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Born and raised in rural New Jersey, Lauston graduated high school in 1968 and attended Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, in the school of engineering and science. He worked as a computer programmer in Princeton, NJ, from 1970 to 1973 and has been employed with a small dairy in Rutland, VT from 1976 to the present time. Married in 1977, he and his wife, Cynthia, have four children.
Lauston's family joined an Assembly of God (Pentecostal) church when he was five and he made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ at age eleven, but neglected his faith when he left home for college. A series of five "natural" but dramatic events in the space of three months changed that. He understood the events as God's call to an adult commitment of discipleship. This included two and a half years living in a Jesus people era "house ministry" where several housemates became pastors or missionaries in various denominations. Lauston has served in a variety of laity roles in the church with a recognized gift in teaching.
Not formally schooled in theology, Lauston has pursued a sometimes esoteric study of the Church on his own, with an interest in both church history and the current Church universal. The unity of the Church has proven to be a continuing and compelling focus.
Lauston Stephens has served in a variety of positions in the same Vermont church over the past 34 years as well as in inter-denominational efforts.
| Background Information--Ian Johnson |
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Ian was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas. After graduating from Wichita State University with an unusual pair of Bachelor's degrees—degrees with majors in Chemistry and Linguistics—in 1976, he began a nine-year tour through graduate school which yielded three more meaningless degrees from two different major universities. He has been employed for the last sixteen years as a paralegal by a small law firm in Topeka, Kansas.
Like Lauston, Ian was raised in church—two Congregational churches in Wichita. However, his religious background growing up was somewhat schizophrenic, as his father was a vocal agnostic until only a week before his death in 1975, and his mother was a born-again Christian raised in a Southern Baptist church. His parents compromised by attending Congregational churches until Ian was 16. In that year, Ian's mother had a disagreement with the church they had attended for many years, and started visiting other churches. Ian received Jesus Christ as Savior during a visit to a Charismatic-leaning Disciples of Christ Christian church in Wichita on December 26, 1971, at age 16, although learning to accept the Lordship of Christ has been a more lengthy and difficult process. Ian remained in that church until he left Wichita for graduate school in 1976.
After leaving Wichita, he has, at different times, been an active member of churches ranging in outlook from conservative Baptist, to Wesleyan, to Pentecostal. Thus, he has fairly broad experience with a range of different Protestant denominations. He has had an active interest in the unity of the Church since 1994.
More biographical information.
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