It was the first day of spring break. I was 16, and my excitement about the coming week was almost uncontainable. I had borrowed my dad’s car; I had a new driver’s license, and I had places to go, things to do.
I didn’t get far. About two miles from our home I lost control of the car on a curve. Hitting a ditch, I was launched through the windshield. The accident resulted in 147 stitches, plastic surgery, and my family becoming Seventh-day Adventists.
We were dedicated Baptists, faithfully supporting Liberty Hill Baptist Church. I had no idea that on the first day of spring break in 1993 a chain of providential circumstances would begin to unravel life as we knew it.
As a result of the accident my dad had to carpool to work with a coworker while he shopped for another car. During the commute he heard one 30-second radio announcement about a Bible prophecy seminar being held about 45 minutes from our home. He decided to attend. Later we found out that no ads for the seminar ran on the radio stations my dad listened to in his own car.
As a consequence of the accident I had to take several days off from work at Piggly Wiggly. So dad took me to a couple of the “exciting” meetings he was attending. Within a few days I was back going to school during the day and working most nights.
Dad kept attending the prophecy seminar. He shared with us what he had learned. My initial impression was that Adventists went to church on the wrong day and didn’t eat anything that tasted good.
Dad began attending church on Sabbath mornings, as well as going with us to the Baptist church on Sunday. Mom wanted nothing to do with this “weird church” (her words). When Dad invited her to come along, she responded with firmness that bordered on hostility: “No, I’m not going to church tomorrow!” I didn’t like the conflict this created, so I started working Saturdays and Sundays. Problem solved.
Eventually the Baptist pastor preached a sermon directed at Dad: “If you’re going to be Baptist, be a Baptist. If you’re going to be a Seventh-day Adventist, be a Seventh-day Adventist.” Dad never went back. My mom, also offended, began attending another Baptist church.
Sometime later our family agreed to attend a small group Bible study at the home of an Adventist family in our community. It took two and a half years, but as the result of public evangelism followed by small group meetings, my entire immediate family became Adventist in September 1995.
We attended the Gulf Coast Seventh-day Adventist Church, the nearest Adventist church to our home. I went away to Union College and eventually into ministry.
Our hometown of Wiggins, Mississippi, had been exploding in growth, especially after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. As a result of the horrible damage caused in the costal area, a lot of people moved north into Wiggins and the Stone County area. Wiggins needed an Adventist church. God was about to meet that need.
In 2006 a small group of Adventists began a weekly Bible study at my parents’ home. My younger brother, Drew, a teacher at Bass Memorial Academy, led out. They studied through the book of Acts as they prayerfully considered planting a church. They couldn’t plant a church just for convenience and to eliminate the long drive every Sabbath morning. They had to make sure their goal was to reach people with the gospel.
They invited non-Adventist friends and family members to participate in the weekly meetings. After a few months they began to have afternoon Sabbath worship at my parents’ home every other Sabbath, while the Adventists continued to attend their churches in other counties.
The service grew to a consistent 25 to 30 attendees. Most of them were not Adventists.
In 2007, just a year and a half after beginning to meet regularly, the group couldn’t grow any more while meeting in a home; there just wasn’t room. My brother asked me to hold public evangelistic meetings in Wiggins. After I talked and prayed with my wife, we decided to approach Gulf States Conference about this idea. We worked with limited funding, but we felt God’s leading.
In the weeks leading up to the series the believers secured a meeting location for church services and began construction to get it ready for the last two weeks of the series. We rented the new senior center in town and held a Christian Creation conference with about 60 visitors. The next weekend we began our Revelation’s Puzzle of Prophecy series in the same hall. More than 70 visitors attended.
At the time, I had conducted more than 50 full-message evangelistic meetings, but this one was unique. In the crowd were people with whom I had grown up and gone to school. Friends and family I had known my whole life were opening their Bibles and listening to God’s Word. Most of the faces were familiar. My community college calculus professor even attended. Of course, non-Adventist participants in the church group were there to help. Considering the visitors who were already attending the Bible study and the church plant, this series could be only a success.
We praise the Lord that many positive decisions were made!
Evangelism is always thrilling, but this was even more exhilarating than normal. People were challenged with the same truths that had challenged our family years earlier. Night after night a core group returned. We praise the Lord that many positive decisions were made!
At the end of that series I stood in the back of the church’s new location and watched with joy as person after person went down into the watery grave of baptism and rose to walk in the truth as it is in Jesus. This small church plant in a small town had 17 new members. These included all the adults in the church plant who had not been baptized, every single one.
My best friend from middle school, Bo, and his wife, April, were baptized. My distant cousin, Elisabeth, and her husband, Jacob, were part of that group as well. Eddie, raised an Adventist, was rebaptized along with his wife, Shelly. They were all part of the core group.
Bo’s older brother, Troy, and his wife, Chrystal, were baptized. Troy had been hired to help get the church building ready. He wasn’t sure if Adventists were a cult or not, but we needed help, and he pitched in. We convinced him and his wife to check out the series, and the Word of God worked on their hearts.
The biggest surprise took me back to Piggly Wiggly when I was 16. Dot, a dear woman, had worked there with me many years before. She actually remembered when I had had the car accident. She attended every night, along with her daughter, Gina, and several members of the Baptist church. Even the Baptist associate pastor was there most nights.
It caused quite a stir at the end of the series when Dot and Gina resigned their positions at the Baptist church. Other members of their church tried to pull them away, but they stood firm.
I went back about a year and a half after the evangelistic series. I didn’t preach that day—my younger brother did. He is serving as a lay pastor for the church while teaching at Bass Memorial Academy. I sat in the back and looked around. It is still a relatively small group. They are all like family to each other.
Bo, April, and their three children weren’t there; they were in Colorado, where Bo’s job transfer had taken them. But Elisabeth and Jacob and their son were there. Eddie and Shelly and their daughter were there. Dot and Gina were there. Gina’s three children were all there. Troy and his two sons were there. Chrystal couldn’t make it that day, but usually does.
Of the 17 people baptized, all but three are regular in their attendance. They are continuing to reach out into the community.
Evangelism made this church plant possible; the church plant made evangelism possible. And the cycle continues. Each Seventh-day Adventist ch
urch planted will result in more people in the kingdom of heaven. The first Adventists were all church planters. Early Adventist ministers were church planters. I am more convinced that the front line of Adventist ministry should be church planting.
Furthermore, I am convinced that every Adventist would be thrilled to look back from eternity and know they were part of at least one church plant.
