Covenant News

Services Set for Russell Cervin, Retired Head of World Mission

OAKLAND, CA (February 23, 2004) - A memorial service is set for 2 p.m. Monday, March 1 at Oakland's First Covenant Church for Russell A. Cervin, executive secretary emeritus of world mission for the Evangelical Covenant Church, who died on Sunday (February 22) in northern California. He was 91.

Bryan Jeffrey Leech, First Covenant pastor emeritus, and Paul Wilson, senior pastor, will officiate at Monday's service.

Born February 22, 1913, Cervin, served as pastor of seven Covenant churches, was a Navy chaplain, and served as Executive Secretary of World Mission from 1970 to 1978. He also worked under Arden Almquist, former executive secretary of world mission, helping run operations from Chicago from 1963 to 70. He was especially helpful in assisting with the growth of mission works in Mexico and South America, as well as helping the Covenant open mission work in Thailand in 1971.

During his tenure, Cervin and several consultants made a survey trip to look at potential new mission work, traveling to Mexico and Brazil, said Nancy Reed, one of the early Covenant missionaries in Mexico. After some discussions, they settled on an area on the northwest side of Mexico City, where Cervin asked Marlan and Fern Enns to begin working. In 1975, Jerry and Nancy Reed, who had been missionaries in Ecuador, joined the Enns.

Along with his work as a pastor and administrator, Cervin was the author of two books: "Covenant Missions in China/Taiwan," published by Covenant Press in 1970, and "Mission in Ferment," published in 1977.

"Russ (Cervin) was a man of vision, preparing men and women for the future," said Nancy Reed. "He was a great encourager and a mission strategist with unusual insight. He was able to guide church planting in Mexico City toward effectiveness. He was an avid reader of everything that came out in the area of missions, a true missiologist."

A well-educated man, Cervin completed junior college in Augsburg, Minnesota, then graduated from North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, becoming an ordained Covenant pastor in 1941. Later, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of North Dakota and Wesley College and took courses at McCormick Seminary in Chicago.

After starting his initial full-time pastorate in Big Falls, Minnesota, in 1933, Cervin served a congregation in Stillwater, Minnesota; at First Covenant Church, Sacramento; in Grand Forks, North Dakota, before becoming a U.S. Navy chaplain in Virginia and California (1945-46). After three years as pastor of South Chicago Covenant Church in Chicago (1947-50), he served the U.S. Navy as a chaplain overseas from 1950-52.

Following his second chaplaincy, he was called as pastor of First Covenant Church, Sioux City, Iowa, from 1952-58. He served five years at Salem Square Covenant Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, before coming to Chicago to work in administration for Covenant World Mission.

After retirement, Cervin served as an interim pastor for a Covenant church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, launched a new congregation in a mobile home park in Port Charlotte, Florida, and was a chaplain for six months at Covenant Village in Plantation, Florida. His first wife Alice (Tamte) died on November 4, 1984, after a 44-year marriage. Cervin married Virginia Nelson of Oakland on October 18, 1986. Virginia and two children from his first marriage, Frederick and Faith, survive Cervin.

More about Cervin and other service information will be posted on www.covchurch.org when it becomes available.

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