I was blessed by God to be born into a Christian family. My parents were committed to Jesus Christ as Savior, Lord and coming King. Theirs was full-time faith, not just Sunday faith. It shaped our homelife. From birth, I breathed from the atmosphere radiating from their Christ-centered lives. Without realizing it, I was learning from their examples what living for Jesus is like.

My parents were faithful and active members of the Waterville, Maine Advent Christian Church. I remember my parents taking my two sisters and me with them in our single-seated pickup truck for the five-mile drive to church. We went to four events each week – Sunday morning worship, Sunday school, Sunday evening service and Thursday night prayer meeting. Our beloved pastor, the Rev. T. J. Coolbroth, then in his 80s, was a strong Bible preacher. He emphasized distinctive doctrines of the Advent Christian denomination such as conditional immortality and the imminence of Jesus Christ’s bodily return. The Sunday and Thursday evening meetings featured gospel singing, Bible preaching and spontaneous testimonies of personal Christian experience by congregants. Things I learned from our family’s participation in those events proved helpful to me in making later life decisions. Memories of those experiences with our Advent Christian Church are key elements of my heritage.

The untimely death of my father when I was eight brought changes in our homelife. However, our involvement in the Advent Christian Church continued unabated. The church’s Bible teachings relating to salvation, death and a resurrection to everlasting life helped me to understand mysteries confronting me. Knowing that my father had won his victory through living by faith in Jesus as his Savior and Lord, I realized that I should do the same. Over the next year, I made choices and took actions that set the course of my life. In addition to our church’s influence, I had the benefits of the ministries of Lakeside Advent Christian Campmeeting Association. At Lakeside, I publicly accepted Jesus as my Savior and was baptized. Shortly thereafter, I was welcomed into membership of the Waterville Advent Christian Church. Thus, I had made what has become a life-long choice to be an Advent Christian in faith, fellowship and service.

In my early teens, an executive of the American Advent Mission Society came to Lakeside Campmeeting encouraging us young people to seek God’s will for our lives. He challenged us to pledge to do the Lord’s will as he revealed it to us. I made that commitment. In due time, God answered my prayer. During the year following graduation from high school, God led me to enter our denomination’s Bible college, the New England School of Theology (NEST), and to prepare for a life of ministry. I perceived this as a call to Advent Christian ministry and entered NEST that fall.

Another student, Marian A. Horne, came to NEST sensing God’s call to Christian service. Her homelife had been like mine. She and her parents were as involved in the Bristol, Connecticut Advent Christian Church as my family was in our church. We came to love each other very much. We sought God’s will and believed he would have us marry and serve Jesus together in ministry as he led and enabled us. We were married in the Bristol Advent Christian Church, on Tuesday, August 30, 1949. Four days later, Saturday, September 3, I was ordained “to the work of the Gospel Ministry” by the Maine State Advent Christian Conference at Lakeside Advent Christian Campground. Over our 68 years of marriage and ministry, Marian and I were privileged to serve the Lord with ten Advent Christian Churches in eight states. We also worked with the Advent Christian denomination in other ways. I am still an active Advent Christian living at the Advent Christian Village and am a member of the Village Church.

I like being an Advent Christian. My Advent Christian roots run deep. My theological views are compatible with the Declaration of Principles – not a creed, a statement of things commonly believed by Advent Christians. It feels good to partner with others of like faith in helping people prepare for Jesus Christ’s return. I have found that a motto from my home church is descriptive of Advent Christians – “CHRIST our leader, the BIBLE our guide.”