Testimonials of Pastor Minchen's Revivals

On this page you will find testimonials given by people who participated in some way in the revivals. Because there is more power in some ways in testimonies, you will find wonderful blessing in reading about these. Some testimonies are also found on the Youth Work page clustered together with the main article on revival.

May 11-19, 1956, Voice of Youth, Battle Creek, MI.

"It seemed to me that the Spirit of God prevailed strongly throughout the series of meetings. It was my privilege to attend every meeting and four chapel exercises besides. I must confess, until Elder Minchin revealed the secrets of prayer life to us, I never really knew how to pray. And I strongly suspect that many others were in the same predicament. If all others who attended the services received the same kind of blessing in their hearts as I did, I am sure that the meetings can be written up as a great success."—Miss Jan Wildman, Battle Creek Academy student.

"On the last Sabbath, a brother told me that no one would ever know what the week meant to him. There had been trouble in his family and his wife had been separated from him, but this week had awakened their hearts, and they were reunited."

"An elderly man on the street told me the other day that he had been attending the Battle Creek Tabernacle for seventy years. And this is the finest, most helpful series of meetings that I have ever attended. I got more good from it personally, and I believe the people were greatly blessed.'"

"So far-reaching were the ways of God's Spirit that even the Old World was touched by its mysterious ways. Shortly before the revival crusade began, I received a letter from an American serviceman stationed overseas. This young man had been Sharing His Faith with a young lady who was soon to sail for America. His letter expressed a desire that some youth in Michigan contact her upon arrival and encourage her to take her stand for truth. The young lady arrived just in time to accept an invitation by a friendship team to attend the Battle Creek revival. Friday night, during an earnest appeal, she made her way to the altar in surrender to Christ."

"This revival caused a knitting together of hearts both young and old in a prayerful consideration for lost souls. It was a meeting with God—a divine appointment with the Master—a blessed time of spiritual fellowship with one another in Him."

Voice of Youth, Eugene Oregon

Several months before Pastor Minchin was scheduled to arrive from Washington, Pastors J. H. Hancock and W. D. Blehm, Missionary Volunteer secretaries for the North Pacific Union Conference and the Oregon Conference, met with the pastors and churches in the Springfield-Eugene area to help organize for the revival. Under the name "friendship teams," personal workers' bands were formed, and these teams of youth began a systematic visiting and studying program with some three hundred former believers in the area. The interest grew so rapidly that the Oregon Conference sent Pastor Don Gray, conference evangelist, to Eugene to help direct the work of the friendship teams. As they prayed and visited, the marvelous working of the Spirit of God was seen.

One young couple, who had left the church some years ago, was traveling home in their automobile from California to Eugene. As they passed through Klamath Falls, all at once a strong impression came over the husband. Turning to his wife seated by him, he remarked seriously, "Wife, the strangest feeling has come over me. I just feel that we ought to get back to the church again."
Three different times during that week the same impression came to them, and they discussed it together in their home. Shortly after this, several of the friendship teams visited them—in fact, nobody seems to know how it happened, but five different teams visited them in one single day!

"What is going on here?" the bewildered young man exclaimed. "I've never had so many visitors from the church before. What do you want—a donation or something?"
The teams all assured him they were only calling on him to be friendly, and that they were anxious to fellowship with him and his wife again in the church.
"You know," this young man testified, "you young people, in visiting us this way, have done something for us. This has made us feel all warm inside. You say there are going to be youth meetings at the church? We'll be there!"

And they kept their promise. Both attended the revival and are looking forward to rebaptism.

Later, this young man told one of the members of the friendship teams: "My wife and I have never been happy since we left the church. We attended Auburn Academy—we know the truth. We've tried to find happiness away from the church, but there has always been an aching void in our hearts. We are glad you found us and invited us back. I'm sure there are many other young people who would come back to the church if more of the young people in the church would only show a little more interest in them.—

Voice of Youth, Eugene, OR

"As ARLENE stepped to the mi- microphone to give her testimony, her face beamed with happiness. All in the audience could see that her heart was filled with great joy. She and her husband had lived in Eugene, Oregon, only a few months, but in those few short months something wonderful—something that Arlene would never forget as long as she lived had happened to her! This was her story—a story that she now relived as she happily gave her testimony to hundreds of other young people seated before her in the church:

"Only a few days after we had moved to Eugene, we were busy getting settled in our new home, when the young housewife in the house next to ours knocked at our back door and asked to borrow a pan in which to roast some meat.

"I told her that I did not have such a pan because we did not eat meat. (I was raised in an Adventist home; in fact, my father was a minister.) As politely as I knew how, I explained our belief to her.

"For a moment or two, my neighbor looked at me, as if to reflect on my answer to her request. Then she gasped, 'Oh, you must be Seventh-day Adventists!'

"I assured her that we were—that both my husband and I attended the Adventist church regularly.

"Excitedly my neighbor exclaimed, `I'm so glad to hear that! I've been praying that the Lord would send us good neighbors, and now I believe He has sent us just the right ones!'

"That was a real challenge to my husband and me. Right then and there we determined to try to win this woman to our message. I tried to be as good a neighbor as I knew how and to do little things for her. She became a real friend, and when I invited her to go to church with me the next Sabbath, she accepted and has been coming to church with me ever since.

"When I was a little girl, I used to give out handbills for my father's evangelistic meetings in the big tent, and I used to wonder if any of the people to whom I gave handbills accepted the message. I wondered if any of them would be in heaven because of my missionary work. How wonderful it would be, I thought, to win somebody for Jesus.

"Well, now I have had that thrill, for today I saw my neighbor baptized in our church. I know I haven't had too much to do with it, for she has been coming to the Voice of Youth meetings every night, but I have been praying that she would accept our truth—and now it's happened! This is one of the most wonderful days of my life! I'm so happy! My joy is full!"—

November 9, 1965, Camp AuSable Bible Camp (Min)

Elder Minchin spoke at the annual Bible Camp at Camp AuSable, to which came 78 young people from seven schools (Andrews University, Adelphian Academy, Andrews University Academy, Battle Creek Academy, Cedar Lake Academy, Grand Ledge Academy, and Kingsway College in Oshawa, Canada), suggesting the wide appeal for Pastor Minchin's ministry that could draw young people from such a distance. Many of those attending consecrated their lives to God. God greatly blessed, as attested to by the quote that follows.

"The most thrilling moment of the entire session came when Elder Minchin concluded his talk by asking how many young men present would be willing to serve in the gospel ministry if God should see fit to call them. Forty-four indicated their willingness by standing to their feet—over 90 per cent of the men attending."

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