First Christian marks Consecration Sunday
The Rev. Fred Myers Harris will preach during the 10:30 a.m. Sunday worship service at First Christian Church, 615 E. Beau St., Washington.
The congregation will celebrate Consecration Sunday. The service will be followed by a catered meal served in fellowship hall.
Harris, former senior pastor of the historic First Christian Church in Hagerstown, Md., is the guest stewardship leader. He is a graduate of Bethany College and Vanderbilt University Divinity School, where he was named Outstanding Alumnus in 2010.
He also has served pastorates in Bowling Green, Ky., with the Rev. Reed Carter, formerly of Washington, and Hubbard and Toledo, Ohio. He is a member of the board of the Christian Church Foundation, the general board of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and a trustee of Bethany College.
He is nationally known as an expert on stewardship and helps congregations throughout the United States increase their basic support, mission giving and capital campaigns. His congregations have been some of the leading contributors of mission funding nationally for the Christian Church.
Harris is married to Deborah Downs Harris, whose parents, Herb and Barbara Downs, were members of First Christian Church in the 1940s and ’50s.
Herb Downs, who was an optician with Whiting Optical, was injured, burned and scarred in the explosion of the boiler in the old church in February 1946 that killed the pastor’s wife, Mrs. John Love, and a few others.
The explosion occurred during a father-son banquet, where Downs was singing in a quartet. Doctors performed early skin-grafting treatments that helped improve his condition.
In addition, Marian Mihas will be guest harpist at the service. Mihas is a Christian recording artist, harpist and singer. She was the soprano soloist in “Messiah” with the Warren (Ohio) Civic Chorus from 1997 to 2005.
She also has performed in Europe at the historic Parnassos Concert Hall in Athens, Greece, and the American College, and she has been a soloist throughout the United States, Switzerland and Russia.
Mihas recently released a CD called “The Lord Reigns: Songs & Hymns to Live By.”
She will sing songs from her CD while playing her concert grand harp to a musical track of strings, piano, guitar and percussion in a musical style that transcends genres.