Kansas Wesleyan University will host the 2015 community-wide ecumenical prayer breakfast. According to the school, the event is at 7 a.m. on Thursday, April 30.

The public is welcome to join KWU President and CEO Matt Thompson, Ph.D. and Salina-area church leaders for this special gathering in the Hauptli Student Center, in the Student Activities Center.

The featured guest speaker is Reverend H. Sharon Howell, president of Saint Paul School of Theology, a United Methodist seminary with campuses in the Greater Kansas City and Oklahoma City areas, and one of 13 seminaries of the United Methodist Church. She is a distinguished graduate and a former staff member of Saint Paul School of Theology.

Reverend Howell is experienced at leadership in large and complex organizations, having served as Senior Pastor at First United Methodist Church in Lawrence, KS, during the time it developed a second site, their West Campus, and built that location’s first facility, the Celebration Center. She served for seven years as district superintendent and was elected a General and Jurisdictional delegate from the Kansas East Conference. She was a member of, and served a term as President of, the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women in the United Methodist Church. She retired in December 2012 after serving for seven years as president of Scarritt-Bennett Center, a not-for-profit United Methodist Women conference, retreat and educational center in Nashville, TN. Upon her return to Kansas, First United Methodist Church in Lawrence celebrated her retirement by presenting her with a Pastor Emerita honor.

Rev. Howell said, “Only Saint Paul School of Theology could call me out of retirement. The hundreds of alumni who have served and currently serve faithfully and effectively across the world, our present students, and those who are on their way to Saint Paul but don’t know it yet, were the voices that spoke to me.”

Enjoy uplifting music, inspiring messages, prayer, reflection and a delicious hot breakfast. The cost is $10 per person. Registration is due by April 24 at: www.kwu.edu/2015prayerbreakfast