This Fund in memory of Reverend John R. Elliott is used to support international ministers who become part of the Mount Freedom Church family while attending Asbury Theological Seminary. It will help them through:
- Paying medical, travel, housing, and similar non-tuition expenses of international seminarians and their families while at Asbury
- Providing support for tuition, fees, and related expenses
- Providing commentaries, theological texts, reference books, and other materials to support their learning both while at Asbury and beyond
- Advancing the ongoing ministries of these church family members after they depart Mount Freedom and Asbury for their homelands
Make A Donation
Use the “Give Online” button to donate to this fund online. Our church pays a small service fee to process your online donation. When filling out the online giving form, please consider checking the “cover fees” checkbox, and the cost of the service fee will be added to your gift.
If you wish to mail your donation to us, please send it to:
Mount Freedom Baptist Church
Attn: Global Ministers Fund
100 South Lexington Avenue
Wilmore, KY 40390
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Reverend John Randolph Elliott
The Rev. John Randolph Elliott (“Randy”) was an extraordinary, ordinary man. Randy will be long remembered as a man of prayer with a deep faith, warm spirit, unwavering integrity, rigorous self-discipline, and a contagious laughter. He served over three decades as the pastor of churches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. He had a deep desire to support persecuted Church leaders around the world, earnestly praying for them daily, including many personal friends by name.
Rev. Elliott also appreciated the importance of rigorous education being anchored to Biblical foundations. While earning degrees from schools originally founded to advance the Gospel—Jonathan Edwards College of Yale University (BA, 1969) and Princeton Theological Seminary (M.Div., 1973)—he observed the decay of once-great Christian institutions and the increasing cultural accommodation of many churches. This helped galvanize his Christian orthodoxy, his unflinching confidence in Holy Scripture, and his personal zeal for Jesus Christ. That zeal, combined with daily prayer and a keen intellect made him a Bible teacher of insight and excellence, filled with the Holy Spirit. He touched the lives of thousands of people through ministry of pastoral care, counseling, teaching, and preaching including regional radio broadcasts of his sermons for over 15 years.
He never stopped learning—late in life he laughed that he had succeeded in narrowing his personal library to “just a few thousand” books. In the 1980s, he had continued his education with doctoral-level studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. While studying at Asbury part-time, he frequently attended Mount Freedom Baptist Church. Many years later, Randy Elliott’s future daughter-in-law, Susanna Ward, graduated from Asbury University in 2007. His son, the Reverend J. Nathan Elliott, married Susanna and was called as the pastor of Mount Freedom in 2008.
During the early years of Rev. J. Nathan Elliott’s pastorate, the church recognized the opportunity for partnership and global mission next door. By responding to the needs of international seminarians and welcoming them into their church family, the congregation grew. As these students and their families enriched church life, they gave our church new connections to the world. While formally learning about theology, preaching, and teaching at Asbury, many of these students and their families have become active contributors to the life and faith of Mount Freedom.
When the elder Rev. Elliott heard from his son the stories of these students and their families, Randy and his wife Esther made regular designated gifts to Mount Freedom to help support them. When Randy entered his heavenly home triumphant in August 2020, his family recognized how these gifts represented so much of what he loved: the study of God’s Word, faithful preaching of the Gospel around the world, support for the persecuted Church, and care for the ministers’ families. To honor Randy’s life and legacy and advance this partnership, the Elliott family established the Global Ministers Fund at Mount Freedom Baptist Church.
Mount Freedom’s Support Of International Ministers
Every church must serve our Lord in its time and in its place. Mount Freedom Baptist Church, located next to Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, has become the temporary church home for pastors and professors in training from around the world. Over the last decade alone, Mount Freedom has ministered with and to church leaders from Central African Republic, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Russia, South Sudan, Togo, and Zimbabwe who made our church their home while they studied at Asbury.
While Mount Freedom is a Baptist church, our sisters and brothers come from diverse denominations from around the world to study at a Wesleyan seminary. We are united by a love for the worship of God and the preaching of God’s Word.
Our special relationship with international seminarians started in 2010 when our church gave sacrificially to support a doctoral student from Mizoram, India by bringing his family to live here while he completed his studies. He returned to teach in a seminary in Mizoram, establishing its first training program for missionaries who now serve in other Indian states along with Nepal, Thailand, Bangladesh and beyond. Members of our church have since traveled to Mizoram to continue supporting our friends in their work of training missionaries.
We recognize our unique location allows us to invest in our sisters and brothers who are committed to advancing the Gospel in their homelands. They pursue that mission amidst great personal risk and under real threats of persecution and death. These are our new neighbors from around the world, and by welcoming them into our church family for the few years they live in America, we place faith in God to work through our faith and life together as they prepare to go back out into the world.