HROUGHOUT ITS HISTORY the Seventh-day Adventist Church has benefited from the impress of many notable members and leaders; men and women who have shaped the movement and built it into the institution it is today. In the last half of the twentieth century one of those leaders has been Charles E. Bradford, evangelist, pastor, administrator, and first African-American president of the North American Division.

Elder Bradford, or "Brad," as he is known to many throughout North America, has served the church during some notable times in the church as well as in society. And in the 10 years since he and his wife, Ethel, began to enjoy their retirement in Spring Hill, Florida, his four and a half decades of service for the church are still notable.

The Journey Begins
Charles Bradford was the last of eight children born to Robert and Etta Bradford. "My dad was an evangelist and pastor," he notes, "so we were almost nomadic." Although born in Washington, D.C., Bradford says his first memories come from the time the family lived in New Rochelle, New York, where the elder Bradford pastored a district of three churches.

"As cities go," remembers Bradford, "[New Rochelle] was just about as free of racism as you could get." There were no "White" Adventist churches in the area, so Whites and Blacks worshiped together. But no Adventist school in the area meant that Bradford and his siblings attended public school. New Rochelle being a suburb of New York City, its White population, Bradford recalls, was not "threatened" by Blacks. They were "gracious people, genteel society people," he recalls. "The school principal was a fine gentleman who would ask if we were being treated right."

Still, it was in New Rochelle that Bradford got his first taste of racism. "I was kind of a sensitive little kid," he reflects. "There were a few bullies in school who would insist on calling me racist names. Sometimes I'd run home weeping, and my mother would say, 'What's the matter?' And I'd say, 'They called me "Blackie.'" And she'd say, 'Well, you are; you surely are.' Then she'd say, 'Look at your father; he's the finest man I know, and he's Black. You ought to want to be like him.'

"So when I went back to school, I'd say, 'Sure, I'm Black, just like my daddy,' and I never felt in awe of anybody. That was the end of that."

Bradford got his secondary and college education at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama. When asked about the people who influenced his life, in addition to his parents, college professors, and pastoral mentors he remembers the Ebenezer Adventist Church in Philadelphia, which he attended as a youth. "I was in a church that took care of its young people," he says. "They had clubs, groups of women who would say, 'Our kids are going to Oakwood. We will pay their train fare, send them little care packages, and bring them back home.' You can't beat that; a young person remembers that."

Although he grew up in a pastor's home, Bradford didn't entertain thoughts of being a minister at an early age. "I came to be a minister only gradually," he observes. Encouraged to pursue a career in medicine, he went to Oakwood, and once there eventually became convinced that God wanted him to enter the ministry.

During Bradford's last year at Oakwood the evangelist W. S. Lee came to present messages for the school's Week of Prayer. On Sunday Lee had been invited to preach at one of the Protestant churches in town. As he walked past the outdoor basketball courts where young men were shooting baskets, he stopped and asked, "Anybody like to go with me and have the prayer?"

Bradford answered, "I'll go." And after the service, on the way back to campus, Pastor Lee asked Bradford to join him as an intern in the Arkansas- Louisiana Conference. Bradford helped Lee with a series of evangelistic meetings in New Orleans, then he was assigned a district that covered the cities of Baton Rouge, Hammond, and Covington, Louisiana, in the newly organized Southwest Region Mission.

After six years in pastoral ministry in Louisiana and Dallas, Texas, Bradford was called to the Central States (Regional) Mission as an evangelist and departmental director. After an evangelistic series, when the pastor of one of the St. Louis, Missouri, churches retired, Bradford was asked to provide leadership to that congregation. He remembers that some of his well-meaning colleagues thought leaving departmental work to pastor a local congregation was "beneath" him, that it would sidetrack his career path as a departmental director. In response he told them, "The local church is where I cut my eyeteeth. This is where I was born. I was under that old school that said, 'Whatever the brethren ask you to do, you do.' "

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A few years later Bradford went to the Northeastern Conference to serve as an evangelist and departmental director. Again he was asked to fill a pastoral vacancy in the City Tabernacle church in uptown Manhattan. When he accepted the invitation, his colleagues chided him, "Brad, how could you do that? You haven't pastored in some time."

They got his stock answer: "That's all right; pastoring a local church is no step backward." That statement has reflected his philosophy about the church and leadership throughout his career.

From the Northeastern Conference Bradford was asked to be president of the Lake Region Conference (which covers the territory of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin). In that role he was instrumental in working with other regional conference presidents in seeing that African-American leaders were considered for leadership positions in the church at large.

During the 1962 General Conference session in San Francisco, his first session as a conference president, Bradford was asked to chair an impromptu meeting of African- American pastors who were concerned that the ethnic makeup of the General Conference did not reflect the diversity of the general church membership. A reporter for one of the San Francisco newspapers reported: "Bradford Leads 100 Black Ministers' Revolt in Seventh-day Adventist Church."

At Bradford's request, General Conference president R. R. Figuhr arranged a meeting with that same reporter, so he could observe the dialogue between the Black leaders and the General Conference leadership. "When he saw us addressing each other as 'Brother Bradford,' or what ever, it kind of took the steam out of his story," Bradford remembers. "He was obviously miffed that there was no real revolt."

Bradford was also consulted whenever race relations became an issue in church and educational institutions.

In 1970 Bradford came to the General Conference as an associate secretary, was assigned to North America, and in 1979 succeeded Neal Wilson as president of the North American Division.

The Measure of the Man
"I'm just a fair administrator," Bradford confesses. "I grew into it. [But] I do believe that one of my long suits is to 'bring people around.' I have enough sensitivity to know when things are going right or wrong."

Bradford is reluctant to take credit for advances made by the church in North America during the 11 years that he served as president, but his contributions are well known by those with whom he worked. "I'm slow to take credit, but I can rejoice in some things," he says with a smile. "During this time we seemed to be more conscious of the local church."

He acknowledges that administrators often seem to believe they can bring progress to the work simply by voting and taking actions. "The local church is where the action is," he maintains. "Every member is a minister."

According to Bradford, the greatest need of the church today is that it recognize and utilize the spiritual gifts of its members. In typical Bradford style he quips, "Somebody said, 'What is the Puritans' greatest fear?' The answer: 'That somewhere in the world somebody might be happy.'

"Our fear," he continues, "ought to be that somewhere in this church, this great church, somebody's gifts are unemployed." To his way of thinking, membership and fellowship in the church are just the beginning of a person's usefulness to God's kingdom. It is the responsibility of church leaders, lay and professional, to equip God's people for service. God is an equal opportunity employer, he maintains. He deplores the fact that many Christians go through their church experience never realizing that God has given them gifts that they can use in building up His kingdom. "It's iniquitous!" he huffs.

Alluding to Paul's list of the spiritual gifts in Ephesians 4, Bradford speaks plainly: "It's the purpose of all the big shots up there [at higher levels of church administration] to bring us little folk into perfection; everyone will be appreciated. And the brethren are to be judged on that."

Not surprisingly, Bradford has been a champion of women in ministry. His approach to ministry is dictated by the gifts given by the Holy Spirit to Christ's followers. "God's mission belongs to all of us," he says.

He maintains that ecclesiology, the study of the church, has, in general, been ignored or overlooked in the Adventist Church. Bradford maintains that often there's a big difference between what we teach on paper and how it appears in the life of the church. "We understand the church as anatomy," he asserts, "but not as physiology."

An Active Retirement
Besides feeding his passion for computers, Bradford accepts speaking invitations and cultivates relationships with clergy members from other denominations whom he has met over the years.

As far as involvement in his local church is concerned, Bradford says, "I'm just one of the brethren." Because of his sometimes heavy speaking schedule, he doesn't hold any formal church offices, but he does accept assignments from the pastor from time to time. He also consults with church and health-care institutions on occasion, and serves on the boards of Adventist Health Systems-Sunbelt and Florida Hospital College of Health Sciences. "I'm still trying to exercise my gifts," he offers.

Several years ago Bradford began studying the history of the Sabbath on the African continent. The book Sabbath Roots: The African Connection is the result (see sidebar). A fund-raising campaign to build the Bradford- Cleveland Center at Oakwood College (in honor of Bradford and evangelist Earl E. Cleveland) will foster studies on ministry, evangelism, and other biblical issues.

"I enjoy brainstorming," he says, "bouncing ideas off each other. I want to move the church along, freeing people up to use their gifts." A focus on the Word, worship, fellowship, and ministry--these, according to Bradford, are highlights of a growing, vibrant church.

Bradford relates that in the early Christian church, after the service was ended, the liturgist would stand, wave his arms in a huge sweeping motion, and say to the congregation: "Get out, get out, get out."

"That captures my idea of ministry," Bradford enthuses. "After the meeting, then the service begins."

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Stephen Chavez is an assistant editor of the Adventist Review.