Lovell Cary papers

Lovell R. Cary was born in Aracoma, West Virginia to Sidney and Georgia Cary as the third of five boys. Sidney worked on the railroads near the mining town of Logan during the Great Depression. On a cold November night Lovell, just fifteen years old, stepped into the Aracoma Church of God (aka Logan Church of God) to warm up. C.E. French was speaking and just as Lovell was heading back outside his aunt stopped him and her words turned him to the altar where he gave his heart to the Lord that night.

Georgia Cary’s hospitality included taking food to the pastor’s home for visiting missionaries. Lovell’s multiple encounters with missionaries set his heart aflame for Asian missions. He decided to attend Bible Training School in Cleveland, Tennessee where he met his future wife Virginia Glass. At the end of the school year they were married and together ministered in Florida until appointed as pastors in West Virginia. Lovell and Virginia’s first missionary appointment in 1954 was to Hawaii. This brought them one step closer to Asian missions when five years later they moved to the Philippines as the Church of God World Missions overseer and later field director. The denomination recognized the Carys’s faithful and diligent work and elected Lovell first as Assistant World Missions Director (1984) and a few years later Director (1988).

Cary was the innovative leader who changed the manner of funding missionaries’ budgets. Until the time of his leadership, missionary salaries came from the World Missions general fund. Cary, who had traveled extensively and was intimately familiar with the financial systems of other denominational and independent missions agencies, recognized some advantages of having individual missionaries raise their own funds. This methodology created a bond between missionaries and their sponsoring individuals and churches ensuring that more than finances — prayer and other support — would accrue to those serving in other countries. At the time of its inception in 1988, only 70 missionaries were under appointment; within a few years, that number had grown to 300.

Cary encouraged the Church of God to expand into other countries and during his two tenures as general director, the denomination entered 25 new fields. These include: Curacao, Poland, and Singapore (1989), Czech Republic, Luxembourg, and Malaysia (1991), China, Ivory Coast, Russia, Togo, Ukraine, and United Arab Republics (1992), Byelorussia (now Belarus), The Gambia, Sao Tome, Senegal, and Sierra Leone (2000), Zanzibar (2001), Guinea and New Guinea (2002), Bangladesh (2003), and Nagorno-Karabakh, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004).

Counting his two terms as assistant director and two as director, Cary spent 16 years in Church of God World Missions executive leadership and was the first person to serve as general director on two different occasions. His long tenure in missions, notably his 32 years in the Asia-Paciic region, earned him the nickname “Mr. Missions.” As general director of World Missions for four separate terms (1988, 1990 and 2000, 2002), his combined years in World Missions culminated to more than 51 years of fulfilling the Great Commission. In the later years, he and his wife, Ginny, evangelized in Asia, Africa, Mexico, Eastern and Western Europe, and anywhere else the Gospel might be propagated.

Dates: June 18, 1928 Born, Aracoma, West Virginia November 1, 1943 Saved August 23, 1945 Ordained Minister July 5, 1946 Married to Virginia (Ginny) 1947-48 Pastor, St. George, West Virginia 1949 Pastor, Weyanoke, West Virginia 1952-54 Pastor, West Winter Haven, Florida February 12, 1954 Ordained Bishop 1954-1959 Missionary, Hawaii 1959-1969 Missionary, Philippines 1967-1984 Superintendent, Far East 1984-1988 Assistant Director, World Missions 1988-1992 General Director, World Missions 1992-1996 Member, Executive Council of Eighteen 1992-1994 Self-Appointed Missionary Evangelist 1994-1996 Field Director, Asia/Pacific 1996-2000 Assistant Director, World Missions 2000-2004 General Director, World Missions 2004 Hall of Prophets Induction, Church of God Theological Seminary 2009 Retired January 12, 2010 Earthquake in Haiti injured Lovell and Virginia Cary October 12, 2010 Received the Spirit of Azusa Award from Dixon Pentecostal Research Center February 27, 2012 Deceased

SOURCES:

Lovell R. Cary. Information File: Cary, Lovell. Dixon Pentecostal Research Center, Cleveland, Tennessee. Duncan, Bobby G. Nothing to Win But the World: The Story of Lovell and Virginia Cary. Cleveland, Tennessee: Derek Press, 2010. George, Bill. Until All Have Heard: The Centennial of Church of God World Missions. Cleveland, Tennessee: Church of God World Missions, 2010.

Online Sources: MGM ministries Website, http://www.mgmministry.org/dr-l-r-carey/ Faith News Network, http://www.faithnews.cc/?p=11475 Chattanooga Times Free Press, Obituary, http://www.timesfreepress.com/obits/2012/mar/01/-lovell/24203/ YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZjkiLCRgJg Asian Seminary of Christian Ministries, Eulogy, http://ascm.edu.ph/index.php/news/eulogy-for-dr.-lovell-cary