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4, Volume 64, No. 6 June, 1970 SOUTHERN TIDINGS is published monthly at the College Press, Collegedale, Tennessee. Entered as SOUTHERN second-class matter July 26, 1929, at the Post Office at Collegedale, Tennessee 37315, under the Act of TTIDJINCGO March 3, 1879. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 10, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE SOUTHERN UNION July 25, 1929. Subscription rate— CONFERENCE OF SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS two dollars per year. INSIDE As this issue of the SOUTHERN TIDINGS comes SPECIAL into the hands of our church members in the South- ern Union, the 51st General Conference Quadren- 3 "Carolina Yesterday and Today" nial Session is convening in Atlantic City, New Dateline Data Jersey. Some 1500 official delegates are present to 7 transact the business of the world church. Also, 20 Literature Evangelism many thousands of church members and friends are 21 Pictorial Stories present to swell the attendance to near 30,000 on the weekends. 26 Telex News 27 Summer Camp Schedules The main objective for the session is to make a lasting spiritual impact upon God's church and 28 In Transitions and Weddings upon the world. That there is business to transact 30 Coming Events is true. But even more important than reports and the election of leadership is the spiritual revival of God's people to prepare us for finishing the work CONFERENCES AND INSTITUTIONS of heralding the gospel worldwide. To this end, the 8 Florida: "More Than a Salesman" opening Sabbath of the session is a day of fasting and prayer. We invite our people to join in pray- 10 Georgia-Cumberland: "A Tribute to W. A. ing earnestly for God's special blessing upon His Sowers" church and her mission. 12 South Atlantic: "Let Them Build Me a In this issue, the Carolina Conference is being Sanctuary" featured. This is one of our fast-growing confer- 14 ences, and with the vigorous activities in soul win- South Central: "Eightieth Anniversary of ning by the conference leaders, the pastor-evange- Lexington Church" lists, and the laymen, the conference has now sur- 16 Kentucky-Tennessee: "R. H. Pierson Visits passed a membership of 6,000. Covington" 18 Southern Missionary College: "Man's Humanity to Man" President, Southern Union Conference SOUTHERN UNION CONFERENCE publisher OUR COVER: Typical mountain scene from OSCAR L. HEINRICH editor North Carolina. NOBLE VINING design and production Local conference contributing editors — KATHERINE MAXFIELD layout artist Alabama-Mississippi T. H. Bledsoe WILLIAM SUE layout and special art Carolina H. V. Leggett DEANIE BIETZ circulation manager Florida R. 7. Ulmer Southern Union Conference, 3978 Memorial Drive Georgia-Cumberland A. C. McClure P. 0. Box 849, Decatur, Georgia 30032 Kentucky-Tennessee A. I. Iseminger South Atlantic F. L. Jones H. H, SCHMIDT president South Central L. A. Paschal J. H. WHITEHEAD treasurer H. F. ROLL secretary Postmaste All notices should be sent to SoterneeN Timraos, P. 0. Box 849, Decatur, Georgia 30032. Ear 'lint. cEstErliq and T Idol By Cecil Coffey The first Seventh-day Adventist church building to be erected in Mr. Coffey is a member of the Carolina Conference, making his home in the South was at Valle Crucis, North Carolina. Today, there is Fletcher, North Carolina. He is a free-lance writer. His latest book, still a church to remind Adventists of the pioneer work done by CAMPER'S DIGEST, has just come off the press. Mr. Coffey has served D. T. Shireman. as public relations secretary of the Southern Union and editor of the SOUTHERN TIDINGS, book editor at Southern Publishing Association, and in numerous other denominational positions. Photos by H. V. Leggett This is a personal observation. When the president of the Carolina Conference gave his biennial report to the constituency recently, I was struck by both its simplicity and its significance. The facts and figures were easy to understand, but their significance was revealed in the background story. This story is one of laymen and ministers working together, in harmony and toward a common objective. It is a story of building, block by block, brick by brick, until today the Carolina Conference is a solid organi- zation with a net membership of more than 6,000 practicing Adventist Christians. The 6,000 mark was passed early this year. Nearly 600 members attended the 30th biennial session of the In the very beginning of his report, Elder E. S. Reile, Carolina Conference held at Mt. Pisgah Academy. E. S. Reile, president since 1968, gave the constituency report. president, paid tribute to the laymen who energetically launched the work of Seventh-day Adventists in the Carolinas. It was laymen, he said, who sent packets of Standing outside the conference office in Charlotte are the re- papers to a little mountain post office in North Caro- elected officers for the next three years—from left, E. S. Reile, president; 0. H. Rausch, treasurer; Hugh V. Leggett, secretary. lina's Watauga County, which in turn fell into the hands of one William Norwood and one Townsend Larkin. Thus the Advent Message reached the Caro- linas in the 1870's. These laymen saw the truth, told others about it, and before long were visited by an Adventist minister from New York. A public meeting was held at Shull's C,APOI INA Mill, six miles from Valle Crucis, a small church was organized and the South's first Seventh-day Adventist (C)NI I ItlIVA ( )1 church building was erected. But, as Elder Reile explained it, the work "was slow, 'iif Vi NI II DAY MAI N11%1', very slow, until the arrival of D. T. Shireman (pronounced 'Sherman'), an Iowa builder and layman turned colpor- teur. "The Shiremans settled at Hildebran and literally throughout the mountains and piedmont sections of the cut a base of operations out of the wilderness. They Carolinas, preaching and teaching wherever he went. put up a school, an orphanage and a church. Before My grandmother told me the story many times. long the school had built up a farm of about 70 acres. She was six years old when Mr. Shireman came to her Bountiful harvests from field and orchard helped dem- home. She was helping her mother in the garden when onstrate what could be done by missionary families she spotted a distinguished looking stranger "riding the while they lived and taught Bible truth." biggest black horse I ever saw. He stopped by the This was especially interesting to me, for it was D. T. garden fence and asked for a glass of water. He didn't Shireman who one day in 1890 reined his horse atop waste any time. He took a big black Bible from his Earley's Mountain, northwest of Asheville, and looked saddlebag and said he would like to talk with us about down into Big Sandymush Valley where my grandmother 'the Book.' He talked and we listened. I tell you, the lived. How he was led to this remote spot remains a way he explained God's love, the importance of the mystery, except for the fact that he traveled incessantly Ten Commandments and the story of Jesus dying to save us was so wonderful and beautiful that it seemed an angel had come to our valley." Ten persons, were baptized following meetings in the community schoolhouse. One, my grandmother's older sister, went to Mr. Shireman's school in Hildebran, became a teacher, and later took her faith with her to a homestead in Texas. All of this went through my mind as I heard how this dedicated layman carried the Advent Message to Asheville, Greensboro, High Point, Durham, Raleigh and many other places. Elder Reile pointed out that the Shireman technique was simple: "intensive house- to-house evangelism." Somehow the spirit of D. T. Shireman and many of his kind who followed seemed to permeate the 30th biennial session of the Carolina Conference. As Elder. THE CAROLINAS— Reile put if, "this spirit lives today in the Carolinas." Nearly 500 miles of oceanfront The truth of this became obvious as reports and testimonials from conference workers told of congrega- tion after congregation moving forward together. Many delegates commented on the splendid balance of pro- grams designed to enlarge God's work in the two-state area. Statistics reveal some of the results: 856 persons baptized during the biennium, a tithe of $2,452,819.67 (an increase of $516,941.71 over the preceding bien- nium), an expenditure of nearly one million dollars on Christian education in 21 elementary schools alone, Sabbath school offerings for missions totaling $315,888.86, nearly $300,000 given through Ingather- ing, the circulation of $429,609.27 worth of publications by literature evangelists in 1969 alone, the use of —Land $310,805.81 worth of literature purchased by members of Rivers Through the Carolina Book and Bible House. Other advances are seen in these facts and figures: Public evangelism, in the words of Conference Sec- retary H. V. Leggett, "constitutes the network of gospel roads necessary to reach those not nurtured through —Land of internal programs such as the church school and the Lakes Sabbath school. This calls for good public relations programs, seed sowing and watering by laymen and follow-up of all interests by our pastors and evangelists." In Carolina as many as 33 evangelistic meetings have been conducted in one quarter and as many as 101 persons have been baptized in a single month. 0. H. Rausch, treasurer, pointed out that the significant financial gains during the biennium "demonstrate the faithfulness of minister and layman in advancing the total conference program." Echoing this same sentiment was the suggestion by the Book and Bible House manager, Wayne Darnell, that "the way our people make use of the Book and Bible House services is a good thermometer for meas- Teams, Branch Sabbath Schools, Gift Bible Evangelism, uring the evangelism health of the church." One mush- One-to-One Evangelism.

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