During the 1970s, after several years as missionaries to the Philippines and serving as a Methodist Pastor, Jim and Jan Erb began an outreach to teenagers in Western Pennsylvania during which the Holy Spirit moved powerfully in salvation, healing and deliverance. Those meetings, which started in a barn in Mercer, PA, grew to gatherings of thousands of people in Pennsylvania and came to be known as the Jesus Festivals throughout the decade of the 1970’s. Eventually, this unprecedented growth led Jim to become the Founding Pastor of Living Word Church of New Wilmington. It remains a flourishing church that has reached hundreds of people throughout Western PA.
Jim Erb founded Antioch International Ministries (AIM) in 1995 as a network of ministry leaders, churches and ministries. Jim’s desire was to break through denominational, racial, ethnic and cultural barriers and to advance the Kingdom of God in the earth. To that end, the Lord used him powerfully in areas of prophetic teaching, ministry and broader church oversight—literally around the globe.
As an Apostle, gifted Teacher and respected Pastor, Apostle Erb served in full-time ministry for over 60 years until his death in September of 2017.
Jan Erb served as Jim’s lifelong partner in ministry. She became heaven’s gain in March of 2023. . She was a faithful servant of the Lord and a real Mother-In-Israel to the local body. Her wise counsel, servanthood, and acts of kindness were a continual source of blessing to all who knew her.
Apostle Erb’s legacy goes on through his works and his many sons and daughters in ministry. As our corporate logo reflects, each of those sons and daughters are launched as arrows into their local communities perpetuating all that he deposited into their lives. Apostle Erb’s spiritual DNA runs through Antioch International Ministries. He has launched his arrow into the seasons and places that he will not personally touch, but through his spiritual son’s and daughter’s, that DNA will and does surface again and again.
We thank God for their deposits in us who now carry the baton of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. May we do it in honor of our God and our spiritual father and mother, James E. Erb and Janice L. Bartholomew-Erb.
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