General Conference/Doctrine
He was only 17 years old when he and his 14 year old friend, Luther Warren decided the church needed an organization to encourage and support the youth. They called their new group a “young people’s society.” Within ten years the church structure was beginning to follow their lead. In 1889 the Ohio Conference became the first to form a conference-wide youth organization. It was known as Christian Volunteers. And in 1907 the General Conference Youth Department was formally organized.
Who was Harry Fenner?
(1870-1950) He was a pioneer missionary to Africa from 1895-1944. "Harry," as he was affectionately known to his friends, graduated in 1895 from Battle Creek College, where he was converted. Anderson’s book, On The Trail of Livingston (1919) did much to stimulate interest in African Missions where he served for 50 years.
Who was W. H. Anderson?
(1827-1915) She was co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, together with James White and Joseph Bates. She was a writer, lecturer, and counselor to the church, who possessed what Seventh-day Adventists have accepted as the prophetic gift described in the Bible; also known as the Spirit of prophecy. In her early teens she and her family were faithful Methodists in Portland, Maine, and accepted William Miller’s view on the second advent of Christ about the year 1843, after hearing his lecture in March 1840. She was baptized into the Methodist Church in June 26, 1842. In September 1843, because of their Adventist views, she and her parents and other members of the family were disfellowshipped from the Methodist Church. Expecting Christ’s return in October 22, 1844, she and her family experienced the Millerites’ great disappointment. At the age of 17, in December 1844, Miss Harmon joined four other women in family worship, and while they were praying, she experienced her first vision, in which she witnessed a representation of the travels of the Adventist people to the City of God. It was one of many visions she received during her lifelong ministry. She died on July 16, 1915, at the ripe age of 87 years.
Who was Ellen Gould White?
(1798-1887) He was a pioneer minister and first president of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. He was active in the antislavery movement and maintained a station of the Underground Railroad at Buck’s Bridge, New York, where he lived on a farm.
Who was John Byington?
(1843-1937) She was the eldest daughter of John Byington, the first teacher of the first school organized for Seventh-day Adventist Children. She married George W. Amadon in 1860. She became the first Dorcas Society (Adventist Community Service) president in October, 1874.
Who was Martha Amadon?
Before he was converted to Adventism, a wealthy young Peruvian, he founded the first evangelical church in Arequipa, Peru. A health and temperance reformer, a vegetarian, and a defender of religious liberty, he had to flee his native country to England for his outspokenness. There he joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church and married Marguerite Lacey, whose sister was married to W. C. White, Ellen White's son. An author in his own right, he translated some of Mrs. White's books and articles into Spanish and had a major impact on the growth of the Adventist Church in Peru, South America.
Who was Eduardo F. Forga?
(1829-1883) He was the first official Seventh-day Adventist missionary outside of North America. He and his children Charles and Mary sailed on September 15, 1874 to Switzerland. His wife had died 18 March 1872. As a theologian, he made significant contributions to the development of various doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. He wrote extensively on the Seventh-day Sabbath.
A University, is named for him, is an institution operated jointly by the General Conference and the Lake Union Conference. It was the first university to be organized by the Seventh-day Adventist church. It is located in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Its predecessor known as Battle Creek College, was founded in 1874, and grew from a “select” private school established in 1868 by G. H. Bell.
Who is J. N. Andrews?
(1792-1872) a former sea captain and a reformer, was one of the founders of the SDA Church. He experienced the disappointment of 1844 without losing faith. He wrote about the 7th Day Sabbath and the 3rd Angel's message. He played a prominent part in the "Sabbath Conferences." He was an evangelist, a leader, and an example in healthful living.
Who was Joseph Bates?
(1858-1935), he was a minister, administrator and author. At the age of 10 he was converted to the Seventh-day Adventist faith, and in 1875 entered Battle Creek College. He began his ministry in 1878 in Texas. In 1886 he was called as pioneer SDA missionary to New Zealand. He was president of the New Zealand Conference (1889-1891) and of the Australian Conference (1892-1895). He worked closely with Ellen White in Australia, and served as president of the Central Australian Conference and later president of the Australian Union Conference. He assumed the presidency of the General Conference in 1901 at a difficult period in the history of the church, and helped move the headquarters of the denomination to Washington, D. C. During his time in office the church grew greatly throughout the world. He relinquished the presidency of the General Conference in 1922. He authored four books, two of which standout as classics: “Christ Our Righteousness,” and “The Abiding Gift of Prophecy.”
Who was A. G. Daniels?
(1874-1972) She was self-taught until the age of 20 when she attended Mount Vernon Academy in Ohio in 1894. In 1898 she graduated from Battle Creek College as a missionary nurse. She operated a self-supporting school in Jasper County, Mississippi for Black children. In 1901 she was appointed as a missionary to India where she served 6 years. She served in the Educational Department for Southeastern Conference and Southern Conference when they merged, and served until the regional Conferences were formed. She authored the book Mississippi Girl,[2] the story of her life.
Who was Anna Knight?
He was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1855, eleven years after the Disappointment of 1844. He was ten years old by the end of the Civil War. It was in Reno, Nevada, in 1878 at the age of 23 that he attended a series of evangelistic sermons by J. N. Loughborough. Ellen White visited during the meetings and spoke to about four hundred listeners on the subject of the “Love of God.” Her message was well received and her presence added much to the interest of the people and “left a favorable impression upon the public mind.” He experienced conversion during those meetings. He never forgot Sister White’s sermon and joyfully embraced the love of God and accepted the truth about the Sabbath and the Second Advent. He kept his first Sabbath on the last Saturday of September, 1878, at the age of 23. He was one of the seven charter members and the only Black member of the Reno Seventh-day Adventist church. He was welcomed warmly by the church and was later appointed secretary of their tract society. He would become a prominent figure in early African American Adventism and most of what Adventists learned about the early progress of the work among African Americans they learned from his writings. Church leaders looked to him to develop the best methods of evangelism among African Americans. As such he was the first African American ordained minister in the Seventh-day Adventist church and is known as the The Father of Black Adventism.
Who was Charles M. Kenney?
(1818-1876) He was a former Catholic priest. He joined the Advent Church in 1857 and in 1864 became a self-supporting missionary to Italy and Switzerland and established the first SDA church in Europe.
Who was M. B. Czechowski?
(1806-1882) He was a layman, later ordained, of Port Gibson, New York. He was the pioneer responsible for introducing, among those who became Seventh-day Adventists, the fuller understanding of the sanctuary and its cleansing. He was not only a thoughtful Bible student and an earnest evangelistic helper, but also a self-sacrificing contributor, putting his possessions into building of the church he loved. Consider visiting his farm in upstate New York. [1]
Who was Hiram Edson?
(1850-1923)He was a minister, editor, and author. At the age of 20 he enlisted in the Army and for three years served his country. He loved reading, and read large historical works, Seventh-day Adventist publications, and the Bible. After being discharged from the Army in 1873, he was baptized and began preaching on the West Coast for the church. In May 1885 he became assistant editor of the Signs of the Times, and a few months later he and E. J. Waggoner became editors. This position he held until 1889. From 1897 to 1901 he was editor in chief of the Review and Herald. He became recognized as the denomination’s most prominent speaker for religious freedom. His association with Dr. J. H. Kellogg in 1903, who was actively seeking to separate the Battle Creek Sanitarium from denominational control, resulted in separation from denominational employment and, finally, in loss of church membership.
Who was A. T. Jones?
(1842-1923) She was a physician and founder of the first Seventh-day Adventist nurse’s training school. In 1875 she graduated at the head of her class from the University of Michigan Medical College. She joined the staff of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. She introduced thorough classwork and became known as a foremost teacher of student nurses.
Who is Kate Lindsay?
(1847-1906) He was a pioneer canvasser who developed the idea of subscription sale of Seventh-day Adventist books. A native of Canada, he came to the United States where as a young man he accepted SDA beliefs and desired to be a preacher. Because of a speech impediment he was encouraged to try selling SDA tracts and magazines and books. Throughout his life he was an enthusiastic recruiter and instructor of other canvassers.
Who was George Albert King?
(1822-1903) He was a pioneer, self-supporting lay missionary in eastern Asia. While working as a sheepherder in California he accepted the Seventh-day Adventist faith. Immediately he requested a mission appointment to China. Because of his advanced age the General Conference declined but after attending Healdsburg College one term he worked his way to Honolulu and sold books in the city and on the ships in port. In 1888 at the age of 66, he went to Hong Kong where he worked for 14 years with Europeans and the Chinese. He died in Hong Kong in 1903 where he had been a tireless worker with a rare gift in meeting people and conveying his own religious convictions to them.
Who was Abram LaRue?
(1855-1944) He was an educator and administrator. His parents were Millerites in New England. While in his last year at South Berwick Academy, he taught Latin and Greek. He was principal of high schools in Northfield and Montpelier, Vermont (1877 to 1880). With his acceptance of the presidency of Battle Creek College (1885-1894), he entered upon a career unique in many respects in Seventh-day Adventist history. While still president of Battle Creek College, he helped found Union College and became its first president in 1891. He appointed principals for the two institutions to act while he was absent from one or the other. Then late in 1892 he assumed the presidency of the newly founded Walla Walla College. Thus, he was simultaneously president of three colleges in the year. During a world tour (1894-1895), he helped to found the Avondale School in Australia. In 1901 he became the vice president of the General Conference, chair of the Review and Herald Publishing Association board, and editor of the Review and Herald. Later in his career, he served as head of the Bible Department of Emmanuel Missionary College, a post he held until 1934. Whether teacher, editor, administrator, or secretary of the General Conference Department of Education, he left a strong impression on the entire educational work of the denomination.
Who was William W. Prescott?
(1855-1916) He was an editor, minister, and physician. He attended Battle Creek College in the earliest years of the institution, and obtained a medical degree from the Bellevue Medical College, New York. He served on the staff of the Battle Creek Sanitarium for a few years. Later he left the practice of medicine and entered the ministry. In 1884 he worked at Pacific Press as assistant editor of the Signs of the Times. Two years later (1886) he and A. T. Jones became editors of the paper. This post he held until May 1891. He became editor of Present Truth in England in 1892, and in 1902 was elected the first president of the South England Conference. He returned to the United States in the summer of 1902, and served briefly on the staff of Emmanuel Missionary College.
In 1888 he and A. T. Jones gave a memorable series of sermons on righteousness by faith that stirred the General Conference session in Minneapolis, and for several years afterward were sent by the General Conference Committee to preach on that subject from coast to coast at camp meetings and other large gatherings. Ellen White accompanied them to many of these places until she left for Australia in December 1891.
Who was Ellet J. Waggonner?
(1809-1868) She was a Seventh-day Baptist who persuaded a group of Adventists to accept the Sabbath in Washington, New Hampshire, and thus to become, in that sense, the first Seventh-day Adventists. Due to her influence, Frederick Wheeler (1811-1910), an ordained minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and promoter of the prophetic teachings of William Miller, preached his first sermon on seventh-day Sabbath to his "Christian Brethren" congregation on March 16, 1844.
Further due to her influence, William Farnsworth (1807-1888), after the Great Disappointment of October 22, 1844, stated publicly to the "Christian Brethren" congregation his conviction that Saturday, being the seventh day of the week, was Sabbath. His brother Cyrus (who became the husband of her daughter Delight), and several others, also made their convictions known.
Who was Rachel Oakes-Preston
(1782-1849) He was an American farmer and a Baptist preacher who announced the imminent coming of Christ and founded the movement popularly know as Millerism or the Millerite movement. He was a convincing preacher in the logical way he appealed in earnestness. After the “Great Disappointment” he built a chapel on his property so Advent Believers would have a place to worship.
Who was William Miller?
(1858-1944) He was a pioneer missionary to South America. He was converted to the Seventh-day Adventist faith at the age of 19 and in 1878 he was made leader of the newly organized church in New London, Wisconsin. In 1894 he was called to South America and became the first ordained SDA minister assigned to the South America Continent. He worked with success in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil and Chili.
Who was F. H. Westphal?
(1821-1881), He was a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, was the fifth of nine children. He was baptized, at age 15, in the denomination called Christian Connection to which his parents belonged. After teaching for two winters he heard of the Millerite Movement and was persuaded to attend a meeting. He became convinced of the importance of what he had heard and of the shortness of time. He resigned from his school to join in heralding the Advent message. He suffered keenly during the Great Disappointment in October 1844, but he clung in confidence to God’s Word. He married Ellen Gould Harmon on August 30, 1846 and soon after, the two of them began to keep the seventh-day Sabbath. He wrote encouragement to the believers and worked to spread the gospel of Jesus' soon coming until his death in 1881.
Who was James Springer White?
(1864-1940) He was a youth leader and evangelist. At the age of 14, in 1879, he with his friend Harry Fenner, organized at Hazelton, Michigan one of the first Seventh-day Adventist young people’s societies. His formal education was limited but he was an insatiable reader, keenly interested in the development of church schools. He began his evangelistic career in 1888 as a tent master in Michigan, a career that took him to many centers throughout North America. He powerfully influenced thousands of young people in schools and churches where he conducted revivals. Mary Boucher has written a biography on him under the title using his name (Review and Herald, 1959
Who was Luther Warren?
(1828-1855) She was a poet and editorial assistant. She joined the Baptist Church at the age of 10 and became an Adventist in 1844. She gave up teaching in 1850 because of eye trouble and in 1851 she attended a meeting by Joseph Bates and was convinced of the Seventh-day Adventist faith. She sent a poem, "Fear Not, Little Flock" to the Review and Herald. James White employed her to read proof, edit copy and take charge in White’s absence. She wrote many poems. Ten of her hymns appear in the Church Hymnal. She died of Tuberculosis in 1855.
Who was Annie Smith?