Mast, Russell Lowell (d. 2007)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2008 Nov 3 p. 6

Birth date:

text of obituary:

Power of the spoken Word College students and future pastors were among those inspired by Russell Mast's dedication to preacher's craft

By Melvin D. Schmidt

As a college sophomore straight from the wheat fields of Kansas, aspiring to become a Mennonite preacher, I enrolled at Bethel College in 1956. My heroes were the men I considered the great preachers of the day. I read everything I could find on Peter Marshall and considered A Man Called Peter the greatest movie of all time. I admired Mennonite preachers such as J.E. Hartzler and Andrew Shelly, often driving miles to hear them preach.

And then, I fell under the spell of Russell Lowell Mast.

Mast was called to be the pastor at Bethel College Mennonite Church in North Newton, Kan., in 1957. He and Alma moved into the church-owned parsonage with their two sons, and Mast began preaching regularly.

A growing number of Bethel students were ripe for the kind of expression Mast brought to his sermons. They roused themselves on Sunday morning to attend church and afterward, back to the dorm, discussed the sermon, mining it for every nugget of truth it might yield.

Mast's singleminded commitment to the preaching ministry became the hallmark of his career. Those who remember and appreciate his powerful pulpit ministry are easy to find in all of the churches he served: Deep Run Mennonite Church, Perkasie, Pa., 1940-45; First Mennonite Church, Wadsworth, Ohio, 1945-59; Salem-Zion Mennonite Church, Freeman, S.D., 1949-1957, Bethel College Mennonite Church, North Newton, Kan., 1957-68; Zion Mennonite Church, Souderton, Pa., 1968-77; Bethesda Mennonite Church, Henderson, Neb., 1977-79; and again Salem-Zion Mennonite Church at Freeman, 1979-82.

Eleanor Wismer Kaufman remembers assiduously taking notes while listening to Mast preach. She was 7 years old when Mast came to the Deep run church. later, Mast was to become important in the life of don Kaufman, Eleanor's husband-to-be, who was a young man at the Salem-Zion church during Mast's ministry there.

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Also at Salem-Zion, at least three future pastors — O'Ray Graber, Don Kaufman and Leo Miller — were in their formative years during Mast's pastorate. Arlin Claassen, a Freeman Junior college student at the time, reports never missing the opportunity to hear Mast preach. Transferring to Bethel in 1957, he joined the college church choir to make sure that he would get a seat on Sunday morning. He was willing to "sing for his supper."