Each year we host the Spiritual Formation Conference.  We have brought in speakers who have aided church members, church staffs, and promoted a view of health for the body of Christ corporately and in their homes.

This year’s conference is Friday, February 11-Sunday, February 13.  The bulk of the conference is through Saturday, February 12th at 12:30.  Sam will be with the UBC family for a time of corporate gathering at 9:15 am and preaching Sunday morning during the 10:30 am service.

This year I’m pleased to announce our topic is simply “Joy.”  Our special guest will be Sam Storms.

Who is Sam Storms?

Sam was born February 6, 1951, in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Both of his parents, as well as his sister, Betty Jane, were Christians. Sam was raised in a Southern Baptist context and came to saving faith in Christ at the age of nine. When he turned ten, his family moved to Midland, Texas, where they lived for the next four years. In 1965, as Sam was entering his freshman year in high school, the Storms family moved to Duncan, Oklahoma, where Sam’s father became president of a local bank. Sam graduated from Duncan Senior High School in 1969, hoping for a career as a professional golfer. He attended the University of Oklahoma where he soon abandoned his plans to play golf (due to the combined factors of incompetence and a notoriously bad temper!).

Near the beginning of his freshman year at OU, Sam met Ann Elizabeth Mount, to whom he proposed marriage on their first date! Sam and Ann were married on May 26^th, 1972. They have two daughters, Melanie (born December 23, 1978) and Joanna (born October 3, 1984), as well as two grandsons, Joseph and John.

After graduation from OU in 1973, Sam entered Dallas Theological Seminary to study in preparation for the ministry. He graduated in 1977 with a Th.M. in Historical Theology. While at Dallas, Sam served as interim pastor of Dallas Independent Presbyterian Church (1974-1977). Upon graduation in 1977, he joined the pastoral staff at Believers Chapel in Dallas, a non-denominational bible church. Sam began his work on a Ph.D. in Intellectual History in 1978 and received his degree from the University of Texas at Dallas in 1984, having written his dissertation on the topic of “Jonathan Edwards and John Taylor on Human Nature: A Study of the Encounter between New England Puritanism and the Enlightenment.”

In August of 1985 Sam accepted a call to serve as Senior Pastor of Christ Community in Ardmore, Oklahoma, where he ministered for eight years. In 1993 he resigned his position in order to become President of Grace Training Center, the full-time bible school at Metro Christian Fellowship in Kansas City, Missouri, where Sam also served as Associate Pastor.

Although he never thought he would leave Kansas City, God had other plans, and in August of 2000 Sam accepted the offer to become an associate professor of theology at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. After four years on the faculty at Wheaton, Sam made the decision to resign in order that he might establish Enjoying God Ministries, now based once again in Kansas City.

Sam has had the privilege to be a keynote speaker at Desiring God national conferences, as well as many others.  It is a privilege to have Sam with us, Lord willing, in February.

You will not want to miss this conference.  More information will follow at the beginning of the year.  However, make plans now to attend.  Limited childcare will be provided.