10 notable Christian deaths of 2018
Loren Mead – May 5, 2018
The Rev. Loren Benjamin Mead, founder of the Alban Institute and author who stressed the need for local church focus, died at age 88.
Born in Florence, South Carolina, in 1930, Mead was ordained in 1955 and served multiple churches during the 1950s and 1960s, before founding the Alban Institute in 1974 and serving as its first president.
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By the time he stepped down in 1994, the Institute had an estimated 8,500 members. Eventually the Institute became the Alban at Duke Divinity School.
Mead authored multiple books on the issue of helping congregations, including The Once and Future Church (1991), Transforming Congregations for the Future (1994), Five Challenges for the Once and Future Church (1996) and Financial Meltdown in the Mainline? (1998) and what would become his final book, The Parish Is the Issue: What I Learned and How I Learned It (2015).
Paul Mundey, who formerly served on the national staff of the Church of the Brethren and worked alongside Mead, offered his condolences on Facebook, calling Mead "a confidant and a friend."
“So hard to sense his passing, but so thankful for his legacy and all Loren did for the local church. All glory to God,” said Mundey.
