and Robert Alexander Robson. In Light and Liberty in 1935, an annual conference was reported at the Gospel Hall beginning on a Thursday evening on Oct. 24th and continuing thru that Lord's Day. In 1936, John Walden had a series of tent meetings south of Abilene, KS. The attendance averaged over 100 nightly for the entire campaign, with good interest. It is debated as to when Grace & Truth changed names from Hall to Chapel, somewhere between the 1930's and 1950's.

1936 split

Evidently in 1936 there was another split that resulted in another exclusive meeting in Abilene, courtesy Orville Robson via Marvin Studnicka. In obituaries for Carl & May (Jury) Botz, Christopher (b. 1869 Germany - d. 1946) & Mary Katherine Grimm Schwarz (b. 1872 NY - d. 1959), Fred & Anna (Jury) Peak, and Arrol William Taylor McBoyle (b. 1884 Abilene, KS), they were each noted as involved with a "Plymouth Brethren church" as a church different from Grace & Truth, and may have been part of this split. Fred & Anna (Jury) Peak may have had a connection to the forementioned Judson Alden family thru the Botz line.

1940's

In 1942, Jay Walden of Minneapolis was in the army at nearby Fort Riley. He fellowshipped at Grace and Truth and was a great help in the assembly. Other men who came to the Chapel from their military bases were Ed Kellner, Toby Brocker, Marvin Studnika, and David Silver, and at one point in the 1950's, the area assemblies started basketball teams.

Aug: L&L: George Gray, 2714 E. 36th St., KCMO: “Spent several weeks recently in KS ministering at Abilene, Elm Springs, and Kanorado. Saints are cheered by these visits and encouraged in their efforts to preserve a testimony to the Precious Name.”

Orville Robson initiated his position as a correspondent before 1947, which he served thru 1969.

1950's

In 1951, Kenneth Engle and his wife Mary Lou Leonard Engle received commendation from Grace & Truth, as well as from Austin Gospel Hall in Chicago to the Philippines where they would serve thru 1975.

In 1959, Kevin Dyer (originally from Tasmania, Australia) and his wife Eloise Engle Dyer were commended to the Lord's work with the initiating of Literature Crusades, which would become International Teams, a short-term missions initiative based in the Chicago area.

1960's

In the mid-1960's, George Easter, an accountant attending Grace & Truth, started an assembly in his home in Salina, which in the 1970's would purchase a former Jehovah's Witness building that would incorporate as Sunset Bible Chapel, which continues today, and along with Grace & Truth, has commended a number of overseas and home workers, including Jim Gillette of Ireland Outreach.

1970's

In 1970, D.W. Robson was serving as correspondent, then Orville Robson served as such 1971-1974. In the early 1970's, T. Lee Gruen and his wife Libby Cormack Gruen were living in Iowa City where Dr. Gruen was finishing his doctorate, and they lost their first three children (triplets), and neighbors ministered to them during this difficult time, leading Libby to Christ, and they were in fellowship with their small home assembly, followed by another small assembly when Dr. Gruen was teaching in St. Joseph, Missouri before relocating back to their hometown of Abilene in 1976, where they became involved with the Chapel.

In the early 1970's, Jerry Lahr, a nearby farmer was led to Christ thru an inter-denominational evangelistic outreach, and he and his wife Sandy started around 1977 at Grace & Truth. Also, Ken King, a local businessman, and his wife Judy came around 1978.

Elm Springs Bible Hall closed around 1977, with many of its regulars having relocated to Salina to Sunset Bible Chapel and elsewhere. The building was eventually razed, and only a cemetery remains.

Orville and Lois Robson were among the earliest volunteers in the 1970's with Hospice visitation in Dickinson County. Ken King, who was in fellowship with the Chapel from the late 1970's thru the late 1980's, including serving as an elder and Sunday School teacher, later served 2007-2020+ with a robust (20+ volunteers) hospice program in the area, along with many others from area churches.

1980's

Elders included T. Lee Gruen, Ken King, Menno Dyck, Jerry Lahr, and Keith Engle and their families. Kenneth Ercil Engle also shared in the preaching. Others included Earl & Alberta Blair, Edward & Edith Unruh, and Ken & Nettie Moore. Menno & Edna Dyck left for a short time in the mid-1980's to assist with the early days of Community Bible Church, returning soon afterwards, where Menno served as an elder until his death. In the late 1980's, T. Lee Gruen and Ken King felt the Lord's leading their families to assist with Community Bible Church in Abilene, where they've remained ever since, with T. Lee assisting with various Bible studies, and Ken serving as an elder and as a missions chair.

Throughout the years of Grace & Truth, they supported a Navajo Immanuel Mission in Teec Nos Pos, Arizona.

1990's

Gummel family

Grace and Truth has always had an interest in military outreach, with nearby Fort Riley, and there have been a number of soldiers who were stationed there who were in fellowship for brief periods there. Joe Gummel, and his wife Jan were in fellowship in the early 1990's with their infant son Daniel, and Joe shared in some of the Bible teaching. He was introduced to the Brethren while stationed at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base near Goldsboro, North Carolina in 1981, and in a squadron bible study had inquired about finding a spiritual mentor, and was directed to a Brethren itinerant there named John Milton Mills. Joe subsequently joined Goldsboro Bible Chapel where he remained until relocating to Miami, Florida where he was in fellowship with Bible Truth Chapel, when he married his wife Jan, from Indiana.

Joe then transferred to London, England, and they were in fellowship in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire at Bethany Gospel Hall and were also befriended by folk from York Street Hall, Peterhead, Scotland. Then they were stationed in Germany, and the nearest assembly they could find was in Belgium, which they attended occasionally, which contained a fair amount of Polish believers, so the services were translated from English to French to Polish. They also were in more regular involvement with a local Missionary Southern Baptist church. They relocated to Fort Riley in the 1990's, and sought fellowship at Grace & Truth, where they have fond memories of being invited home for Sunday dinners from various families in the assembly including Robson's, Lahr's, Engle's, etc.

Eventually they relocated to Dayton, Ohio where they were in fellowship with the Believers Assembly, which may now be Dayton Bible Chapel before moving to Springfield, Ohio and he became a lay elder at Southgate Baptist Church where he continues to serve into the 2020's.

2000's

Revolution

In 2000, Doug Engle graduated from Emmaus Bible College with a B.S. in Biblical Studies where had studied from 1995, and was raised at Grace & Truth. He moved back to Abilene, and started a mobile car wash business, followed by seasons in tree trimming, etc. He lived in Abilene from 2000-2003, before relocating to Hutchinson 2004-2016, followed by a move to Manhattan 2016-2020+. He started meeting with an old friend, and new believer, a peer named Kevin Haight, who was in fellowship with Emmanuel Church in Abilene, with permission of the elders at Grace & Truth on Monday evenings in late 2000.

Others followed from various area churches from Salina, Canton and Abilene, until the fellowship group numbered more than thirty young people on Monday nights for the four purposes of Acts 2:42 as a lay supplement for equipping them in their local churches. The group served over eighty young people over the course of its three years, with various itinerant Bible teachers from assemblies and other types of churches. It met at the Chapel for the first year or two, before relocating into Abilene where it met thru the end of 2003 at the Abilene Brethren in Christ Church, then a local park, then finally in the home of Doug Engle at the corner of 7th & Cedar.

Revelation

In the Fall of 2002, Mark Stanger offered to do a week-long evening series on the seven churches of Revelation. He was serving as an elder at Garland Bible Chapel in Dallas, Texas. His wife Lynette was the eldest daughter of long-time Grace & Truth elder and farmer Keith Engle (1929-2012) who spent nearly his entire life at Grace & Truth. This was an era when the Chapel was aging and at its lowest in numbers, and the public was invited via advertisement in the Abilene newspaper. The series was extremely well attended, with many area visitors, and it remembered that Menno Dyck attended every night, who was in failing health and would be promoted to Glory later that year.

From that series, the Marshall Greene family was introduced to the Chapel with several young children, which gave the assembly a needed renewal. Additionally, in July of 2003, Mark and Lynette Stanger relocated to Abilene to assist, where they remained until the Chapel's closing in 2010 with a widely attended farewell celebration. The pews were purchased by Kansas Bible Camp, and the library archived by Doug Engle, and the chapel building was converted into a place of residence for nearby young people.

News

Sources

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