Book: Clarence Creager Crisler, Organization: Its Character, Purpose, Place, and Development in the Seventh-day Adventist Church (Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1938). HTML, PDF.
[p. 111]
Chapter 13: Representative Men in the Field
In the early days of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, two or three men could easily supervise the entire field of effort each season. Even after the formation of the General Conference in 1863, the one chosen as leader could personally attend every important meeting, besides carrying special burdens such as those connected with the publishing work.
During the third annual session of the General Conference, in 1865, the delegates passed a formal resolution declaring that in their judgment it was “highly important for the well-being of the cause that the president of the General Conference should attend the session of each of the State conferences.”—General Conference Minutes, May 17, 1865, published in Review and Herald, May 23, 1865. A year later, the delegates made provision for the sharing of this burden by the other two members of the General Conference Committee. (See Review and Herald, May 22, 1866.) And the following year the policy was broadened to the extent of permitting some one appointed by this committee to represent the General Conference at State conference sessions. (See Id., May 28, 1867.)
For many years after the organization of the General Conference, it was possible for the three members of its executive committee to cover the field, attending practically every large gathering of believers throughout the [p. 112] land. Thus the officers of the General Conference kept in close touch with the local conference workers and with the people.
“The efficiency of our system of organization,” wrote J. N. Andrews in a last-page editorial note in the Review, dated October 28, 1873, “depends very much upon the existence and the action of this committee. During the interval from one conference to another, the general management of our affairs as a people is in their hands. They constitute an executive board to carry into effect the measures which are determined upon by the conference. Without their action, much of the conference business would end in mere talk. By their means we are able to act as a body, and at all times are represented by those who are authorized to act for us.
“This committee is selected annually with especial reference to the important and responsible work to be done. It is but just to say that our present committee in the general performance of their responsible duties have acted with great wisdom and prudence. Upon them have devolved very great labors, and these have been performed with diligence and faithfulness. … It is certainly duty for every one to aid in strengthening the hands of those who stand in this place of chief responsibility. I am glad to believe that there is an increasing disposition on the part of our people to do this.”
At the time these lines were written, Elder Andrews was not a member of the committee.
In Mission Territory
During the fourteenth session of the General Conference, held in 1875, the brethren chose as their committee: [p. 113] James White, with headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan; J. N. Loughborough, of Oakland, California; and J. N. Andrews, of Switzerland. Commenting on this action, the secretary, Uriah Smith, wrote:
“The conference committee are chosen from widely distant localities. This seems to be very appropriate.
“The message which Seventh-day Adventists are giving is a world-wide message; and the General Conference Committee have the oversight of the work the world over. How fitting, then, to the nature and extent of the work, that they should be stationed in different fields in different parts of the world.
“One in Europe, one on the Pacific Coast, and the other vibrating in all sections of the field between them, looks to us like a most appropriate arrangement. We can think of but one step more in the way of improvement on this matter, and that would be to add a fourth member to the committee, and locate him in Australia.*
[*This was written at a time when no worker had been sent to Australia. Nearly ten years later missionary operations were begun there; and Elder Smith lived to see the day when the General Conference adopted the policy of stationing one of its executive committee permanently in that field.]
“This links all parts of the work together, and by means of the steam and telegraph lines of this rapid age, they can easily confer with one another in regard to the wants of the wide harvest field, of which personal labor and supervision will enable them more correctly to judge.”—Review and Herald, Aug. 26, 1875.
An Attempted Change of Policy
The value of having the General Conference Committee made up largely of men who were actively engaged in work that would bring them into close touch with the rank and file of the people throughout the field, was lost sight of, [p. 114] for the moment, during the seventeenth session of the General Conference, in 1878. A delegate who was occupying a position of responsibility in a large institution, urged that the committeemen should be chosen from those having to do with the three chief lines of departmental work—the publishing interests, the medical work, and the educational work. The nominating committee gave favorable consideration to this plea, and recommended that the men standing at the head of the three leading denominational institutions be chosen as the General Conference Committee for the ensuing term. Accordingly, Elder James White, Dr. J. H. Kellogg, and Professor S. Brownsberger were elected to this position.
But before the conference closed, Mrs. White came before the delegates, and told them that during the night season the angel of the Lord had appeared before her with words of counsel, and that a mistake had been made in making the General Conference Committee less truly representative than formerly. She had been instructed that there were decided advantages in keeping in close touch with the people in the field, and that loss would be sustained by the church at large through the proposed change of policy concerning the personnel of the committee.
The brethren accepted this counsel, the two whose local work would have circumscribed their usefulness as general laborers declined to serve, and others more representative of the entire field were chosen.*
[*The records of this experience are very meager, but some of the facts are reported in the Review and Herald, October 17, 1878. The official minutes in the archives of the General Conference are identical with this report in the Review.]
The European General Council
As conferences multiplied, and missions were established in many new fields, the three men chosen from year [p. 115] to year to act as the official representatives of the General Conference between sessions, found it increasingly difficult to cover the entire field. Elder Andrews’ failing health made it impossible for him to serve longer on the committee, and thus, for long seasons at a time, the brethren in Europe were far removed from those to whom they naturally looked for counsel. This led them to resort to a new form of organization to meet the demands of a rapidly developing work.
In September, 1882, while S. N. Haskell, one of the members of the General Conference Committee, was visiting the principal mission stations in Europe, the leading workers from conferences and missions organized in Scandinavia, Great Britain, and Switzerland met with him in Basel, and there organized an ecclesiastical body to include all the European conferences and missions, but to be subordinate to the General Conference in America. Having no precedent to follow, the brethren named their new organization the European Conference, in which was to be embraced “all the Seventh-day Adventists of the Old World.” Elders Haskell, Andrews, and Loughborough united in formulating a simple constitution. In this were mentioned the name, the object, and the membership; and provision was made for an executive committee of three, a secretary, and a treasurer. The object of the European Conference was stated to be “to promote the missionary work by establishing more intimate relations between the brethren of the different nations of Europe, and also between them and the brethren in America.” (See Review and Herald, Oct. 10, 17, 1882.)
Elder Andrews, in his report of the organization, stated that the brethren voted to request the General Conference [p. 116] that the annual meetings of the European Conference be attended by “some member of the General Conference Committee.”—Review and Herald, Nov. 14, 1882.
In planning for a working body with the powers that were vested in the European Conference, the brethren secured to the work in that field many of the advantages that have since accrued to other important portions of the field through the organization of union conferences. But the plan proposed in 1882 for the safeguarding and furtherance of all the interests of the cause of present truth in Europe, was so unlike anything that had hitherto been devised, that a few weeks later, during the 1882 session of the General Conference, the whole matter was taken under advisement by a special committee.
After considerable study of the new plan, a favorable report was rendered, whereupon the General Conference passed the following resolution:
“Resolved, That while we endorse the organization of the European Conference, we recommend that its name be changed to … European Council of Seventh-day Adventist Missions, according to the object stated in its constitution.”—Id., Dec. 26, 1882.
Two years later, in 1884, during a visit by George I. Butler, the president of the General Conference, to the missions in Europe, the European Council met for its second session. The chairman, Elder Butler, in setting before the brethren the necessity of perfecting the organization formed two years before, told them that “the General Conference Committee, burdened as they are with work and cares in America, and being at such a distance from the different fields of labor in Europe, cannot take immediate charge of such matters as directing laborers in [p. 117] their work, disbursing funds, and other local questions.”—Id., June 24, 1884.
One of the important steps taken during the progress of the meeting, as reported by Elder Butler to the readers of the Review, “was the perfecting of a plan of organization, so that responsibilities should rest upon all the leading workers there.”—Idem.
Article IV of the constitution was amended to read: “The officers of the council shall consist of an executive committee of three, a secretary, a treasurer, and a missionary board of three in each mission, whose chairman shall be a member of the executive committee of the council, these officers to be elected by the council at its annual meetings. These missionary boards shall take supervision of the wants of the cause in their respective mission fields, and shall attend to the disbursement of funds under the counsel of the General Conference Committee, to whom they shall report from time to time the condition and wants of their fields.”—Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, p. 110 (1886 edition).
Commenting on this plan, the president of the General Conference wrote:
“We trust this arrangement will bring the best judgment of all our missionaries to bear upon the work to be done, and that all will thus feel mutually responsible, and will be interested to look after the work, more than if it was all left to the decision of one person in each mission.”—Review and Herald, June 24, 1884.
Those in charge of the work in Europe also recognized the advantages to be derived from the perfected plan for placing responsibilities upon many men engaged in work [p. 118] in the various fields. “The action of the council in the adoption” of this plan, they declared, “was in itself an important step toward more thorough system and organization in the work in all the missions. The appointment of a general executive committee of three, composed of brethren selected from the different missions, would serve to unite the work, and, so far as possible, give all the benefit of the experience which might be gained by the workers in each field. This would … help all to feel responsible for the advancement of the common cause.”—Historical Sketches, p. 110.
“The third session of the European Council convened in the meeting hall of the new publishing house at Basel, Switzerland, September 15, 1885.”—Id., p. 113. The General Conference was represented by one of the members of its executive committee, W. C. White, and by Mrs. E. G. White, both of whom remained in Europe for about two years to assist in establishing the work in that field.
Molding Influences
It was during her attendance at the third session of the European Council in September, 1885, that Mrs. White met with the workers morning by morning, and delivered the series of practical addresses that were later published as a section of Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists (pp. 119-158). Among the themes presented, the principles underlying gospel order were clearly outlined. “Love and Forbearance Among Brethren,” “Unity Among Laborers,” “Unity Among Different Nationalities,” were some of the subjects discussed.
Reporting from Basel to Elder Butler, the president of the General Conference, under date of October 1, 1885, [p. 119] concerning these practical addresses to the workers, Mrs. White wrote:
“I have felt urged by the Spirit of God to keep before them the necessity of being teachable, easy to be entreated; that it is entirely out of place for Christ’s servants to be self-sufficient and independent. I have tried to impress upon them that we are individually bound together in the great web of humanity, and … any one man is not a whole. It is not safe to follow one man’s mind and one man’s judgment. We are to be helps to one another, but never to be the shadow of any man. God would have us think and act as free moral agents, gathering light from Him to reflect upon others, while we must be willing to be entreated of our brethren, and to gain wisdom from men of experience.”—Ellen G. White Letter 2, 1885.
The principles emphasized by Mrs. White at the very beginning of her labors in Europe, brought great blessing to the workers in attendance at the European Council, and helped them to lay plans for the development of the cause of present truth along broad lines. The value of these early efforts to establish unity and at the same time to give leeway for individual initiative, can never be fully estimated.
Committeemen As Counselors
Another molding influence in Europe during the formative period of its development, was the continuous presence there, from the beginning of our missionary operations in that field, of brethren of varied experience. In J. N. Andrews the General Conference gave of its best; and the brethren that followed had borne responsibilities in the home field, and were qualified to strengthen the hands of their associates wherever they might be placed.
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The enlargement of the General Conference Committee from three members to five in 1883 (see S.D.A. Year Book, 1884, p. 37), and from five to seven in 1886 (see Id., 1887, pp. 32, 33), made possible the stationing of a member of the General Conference Committee in Europe almost continuously, beginning with the year 1885, when W. C. White was sent there, and continuing through the years given to the European work by O. A. Olsen. During the time spent by these workers in Europe, they endeavored to labor, not as executives in the lesser matters pertaining to local fields and handled by the mission committees, but as counselors and helpers to the brethren upon whom had been placed the responsibility of the various missions and institutions throughout the field. Thus many were trained to bear burdens, and to share in the responsibilities of management; and later some of these in turn have been chosen as members of the General Conference Committee, to stand as counselors and helpers. Thus the work in Europe has advanced from strength to strength, until today it has developed into a division conference* ranking in importance with the North American Division Conference, and carrying its full share of the responsibility of preparing the inhabitants of earth, and especially those of heathen lands, for the coming of our King.
[*Since this was written, in 1925, the work has so developed that the European field is now composed of three large world divisions, excluding Russia.—Editor.]