Senior writer Tim Stafford highlights Journey Center’s outreach to people who might otherwise have nothing to do with the church. The ministry’s offerings include workshops, spiritual direction, communal prayer gatherings, and art festivals.
Quintrell (top photo) previously ministered at Redwood Covenant Church in Santa Rosa, California.
Sankofa Influencing Christians Beyond the Covenant
OMAHA, NE – An article posted on Urbanfaith.com highlights the positive influence that the Evangelical Covenant Church’s Sankofa Journeys are having outside the denomination.
The article is the first in a two-part series on racial reconciliation in the city. It recalls a trip made earlier this year, when 50 leaders from 14 Omaha churches went on a Justice Journey with Willow Creek Community Church – that experience is modeled after the Sankofa trip.
The Evangelical Covenant Church celebrated the 10th Anniversary of the Sankofa journeys this year. Sankofa is a West African word meaning “looking backward to move forward.” During the four-day bus journey, participants are paired with someone of another race and travel through historic sites of importance to the Civil Rights movement, such as the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Cairns Receives Top Award for Care Facilities Work
MINNEAPOLIS, MN (December 8, 2009) – Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) minister Mark Cairns received a Life Achievement Award on November 17 from Care Providers of Minnesota, a statewide association, for his work leading care facilities.
Cairns is currently CEO of Madonna Living Community in Rochester, Minnesota. Earlier this year, the facility was one of only three nationwide to receive the highest National Quality Award from the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL).
Cairns oversees 124 apartments at the community, a 62-bed skilled care facility, and a 16-unit Memory Care unit, as well as a 66-unit assisted living facility on a second campus.
Prior to taking his current position in 1994, Cairns worked as an administrator for 17 years with Covenant Retirement Communities. Cairns was ordained to special ministry through the ECC in 2003 at the same time as his son, David – the only time a father and son have been ordained simultaneously. David is executive director of Pilgrim Pines Conference Center.
Cairns grew up attending Trimont Covenant Church in Trimont, Minnesota, and graduated from North Park University in 1968. He has a Master of Theology degree from McCormick Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Minnesota.
He previously served as Christian education director at Northwest Covenant Church in Mt. Prospect, Illinois, and was manager at Covenant Pines Bible Camp in McGregor, Minnesota. He and his wife, Carol, are pictured in the accompanying photo.
