Changes

Atchison is situated on the Missouri River, about fifty miles northwest of Kansas City. In the fall of 1901, Mr. and Mrs. John V. Davis and Mrs. Will Tietge began meeting regularly on the first day of each week to Remember the Lord, the beginning of the Atchison Gospel Hall, KS. Some years later their number had doubled, and the six began to pray definitely for the Lord to send His servants to labor in the field.

During this time the Lord added to the number one by one, and the old rented building became overcrowded and was otherwise inadequate. When another group of people purchased the building, the assembly met for several months in the Masonic Hall, which had already been used for two conferences. Plans were undertaken for constructing a chapel. A corner lot was provided in a residential district where there was no other church building.

In 1950 or 1951, five families who lived on the Kansas side of the line between Missouri and Kansas hived off from the Troost Avenue Gospel Hall to form an assembly in the Overland Park area of Kansas City, KS. William and Ruth Hayward, and Wayne and Ruth Matthews were those who lived there, and when three other families moved to the area, the decision was made to start an assembly.

The assembly has occupied the same building ““ Overland Park Chapel ““ at 64th and Floyd since its inception. At its largest, in the 1960s, about 200 people were in fellowship. A division in the early 1970s caused a serious decline in numbers, but today about 75 are in fellowship. Leaders in past years include Harry Sommerville, Duncan Sommerville, Gifford Knapp, Truman Page, Harlan Baldwin, Glenn Lee, and Russ Farwell. Don Herrington, Ray Miller, and Nelson Cook are among the leadership today.

===1929: Wichita Assembly, KS===

===1941: East Kellogg Gospel Chapel, Wichita, KS===

At that time, the Lindsteds moved to Goessel, 35 miles north of Wichita. During this time Leonard held Bible studies in Newton, Canton, and in his own home. In the summer he had tent meetings in many Kansas towns with Joe Balsan, Ben Parmer, and other workers.

Under the leadership of Leonard Lindsted and Dean Jensen, the Wichita assembly was incorporated in April 1946 and met at the East Kellogg Gospel Chapel at 1933 E. Kellogg. The incorporators were Charles Cissel, Dean Jensen, and Bert Brower.

Street meetings in Wichita and surrounding communities several evenings a week were held until legal restriction closed them down. Tent meetings continued, and special Gospel meetings continued through the following years, and the assembly continued to grow.

After about a dozen years, some believers in the assembly at South Emporia hived off to start a new work on the east side of the city. They also began a school, which at the beginning had quite small classes. Robert Lindsted had moved to the northeast side of Wichita and the assembly began in his home and was incorporated in 1982. The number multiplied and in 1983, Sunrise Bible Chapel was built. The Sunrise school has been quite successful, with about 750 students enrolled at this time.

The assembly at South Emporia Bible Chapel remained in their building for a time after the hive-off to Sunrise took place. Some couples living on Wichita’s west side began meeting in a home for mid-week prayer and Bible study in 1981. Dan Linsted was one of the leaders. The Eddie Buchannan family and Darold Peters family were among this group. Land was purchased but no building was erected. The group gradually disbanded and by 1990 most had returned to South Emporia Bible Chapel.

A small racially mixed meeting began fellowshipping in Augst 1963 and incorporated in 1966 as Grace Bible Chapel in Wichita. The incorporators were Donald Govan, Duane Denny, and D. Wayne Becker. This meeting continued until January 1981 when the Govan family moved to Jackson, MS to work with Voice of Calvary Ministries. Their daughter and son-in-law moved to California to work with World Impact, and Carol Denny was commended to the work at Immanuel Mission in Arizona. The South Emporia assembly continued the commendation of Carol and her husband Rick Khol after Grace Bible Chapel closed.

Richard Burson was a Baptist preacher working in Salina in the late 1930s and early 1940s. While he was helping some widows clean out their attic, he found old copies of Help and Food, published by Loizeaux Brothers, which he read, learning the principles of a New Testament church.

In 1945, Lawrence Littlefield, who was then stationed at the Hutchinson Naval Air Station, and his wife Betty, found the bookstore. Conversations with Mr. Burson about the New Testament church ensued, and Mr. Burson became eager to change his church to the New Testament pattern. He contacted Loizeaux Brothers in New York City for help, and they in turn contacted Ralph Littlefield of Kansas City, who had already been informed by his son Lawrence.

Ralph Littlefield spent much time in discussion with Richard Burson. Leonard Linstead and Tom McCoullagh also gave advice, and soon the Hutchinson Bible Hall was a reality at 4th and Main. Later the name was changed to Hutchinson Gospel Chapel to avoid confusion with the local Jehovah Witnesses hall.

Some of the families left to join a nearby Baptist group after the change. The remaining four or five families moved to an old funeral home at 228 W. 2nd. There Richard Burson set up a print shop, in addition to the book store and an apartment and meeting rooms for the assembly.

The O’Brien family farm was near the Coal Creek School House, and Alex O’Brien pitched a Gospel tent on the family farm in about 1903. During three weeks of meetings, some of the O’Brien family were saved, including Alex’s brother James and his wife Edith. Soon after that, a few Christians began Breaking Bread in the farm home. They enjoyed fellowship with other small gatherings in Perry, Garnett, and Kansas City.

James O’Brien was a true shepherd of the Coal Creek assembly through the early years. With his passing, his son-in-law, Ed Rockhold led the assembly until 1950. At that time, the O’Briens and Rockholds became associated with the Lawrence Bible Chapel.

Those engaged in shepherding the assembly in more recent years include Delbert Hird, LeRoy Olmstead, David Olmstead, Peter Naber, Curtis Naber, and Daniel Stewart.

The Baldwin City Gospel Chapel, south of Lawrence, was established in 1967 by Ray Jones and Ed Rockhold. Not a hive-off from another assembly, it met first in a home at 819 Indiana Street. The Gospel Chapel has commended workers to service at the Turkey Hill Bible Ranch Camp in Missouri and Immanuel Mission in Arizona. It sponsors an annual open Bible Conference. The assembly has about 40 adults and young people in fellowship.

The Lawrence Bible Chapel in the university town of Lawrence just west of Kansas City, was begun in 1944 as a home meeting, first in the home of Jack and Mary Marquette, and later in William Sommerville’s house. It began as a result of gasoline rationing during World War II. Gordon Wakefield attended there after being saved at the University of Kansas in 1950.

From 1951 to 1984, the assembly met at 1001 Kentucky in Lawrence, and in 1984 moved to its present location at 505 Monterey Way. The principal people involved in the start-up were Jack Marquette, Lawrence Littlefield, and Arthur Hird and their families. Those in leadership over the years include William Sommerville, Pete Youngberg, Ron Nadvornik, Dave Drelory, John Scollon, Don Schonberg, Russ Farwell, Terry Morgan, Larry Sherraden, and Dean Jordan.

Alexander “Sandy” Broadfoot from Iowa came to Kansas in the period 1910 to 1917 to visit and hold Gospel meetings in schoolhouses in the area south of Abilene in mid-Kansas. The Bonnacord schoolhouse was one of these. Many were saved. Mr. Broadfoot instructed Robert Robson and others about the Lord’s Supper and plural leadership, and an assembly was begun. The Christians met first in the large home of Alexander McBoyle and took the name Bonnacord Assembly. For many years, the Christians met in homes; Bible Conferences were held in tents.

In 1918, the assembly built Grace and Truth Gospel Hall on donated property in the Holland area, which is still the assembly’s location some eight miles south of Abilene. One of the leading men in the assembly at that time was Frank Nicholson. Some of the early families to fellowship at the Hall were the Roggendorffs, Gruens, Millers, Emigs, and Jurys, in addition to the Deardorffs, McBoyles, Nicholsons, and Robsons. In the 1930s, the assembly changed the name to Grace and Truth Gospel Chapel.

In 1937, a plot of ground a mile south of the school was donated to the assembly; lumber from a building in Carlton was used to build a meeting place on the property. The assembly Christians called it the Elm Springs Bible Hall. The assembly numbered about 60 at its largest. An annual three-day October Bible Conference was a highlight. Migration of farmers to the larger towns in the 1950s and 1960s caused a declining attendance at Elm Springs Bible Hall, and it disbanded in the late 1970s.

In 1916 or 1917, J. E. (Ned) Brown, a wheat farmer then 60 years old, moved from Long Island in north-central Kansas to the area of Kanorado, a small town on the Kansas/Colorado border. Ned Brown had his roots in Iowa where he had helped establish the Berea Gospel Hall; when he moved to Long Island, Kansas, his first concern was to begin a meeting in that town. So, when he moved to his new farm a few miles from Kanorado, he directed his strong evangelistic concern toward planting a new work in that area also. Soon after arriving, he started an assembly that became known as the Kanorado Gospel Hall and which met initially at the Graybill school house north of Kanorado. A good preacher, he held Gospel meetings at several different school houses in western Kansas and eastern Colorado.

The Dust Bowl of the 1930s caused much hardship; this together with the general state of the economy due to the Great Depression induced many farming families to move off the farms to the towns and cities along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. There they affiliated with existing assemblies and had a considerable influence.