Information and glorification: couple prepares to share at WAGG

WINFIELD — Winfield Area Grateful Gathering (WAGG) invites the public to join their May event featuring a program from Kevin and Patty Hardin this Saturday, May 4 at 6:30 p.m. at the United Methodist Church.

The Hardin’s program for this month’s WAGG event will feature a variety of music from hymns to modern Christian songs along with Scripture and message.

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Kevin and Patty Hardin reside on a small acreage outside Wapello where they enjoy retirement after 16 years of running a small corner market store. When they’re not spending time with their three children, 11 grandchildren, or one great grandchild, they find plenty of ways to stay busy.

Patty raises goats, chickens, and bees at their home. Kevin still works part-time at a business in Wapello.

Additionally, Kevin and Patty have served in their home churches throughout their faith journeys in a variety of capacities as musicians, elders, youth leaders, and many other roles, but approximately seven years ago, the way they lived out their personal ministry changed.

According to Kevin, the ministry began after Christian Musician Ernie Couch from Ernie Couch & Revival approached him.

“He asked us one Sunday after we had been at our church and they had played if I ever too my guitar anywhere besides Grandview [Community Bible Church],” Kevin said. “Patty answered very quickly ‘no,’ And he said, ‘Well, you need to take that ability out and use it to help spread the Gospel of Christ. So, we prayed about it and that’s what we started doing.”

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While Kevin’s journey playing guitar started over 50 years ago at the age of 13, he says he didn’t begin to use this talent in a ministry setting until about 20 years ago when he joined his church worship team.

According to Kevin, Patty came to know Christ in her early teens, but that didn’t happen for him until his 30s.

“I always felt like I was a Christian, because I acknowledge there was a God and there was a Christ, but actually answering His call and coming to follow Him didn’t happen until about 1992 or ’93,” Kevin shared.

Kevin describes this change in his life as a result of a series of events leading him to understand there had to be something more than himself.

“I wasn’t enough,” Kevin said. “I came to full recognition of my sinful state and that I had no ability to change that. It took me a while. I had to take a few knocks, but eventually I figured it out.”

While Kevin and Patty can easily say that Jesus Christ changed their hearts, they don’t exactly believe that is their purpose in ministry.

“We’re in the information and glorification business, but Christ is in the heart changing business,” Kevin said.

Kevin says no matter what topic he speaks on, the message can always be summed up with John 14:6 “I am the Way the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”

Kevin and Patty pray that as they prepare to perform in Winfield this Saturday, that this message would remain clear because the opportunity to deliver the Gospel is the best part of this ministry for them.

“It's always a high point when someone afterwards talks to you about the message. You know, about God's word, and not just ‘oh that music was good,’” Kevin said.

Those attending Saturday’s event will have the opportunity to chat with Kevin and Patty with refreshments following the program.

They count these opportunities through this ministry as a blessing along with developing relationships and watching the Word of God at work in the lives of others and themselves.

“It is too amazing for words to see Christ turn on his light in the heart of another,” the couple shared in a summary of their ministry.

Through the last seven years, Kevin and Patty Hardin have enjoyed ministering to churches and groups throughout Southeast Iowa, but with their recent retirement as small business owners in Wapello, they look forward to expanding their reach wherever God leads them. No matter where that is, they wish to remain focused on the message laid on their hearts that “It’s only Jesus. There is no other avenue. There is no other way. It is Christ and Christ alone.”

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com