Organization of a New Church by E. A. Sutherland

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 3, 1910

Organization of a New Church

By E. A. Sutherland

On the first day of the new year it was my privilege to meet with a company of workers at the Hillcrest school, near Nashville, for the purpose of organizing a church of twenty members.

Two years ago last October Brother O. R. Staines, Prof. P. T. Magan, and myself took an option on a tract of land on White’s Creek Pike, north of Nashville, and on that tract of land this training-school for colored workers was located. It is very evident that the Lord has blessed the efforts of the men and women who are responsible for this work.

Prof. Floyd Bralliar, for some time connected with the Stuart (Iowa) Academy, joined Brother Staines in the work at Hillcrest about eighteen months ago. The school to-day has a company of fifteen students, all bright, active colored people, some of whom expect to be ready soon to start mission schools on farms of their own, where they will be largely self-supporting. The plan of the Hillcrest school is much the same as that of the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute.

Brother Bralliar was chosen elder of the new church, and Brother Staines church treasurer. The first business of the new church was to order its quota of the book “Ministry of Healing,” to be sold for the benefit of the Nashville Sanitarium. Each church-member in the Southern Union Conference is expected to sell two of these books, and the entire proceeds goes to the Nashville Sanitarium. We were glad to find that this company of workers, who have had no salary since coming to this field, could feel it a privilege to leave their own work long enough to assist the sanitarium to the amount of sixty dollars.

There are bright prospects ahead of the Hillcrest school and church. The students are enthusiastic over self-supporting mission schools for the colored people. When the work for which this school stands is fully established, our people will be in a position to carry the third angel’s message to millions.

The Hillcrest church is the fourth one organized in the South as a result of the establishment of the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute. Two other companies in connection with the highland schools are awaiting organization. In these six churches are to be found over one hundred fifty active missionary workers for the Southern field.

When the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute was founded, it was the hope of those who started the work that they might be instrumental in bringing people into the truth. Some have questioned whether this would be the result of the self-supporting rural school. Not long ago a brother in the North asked that question, and was answered in the following language by our conference president:—

“I have visited these schools and watched with interest the work they are doing. The Madison (Tenn.) church, the church at Fountain Head, and the one at Goodlettsville have been built up by workers from the Nashville Agricultural

and Normal Institute, without even the one dollar of expense to our conference.

“We received from the Madison church this last conference year nearly five hundred dollars in tithe. These churches are in the best of standing in our conference, and I wish for more help like them. It is a pleasure to see boys and girls who have had little opportunity for an education given the chance these schools offer. They go to school, and are taught without price.

“It does not seem to me that any one but those who have the last message of God to the world could make such a sacrifice as these men and women are making. I for one am glad that they are with us, and will take all such that I can get. This is the way I view the work of these self-supporting workers.”

E. A. SUTHERLAND.