ASK PASTOR MAC: A Church Built Upon A Book?

Q: Dear Pastor Mac:

I believe literature is a good tool for witnessing, but I heard someone say that whole churches have been raised up because of the reading of one of our books.  That’s stretching things a bit, isn’t it?

A: I used to think that was a well-meaning overstatement, too. I took it a little more seriously when I read the following quote from Colporteur Ministry, p. 150, “Our publications are now sowing the gospel seed, and are instrumental in bringing as many souls to Christ as the preached word. Whole churches have been raised up as the result of their circulation.”

     Still, being the skeptic that I am, I wanted living proof that churches have been raised up as the result of reading one of our books. God finally gave me the proof I was looking for in Hemingway, SC. On January 26, 2008, Pastor John Boston invited me to preach at the Bethel SDA Church in Bucksport, SC. It was historic day, in that it was the first simulcast between local churches done in the region.

     Bethel’s sister church, Mt. Olive, was viewing the service from Hemingway via satellite (thanks to Urick Ladonis and churchpond.com). At the end of the day, Pastor Boston took me for a tour of the Mt. Olive church and its surrounding community. He told me the story of how a student, preparing for the ministry, rode his bicycle from Tennessee to South Carolina selling books along the way. The student, J.B.E. Williams, sold a Bible Readings for the Home Circle to a Baptist preacher named Dave Sumpter. 

    

     Sumpter was so impressed with the book that he borrowed money in order to buy it. After reading it, he began keeping the Sabbath. His Baptist colleagues offered him the charge of the largest Baptist church in the area if he would give up the seventh-day Sabbath and come back to them. Dave stuck to his convictions and soon many family members joined him and they formed a church in a few months time. So you need go no further than Hemingway, SC for proof that whole churches have been raised as the result of our books.