United Methodist Church Official Robert Farr to Deliver CMU Commencement Address May 7

FAYETTE, MO (05/02/2011)(readMedia)-- The Rev. Robert (Bob) Farr, an administrator with the Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church, will be the May 7 commencement speaker at Central Methodist University in Fayette. Baccalaureate speaker will be the Rev. Lucas Endicott, CMU campus chaplain.

Baccalaureate will begin at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in Linn Memorial United Methodist Church on the CMU campus. Commencement will begin at 2 p.m. in Puckett Field House. Approximately 204 students from the home campus will receive undergraduate degrees and 16 will receive graduate degrees.

Seventy-eight more students from CMU's Extended Studies Program, including its regional campuses in Sedalia, Clinton, Lake of the Ozarks and Columbia, also are to receive undergraduate degrees during commencement at Fayette. Several-hundred more students will receive undergraduate or graduate degrees this school year from CMU's other regional campuses throughout the state.

The Rev. Robert (Bob) Farr, Commencement Speaker

Farr, director of congregational excellence for the Missouri Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, is also leading the Healthy Church Initiative for the Missouri Conference and teaching workshops across the country. He will be honored during commencement with an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity.

Born in Independence, Farr was raised in small town of Creighton. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Communication from Central Missouri State University (now University of Central Missouri), Warrensburg, in 1981 and a Master of Divinity degree from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, in 1985.

Farr has served United Methodist churches since he was 18, beginning as a student pastor in 1978. He was founding pastor in 1990 of Grace United Methodist Church in Lee's Summit. During Farr's 10 years as pastor at Graceland, church attendance grew to more than 500 and he organized a daughter church in 1998 called Hope United Methodist Church in Lone Jack, which grew to more than 100 members in a small town of 400 people. Farr then served as pastor of Church of the Shepherd in St Peters, a suburb of St. Louis, where he relocated the congregation and increased church membership from 450 to more than 1,100.

Farr is the author of a recently published book entitled "Renovate or Die: Ten Ways to Focus Your Church on the Mission." Farr and his wife, Susan, who is a teacher at Francis Howell School and a CMU graduate, reside in southwest St. Charles County and have two grown children and one grandchild.

The Rev. Lucas Endicott, Baccalaureate Speaker

Originally from Southwest Missouri, Lucas graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications and Religious Studies from Missouri State University, Springfield, in 2003. He also holds a Master of Christian Studies degree, with a Concentration in Church History, from Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, 2008, and a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton University, New Jersey, 2010.

Before coming to CMU in July of 2010 Lucas worked for several non-profit organizations and churches across North America, including the General Board of Global Ministries in New York City.

He served as director of young adult ministries with Schweitzer United Methodist Church in Springfield, 2004- 2006; as public relations director with the Springfield Victory Mission, 2003-2004; and as director of youth ministries with Willard United Methodist Church, 2001-2002.

Among his academic honors, Endicott was selected as a Summer Wesley Research Scholar at Duke University in 2008 and was awarded the Senior Fellowship in History at Princeton Theological Seminary in May 2010.

Endicott and his wife, Shannon, a musician with theological training, have a one-year-old son, Owen, and reside in Boonville.

Founded in 1854, Central Methodist is the only United Methodist Church-related university in Missouri, and welcomes qualified men and women of all faiths and from diverse backgrounds. Its wooded, historic campus hosts a faculty of teachers, mentors, and scholars dedicated to providing extraordinary attention to the individual learner. With offerings ranging from high-school dual credit to graduate studies and a total enrollment in excess of 5,100, its liberal arts and pre-professional programs are centered on a character core that has twice brought Central Methodist national recognition for its leadership in character education. In recent years the University has attracted significant challenge grants regionally from the Mabee Foundation and nationally from the Kresge Foundation to help build a $15 million Student and Community Center on the academic quadrangle, to fund $5 million in major upgrades to its athletic facilities, and to compete a $5.4 million renovation of a historic campus building.

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