Have You Seen Our Archives?
Dawn Rutan, Justin Nash and I recently went to the Gordon-Conwell Charlotte campus to see the Advent Christian archives given by Dr. David Dean. Campus librarian David Richards has cataloged and begun to digitize the collection to make it assessable for online research. Pictured below is the collection in the Charlotte campus library, but there are also two Advent Christian charts used during the early prophetic tent meetings of the Millerite movement stored in a safe environment. David has a rich love for the history of the Advent Christian archives and has a willingness to work with other collections located around the country. The Charlotte collection is owned by Berkshire Christian and connected to the much larger collection located at the seminary campus in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. Both of these collections are available for students to visit and do research.
The Jenks Collection is located at Aurora University located in the Central Region in Illinois.
The Jenks Memorial Collection collects, preserves, makes accessible and interprets materials concerning the Millerite Movement, based on the biblical interpretation of William Miller [1782-1849], as well as materials concerning early Adventism and the Advent Christian denomination. This is the largest collection of materials of our history and they are available to research at Aurora and the charts are viewable at the university website.
The Clint Taber Adventist Collection is located at Advent Christian General Conference offices in Charlotte, N.C. Rev. Taber donated these materials about seven years ago. Ron and Jan Thomas and Justin Nash have done a great job of organizing and protecting these materials which include a number of teaching charts. These are available for research downstairs in the office complex in Charlotte.
There are a number of private collections of Adventist materials owned by Advent Christian pastors throughout North America. Our heritage as Advent Christians continues to be researched and studied by students, pastors and scholars. We are thankful for those who sacrificially give their time to safeguard these materials.