MT. VERNON – The IGRC Commission on Archives and History has announced that the annual Prentice Memorial Sermon will be held at Mt. Vernon First UMC, April 8 at 10:45 a.m.
The Rev. Dr. Paul Stroble, chair of the IGRC Commission on Archives and History, will be the speaker. Stroble has done extensive research on Zadok Casey, the organizer of the Methodist Society in Mt. Vernon which later became Mt. Vernon First.
The site was selected to correspond with the church’s 200th anniversary and how it fits with the Prentice Sermon. Last year, Mt. Carmel Trinity was selected due to the community’s bicentennial.
The Prentice Sermon began with a bequest from a Methodist layman in Springfield to honor a group of persons who are well known for their untiring proclamation of the Gospel, the pioneer Methodist circuit riding preachers. Hiram Buck Prentice made his bequest to the Illinois Conference in 1922 to pay the expenses of one of the ministers of the Illinois Conference to preach upon the topic, “the Ministry and service as exemplified by the lives and labors of pioneer preachers of the Illinois Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.”