New Hires

News November 01, 2015

Connor Kenaston

Mission, Service and Justice ministries has added Connor Kenaston to the staff. Connor is a Global Mission Fellow, US-2 and will be working with as an advocate for racial justice and reconciliation in and through the Missouri Conference.

Kenaston works part-time at the new Center for Social Empowerment and Justice in Ferguson, part-time in Columbia with interfaith organizations, and part-time creating a “Faith and Race Podcast” and accompanying small group materials that will detail the experiences of African American Methodists in Missouri through a series of recorded interviews. Coming in February, this resource will help stimulate constructive dialogue and understanding in Methodist churches across the conference. This may be the way for your church to start addressing these important issues.

Kenaston’s interest in racial justice from a faith perspective stems from his research on the civil rights movement as an undergraduate at Yale University. Even though he grew up in West Virginia, Connor has strong ties to the Missouri Conference as his sister, Rev. Diane Kenaston, currently serves University UMC (St. Louis) and his great-grandfather also served as a Methodist pastor in Missouri in the 1930’s. Kenaston worked the first year of his US-2 experience at the Center for Faith & Service at Central Methodist University in Fayette.

Lucas Endicott

Lucas Endicott has also joined the Mission, Service and Justice staff this Annual Conference. Prior to this appointment, Endicott served as the Director of the Center for Faith and Service at Central Methodist University in Fayette where he served since 2010. He brings with him a passion for mission and a desire to connect with the local church.

A native of southwest Missouri, Endicott attended Missouri State University and attained graduate degrees in history and theology from Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia and Princeton Theological Seminary. Ordained in 2014, he is an elder in the Missouri Annual Conference. Endicott’s appointment with MSJ is part-time and his work has two primary foci: developing discipleship models related to mission that particularly engage people on the periphery, and further supporting the Conference’s growing work in Haiti.

We are excited to see the fruit of this work as the MSJ office continues to labor to educate, equip, empower and resource congregations in their missional engagement.