USMB conference leader and pastor Lynford Becker, Hillsboro, Kansas, died Jan. 9, 2025, at the age of 94.
Becker spent five decades serving the U.S. Mennonite Brethren in a variety of roles. For 25 years he was a USMB pastor and church planter. He worked at Tabor College, served as the first president of MB Foundation and was the U.S. Conference lead staff member.
Becker was well-known and loved, as is evident by the fact that he was involved in more than 100 weddings, participated in more than 100 memorial services and preached well over 2,500 sermons. He mentored young pastors and was committed to church multiplication.
Local church ministry
Becker and his wife, Ruby, served as the pastoral couple at Ingalls, Kansas, from 1954 to 1958, and were the founding pastoral couple of Koerner Heights MB Church, serving the Newton, Kansas church from 1958 to 1964. During these years the Becker family grew to include four children and the addition of school activities to a full church schedule kept the family busy.
In early 1964, Becker began an almost two-year stint with the relief organization Church World Services/CROP as the assistant state director. The family moved to Topeka, Kansas, where the head office was located. Becker’s work organizing fundraising units in each county of the state and working with the United Fund programs in several cities meant he was away from home most of the week for about seven months of the year.
In 1965, the Beckers moved to Adams, Oklahoma, to serve as the pastoral couple of the Mennonite Brethren church there and in 1968 relocated to Enid, Oklahoma, where Becker served as lead pastor for nearly 12 years.
While Becker was at Enid MB Church, now Crosspoint Church, he also served as chair of the Southern District Conference, directed junior and senior high camps, was a Tabor College board member, chaired the Oklahoma Mennonite Relief Sale the first five years of its existence and was involved in community boards.
College and national conference assignments
In the early 1980s Becker shifted his ministry focus. After serving for two years as the director of human resources at Waldon Inc., an industrial company in Fairview, Oklahoma, the Beckers moved to Hillsboro, Kansas, and Lynford worked in the Tabor College Advancement Office. His responsibilities included church relations and fundraising.
In 1985, Becker began working for the U.S. Conference Board of Trustees. This assignment involved working with people primarily in the Southern, Central, LAMB and North Carolina (now Eastern) District Conferences. Becker provided help in planned giving and estate planning and led numerous stewardship seminars.
This assignment afforded Becker the opportunity to serve the MB denomination at the national level. Becker was the U.S. Conference secretary from 1983 to 1986 and served on a part-time basis as the conference minister from 1986 to 1988 and administrative secretary from 1988 to 2000.
As the lead USMB staff member, Becker oversaw administrative tasks including maintaining the 501c3 tax-exempt status of churches and the pastors’ life insurance program, helped to organize national board meetings and did most of the detail planning for the national conventions, including three held at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in the early 1990s and the 1998 convention in LaMirada, California.
Becker represented USMB as a denominational guest to the Mennonite Mutual Aid (now Everence) Board of Directors for eight years and for 12 years on the National Association of Evangelicals Board of Directors. He was also involved in U-Serv, a UMSB program that encouraged and organized volunteer groups to serve in church and mission building projects in the U.S. and Mexico. He helped to pilot the beginning of Mission USA, the USMB national church planting effort.
“While Lynford’s title was administrative secretary, he really served as an executive director,” says Dennis Fast, who served on the national conference executive board with Becker. “He was deeply committed to the USMB and gave himself to that work. Lynford was a leader who never sought center stage but helped us young leaders find our way. He loved the Mennonite Brethren and poured all of his gifts into keeping us together and also shaping a vision for growth. He was deeply committed to church planting.”
Leading MB Foundation
During this time, U.S. Conference trustees were assessing the need to update and adapt the legal status of MB stewardship ministries through incorporation to more effectively serve its constituency. In December 1990, MB Foundation was established, and Becker became its first president in January 1991. (Read the MB Foundation tribute to Becker here: https://mbfoundation.com/2025/01/14/lynfordbeckertribute/)
In the years following incorporation, MB Foundation experienced steady growth and development. The ministry’s assets grew, and its constituency expanded geographically. MB Foundation became more effective partners with various USMB ministries as charitable distributions increased. This season came with much responsibility, including miles of travel, marketing, investing in relationships and preparing reports for the board.
Becker transitioned to the role of vice president in January 1998, and Jon C. Wiebe became the MB Foundation president and CEO.
“Lynford’s leadership was pivotal for laying the foundation for our mission today,” Wiebe says. “His faith, dedication to stewardship and love for the MB community continue to inspire us. I was blessed to be mentored by him and honored that he was willing to bring me alongside to learn from him.”
The Beckers retired to Enid in 1998, and Lynford continued serving constituents through planned giving until 2003. In 2016 the couple moved back to Hillsboro, where they lived at the time of Becker’s death.
“Always a team”
Becker was born July 6, 1930, to Edward J. and Anna Fast Becker at a farm home southeast of Fairview, Oklahoma. His family moved to Shafter, California, when Becker was 5 years old and returned to Fairview in 1937. He graduated from Fairview High School in 1948.
While in high school, Becker, who had accepted Christ as his personal Savior at the age of 12 and was baptized, attended many youth camps. It was at one of these camps that Becker committed his life to vocational church ministry if that was God’s will.
That decision led Becker to spend one year at Grace Bible Institute, Omaha, Nebraska, and one year at Pacific Bible Institute, now Fresno Pacific University, before returning to Omaha and graduating from Grace in 1954.
Becker met Ruby in 1949, and they were married July 15, 1951. When Ruby was six or seven years old, she told her mother she would marry a preacher someday—and she did.
In a reflection on his life, Becker wrote, “It should be very clear that Ruby and I have always been a team. Serving in the churches was always as a pastoral couple. The work done at Topeka with CROP, at Waldon, at Tabor and with the Foundation could never have been done without a complete commitment to each other. While some of my activity may seem to be the more noticeable, it is certainly not the most important. Ruby’s role as wife, mother, housekeeper, etc., has been just as important and from my perspective more important than any of my activities.”
Becker appreciated the many privileges and opportunities that came with his various work assignments and the many friendships he and Ruby have formed.
“We’ve traveled many miles by air and thousands of miles by car,” he wrote. “We’ve met with Hispanic, Afro-American, Native American, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, East Indian and Slavic brothers and sisters in Christ, enjoyed their fellowship, ate their foods and formed many friendships which we cherish.”
Becker is survived by his wife, Ruby of Hillsboro; son, Marlin (Gayla) Becker of Enid, Oklahoma; daughters, Debra (Orville) Ehardt and Marla (Victor) Rempel, both of Enid, and Rhonda (Lyle) Ediger of Hillsboro; 10 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. He is predeceased by a son, Gary.
A memorial service was held Jan. 15, 2025, at Hillsboro MB Church.

Connie Faber joined the magazine staff in 1994 and assumed the duties of editor in 2004. She has won awards from the Evangelical Press Association for her writing and editing. Faber is the co-author of Family Matters: Discovering the Mennonite Brethren. She and her husband, David, have two daughters, one son, one daughter-in-law, one son-in-law and three grandchildren. They are members of Ebenfeld MB Church in Hillsboro, Kansas.
I just wanted to say that although I was a small boy attending the Ingalls, KS, congregation while he and his wife Ruby were there, I was greatly influenced by them. Later I went on to be a pastor and a missionary, serving full time for more than 40 years, and I told him on several occasions that I really appreciated his ministry to us in that small rural church.
I am sure that there are many who would mark his ministry as significant in their future ministries. Perhaps only heaven will really tell the whole story, and we will all rejoice together at what are Lord has done and is doing now.
Ron Penner
Damascus, Oregon