Leon McKinley Adkins

Leon McKinley Adkins was an American Methodist minister, educator, church administrator, poet, and hymn writer. Born in New York on July 14, 1896, he graduated from Middlebury College in 1919 and earned the S.T.B. degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1925; Middlebury later awarded him an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in 1945. His ministerial career included pastorates in Delmar, Schenectady, and Syracuse, New York, where Christian education became a prominent part of his work.

In 1955 Adkins left parish ministry to become general secretary of the Division of the Local Church of the Methodist Church's Board of Education, a position he held until 1966. He also served on the committee responsible for the 1964 Methodist hymnal. These roles placed him at the intersection of congregational education, worship, and denominational publishing during a period of major institutional change in American Methodism.

Adkins wrote religious poetry and hymns, but he is chiefly remembered in hymnals for his Great Commission text "Go, Make of All Disciples," first used in 1955. His broader significance lies in connecting hymn writing with the church's educational and discipleship ministries rather than in a large corpus of published hymn texts. He died in Saratoga Springs, New York, on October 11, 1986.