Kingdom Fellowship Weekend

In this message, Benji Grant challenges us as men to consider the most important vocation we could pursue: giving our lives and time to raise up a godly offspring. This may mean a radical change of lifestyle or even willingness to give up what we might consider a normal job.

Though initially caught up in his own vocation and sports, Benji felt God’s call to forsake these things for a higher vision—the vision of a godly home and family.

This chorus of 150+ youth attendees of KFW 2026 praised the Lord in song together.

The story of Mark’s life & marriage, a story of mistakes and failure, is also a story of God’s grace and mercy. Everyone has hurts and things that are not pleasant. Many Bible characters have gone through much pain from others—there are those that have been put through many different situations that they themselves could not help.

Forgiveness, Repentance and Acceptance are God’s way of dealing with hurts and wrongful situations whether of our own doing or otherwise. If we will embrace these qualities we will find God’s grace to be sufficient for our healing and His mercy to be beyond our deserving.

In this panel moderated by Ken Miller, three long-married couples who wed as teenagers share lessons from a combined 149 years of marriage.

Merle Burkholder describes learning to communicate through weekly talk nights, monthly dates, and anniversary retreats where he and Edith planned for each child’s growth. Mark Brubaker explains that personality differences are God-given and, when valued, sharpen and enrich a marriage. Donald Brechbill presents marriage as a picture of Christ’s grace-filled covenant, urging spouses to let marriage change them and to make time to get away together.

In the Q&A, the panel addresses child discipline, in-law tensions, why couples marry later today, supporting singles, spanking and gentle parenting, meeting a spouse, the timing of children, and healing past wounds.

Their closing advice: enjoy each stage of marriage, listen to understand, let husbands take responsibility, and fight Satan together through shared prayer rather than fighting each other.

God has a reason for everything He allows in our lives. Grant Bontrager tells the story of his conception, birth, and adoption. When he was twelve years old his father told him the truth about his life and how he came to be. For many years Grant couldn’t understand why God permitted him to experience the things that he did and what to do with all his questions and pain.

Finally, through some biblical counseling Grant was able to work through his pain and bring his questions to Jesus! It was during this time that he heard a calling from God to go share his story in prisons and churches.

Speaking to women on the role of a godly wife and mother, Ann says her real focus is simply being godly, which she frames as living “a testimony of grace.” She shares her story: married to Mark at nineteen, she faced eight dysfunctional years after he left God for sin, yet she held onto hope. His deep repentance ultimately strengthened their marriage, and those years gave her compassion for others.

She admits fresh trials, including a lawsuit and chronic pain, and draws on Paul’s thorn in 2 Corinthians 12 to argue that our “if onlys” are opportunities to display God’s strength. Such a testimony matters because we exist to glorify God, wield real influence, and should make Jesus attractive. She encourages women to love their roles, see the Proverbs 31 woman as attainable through fear of the Lord, and “just be sweet.”

She closes by urging honesty with God, obedience, and meekness as paths to peace.

The Bible is the story of God working through men who took God at his word and ordered their life accordingly. Men whose lives are ordered by God have altered the course of human history. The eyes of God run throughout the whole earth to find one whose heart is perfect. What does it mean to be a man who lives by Kingdom values in a world that is averse to the ways of God? How do we resist modern feminism? By being men of God and the leaders God has called us to be!

In this message our speaker explores several Biblical principles that define men of the kingdom, specifically as pertaining to the home and marriage.

God has a special place in His heart for widows and orphans. Throughout the Bible we see many important people raised as adopted children. Moses, Samuel, Esther, King Joash, and many others. God has adopted us into His family and we should be prepared to do foster care and adoption too. There is no person or child that God doesn’t have a plan for.

Merle tells a personal story about a child they took care of and Edith’s continued prayers for her even after she left their home. The power of a praying mother cannot be completely comprehended.

Driven by a youthful fascination with airplanes, Vince fulfilled his dream to be an Air Force pilot. But his focus on his career led to a tragic disruption of his marriage.

However, through Jesus Christ, he found salvation and the restoration of his marriage. He and his wife Charlette’s long search for a Biblical church was fulfilled in an Anabaptist community. His desire to serve led him to the Christian Aid Ministry’s SALT program which paved the way to share the Gospel in eleven countries.

His unique life’s story is captured in the book entitled Committed.

It is possible to do a lot of good things, humanly speaking, with the arm of the flesh. But it takes the power of Christ to live the Christian life. God wants us to come to the place that we cry out to Him. We must start out on the foundation of faith in God.

The problem of the ages is not immorality or money but rather those that are trying to live the Christian life without power. Those who get desperate, like Blind Bartimaeus, those who cry out, will find Jesus!