Record Live Podcast

Adventist Origins
Intro: [00:00:00] Hi there everyone. I'm Jared. And I'm Sunita. We are your hosts of Record Live, a podcast where we talk about church faith and living well. We believe as followers of Jesus faith is more than just a set of beliefs. It's a way of life, something we'd put into practice. Let's go live.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Hello everyone. We are back with another episode of Record Live. A little different today because my co-host Anita is away. And so for the next couple of weeks, this week and next, we will be bringing you some presentations about the record and the history of the church from our hundred and 25th celebrations, , in 2023.
We haven't shared these recordings with you before, and so we [00:01:00] thought today we would. Today we have a presentation from Dr. Barry Oliver. Dr. Oliver is a former South Pacific Division President. I. And he, , has a study area of church history and structure. , he was a pastor. He , , worked in around the Pacific in different places.
And so we're very glad to have him with us today, at least a recording of him from our 1 25, , program. Dr. Oliver. , presents some information on how the church started in this part of the world, the South Pacific Division. , many of the institutions we are familiar with, including the Adventist records.
So record live this program that you're watching, either on YouTube or Facebook, or listening to on our podcast. Is part of the Adventist record sort of family. , but it started as a magazine, , 127 years ago. And so we are very grateful [00:02:00] to, , hear a little bit of our history and to share that with you today.
Barry Oliver: This afternoon, I would like to talk about the beginnings of our church in Australia and the South Pacific, and demonstrate that the church began here on a tremendous wave of mission, and in the midst of this mission was born.
What we now know as the Adventist record, I'd like to refer you. To a very important publication that has appeared online fairly recently and just about everything we say here this afternoon. You can read about it. You can read an article about it in the Adventist encyclopedia Online. It is continually being updated.
Facts and figures are continually being add added. If you don't know about [00:03:00] it, you should. Because everything Adventist is contained therein. The people, the events, the places, the doctrines, everything, Adventist, and I commend it to you. We are gonna talk about the record as a journal of the South Pacific Division.
Remember that and Pastor Town and thank you so much for that emphasis because that is a fairly recent change that has been taking place in our thinking as a church in this part of the world. We are not just Australia, we are not just New Zealand. We are the South Pacific and that magnificent item that we just enjoyed together.
Demonstrate what is happening around our church as the music and the people and the vibrancy of this church in the South Pacific is gaining momentum and our journal, our magazine, the record must reflect [00:04:00] that momentum that is taking place in our church. We are a diverse church. As I looked around this church this morning, I saw people from everywhere gathered here to worship together as one.
That's what our church is like in the Greater Sydney Conference. That's what our church is like in the Australian Union. That's what our church is like in the South Pacific Division, and it is important as we go forward that our publishing work reflect that reality. As we are a very diverse church. We are part of a worldwide community that has been called by God at the end of time for the purpose of living and proclaiming the everlasting gospel in its fullness to all the world.
Inviting those who are here to accept Jesus and become a part of the community which knows experiences and shares its hope in Jesus Christ and His return. [00:05:00] Why was the decision made? To come to the South Pacific and specifically Australia. Stephen Haskell, the president of the California Conference in the early 1880s, began sending literature along with , a number of his church members to Australia.
They got addresses of various people, especially in the city of Melbourne. And they were hoping that this would, engender some response. It didn't engender much response at all because Melbourne is a whole lot of miles away from, , Los Angeles and, , San Francisco. So in 1884, the California Conference.
Called for funds so they could think about sending some missionaries to this part of the world. There's a story about a teenager by the name of Henrietta Johnson who sold her jewelry so that she could make a donation toward the sending of missionaries to the South Pacific significantly. She [00:06:00] later married Robert Hare.
Anyone heard of Robert Hare? If you haven't heard of him, it's because he's a New Zealander. Actually Robert here became one of our earliest pastors and a very significant person in the history of our church in the South Pacific, , and in New Zealand in particular. Who were the first pioneers and what were their respective roles?
Well, there were 11 people who came on that first missionary journey, significantly on a ship named the SS Australia. They left, , San Francisco. First it was Steven Nelson Haskell. He had been the president of the California Conference. He was the leader and evangelist. He came again a few years later 'cause he only stayed a very short time.
He'd married Mary Howe, who was 21 years older than him. He married here when he was 17, and Mary passed away and then he married here, Hetty Herd, , in February [00:07:00] 19th, 1897. He, , hang on. He married her in 1890. Yes. 1897. That's right. I've got the dates right. And then he returned back to America in 1899.
Did you know that he actually had proposed to Ellen White, but Ellen White said, no, no, no, no. That's not to be. So she invited him to, . Have a look at this young lady, Hetty herd. Who was working overseas at the time. She brought her out to Australia. She met him, met him at the, , at the ship, and married him later that day.
How's that for a quick, uh, quick marriage? Anyway, that's extra, extra information. , John or Callis, his wife Julia and their daughter Lulu and Son Burr. How would you like a name Burr? He was an evangelist. He was here from 1885 to 1887, and then he came again between 1893 and 1896. Also in the group was Men Crock Crocker, Israel.
His [00:08:00] wife, Lizzie and their daughters, Jesse and May. He was also an evangelist and administrator. Administrator. They stayed for 12 years because they first came in 1885 and then he returned to, , to California. Henry Scott, a printer. Was another of the first group. He remained seven years and returned to work in Pacific Press in, , 1892.
Then there was a coal porter by the name of William Arnold. He stayed for only three years and then returned to England and the Carib Caribbean. Significantly. Also, in those early years, Arthur Daniels was here in the South Pacific, particularly in New Zealand and Australia. And also Ellen White herself, , lived in Australia between 1892 and 1900.
This is a picture of Stephen Haskell, about the time he would've been here in Australia. This was a [00:09:00] picture of John Corless about the time he was here. , this was, what did I say his name was? That's testing you out. Mendel Israel that's got it together with his wife and children.
Now, this is the printer, Henry Scott. It's very significant that they sent a printer in that first group, and it's also significant that they sent. A literature evangelist. I'll come back to that in a little while when I am looking at the mission strategy. The mission strategy of those early years had four emphases publishing, camp meetings, and public evangelism, education and health and healing.
Let me look at them one by one, but in reverse order. You can see here. Half of the list of the hospitals and sanitariums that were established in those first years of the work in the South Pacific. Now, if you think that's quite a list for a [00:10:00] very, very small group of people, that's not all. Here's the rest of the list.
They had a tremendous missionary zeal and health was a significant pillar. In that missionary zeal notice there's significant places that still exist, such as 1,903 Sydney Sanitarium. , then down in, , the bottom there, Sanitarium Health Food Company was organized in 1898. Health was part of the strategy of mission in those early days.
Education. In August, 1892, the Australasian Bible School, our first school, , was established in St. Kilda, Melbourne, and then 1897 the Avondale School for Christian Workers, which of course now is Avondale University. So you've got health, you've got education, then you have camp meetings and public evangelism.[00:11:00]
Very early we started conducting camp meetings. Our first one was in New Zealand in 1893. The first in Australia was in January, 1894 in Brighton. , new Brighton in Melbourne, people came from everywhere for these camp meetings. It was a very key part of the evangelistic strategy. Ellen White was in Australia during those years, and she of course, was a key speaker at many of those.
. Early camp meetings. There's a picture. You probably can't see the faces of the people there too well, but you can see the significant number of people at the first camp meeting held in New Brighton in Melbourne. This is another camp meeting held shortly after in Geelong, also in Victoria, public evangelism.
The first, , church was established in Melbourne. Just six months after they arrived in January, 1886, remembering they arrived in Melbourne [00:12:00] in, , June, , 1885, and the first baptisms had been held just the week before the first church was established. , William Weinman was the first. Baptismal candidate, , for the new church.
And if you go up to Ong today, you can drive around the new estate and the main road as you go in is called Wayman Drive. After. Guess who There are evangelistic meetings very early in Adelaide, Hobart. Sydney, Rockhampton and Perth in Australia, and very shortly thereafter, there were quite a number of programs being held, particularly by Mendel Israel over in, , New Zealand.
By 1,901, there were 2,383 church members in Australia that compared with only 1090 in California. In other words, this mission emphasis was so strong in this South Pacific region that we very quickly outstripped the [00:13:00] membership of the the mother church or the mother conference, if you like. But the one I particularly want to emphasize.
Is publishing because publishing, there is no doubt was what held everything else together. It was like the glue that held the whole of the new church enterprise together. By January, 1886, again, six months after we first arrived, we were publishing the first journal Bible Echo and signs of the times, which we now call.
Signs of the times. Now, Jared, that must be just about the oldest journal in Australia religious Journal if it started in 1886. And the bulletin finished three years ago, having only about 128. This signs of Times's gotta be the oldest in Australia. We, we can confirm that later,.
Uh, there were 8,000 issues of that first journal, signs of the Times and was published very shortly. [00:14:00] After its inauguration in our own Echo publishing company in North Fitzroy that was established in 1889, we're just four years after things started off, and that's a picture of the Echo Publishing house in North Fitzroy.
, cameras weren't in what they are now, and that's the group of workers at the Echo Publishing House about 1901. So that is the time when the record was now being published at this institution. We had a number of other journals and tracks. You may not realize that the record wasn't the only, , publication in terms of magazine , and, , tracks.
There was a short-lived publication called The Southern Sentinel, which dealt with religious liberty. Again, there was a fairly short-lived one called The Herald of Health. Then there was the [00:15:00] Gleaner. The Gleaner lasted in its published form for about , a year and a half. It was the magazine designed to tell missionary stories.
And then finally the Australian record began in January, 1898, and it's subsumed the. Work of the Gleaner into its own, , publication. There were a number of others also that came and went over the years, but amazingly it was the record, which continued. The record has continued and. It was very much part of the missionary strategy and, continues to be a very big part of the missionary strategy of the, , of the church.
And do you notice that those four pillars, health, education, . Well, camp meetings, yes. And public evangelism and, , publishing are very, very important in the strategy of our church. Even to this day, [00:16:00] track societies were established. I. In almost every conference, every union, every , area of our work they were responsible for, for the production and distribution of journals, magazines, and literature.
They oversaw the work of the coal porters by 1900. There were 45 coal porters in Australia working throughout the various conferences. Here you see a picture of the first building of the Science Publishing company. Where are you, Andrew? There you are. Over there. Uh, this was the publishing company that was established and took the place of the Echo Publishing Company, , 1,906.
Was it Andrew? Yeah. 1,906. The signs began its work and continues to this day to print literature for the South Pacific Division and to do a fantastic job. Now, of course, it's part of what is known as [00:17:00] Adventist Media, and this is a picture of the building across the road, which now sees all of our publishing work.
The record, , signs of the times, , our digital media being produced right here. At our Adventist media, , headquarters mission has been the reason that all of this has happened. Mission was the reason for the zeal of the California Conference. Those 11 people who first came, the others who went out to the islands of the Pacific.
To New Zealand, a mission continues to be the reason why we do what we do. The existence of the record for 125 years demonstrates the importance of good communication in the context of the mission of the church, the strategic focus put in place in the early years. Continues to serve the church well, and wherever the record directs attention to the primary mission of the church and its members, it will have a place in the life of the church in the [00:18:00] South Pacific.
God bless the mission of the record and all of you who play significant part in its continued publication.
Jarrod Stackelroth: That was Dr. Barry Oliver sharing some of the history of the church. And something that's fascinating to me is the fact that the early missionaries, those early missionaries, sent out a printer. , they understood the work of media and, and magazines in. , sharing their faith in this part of the world, , and so we're very grateful to them.
I hope this has been interesting to you. , next week we will hear from Dr. Bruce Manners and a little bit about the editors of the record in the past and what sort of tone and what sort of agenda that they set in their tenure over the publication. But until then, God bless.[00:19:00]