SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH

(From the Searcy Centenial 1837-1937)

So far as is known the first Seventh Day Adventist to live in White Co. was C.W.Brimer, who settled near Floyd in 1894. He devoted much time to the distribution of Bibles & religious books, as a result of which there was much interest to hear the Adventist doctrine & Eld. J. A. Holbrook pitched a tent and held a series of meetings near Floyd in 1896, when 16 persons were baptised & a company of believers formed. Later on meetings were held at different points in the county & still later Elders R.M.Kilgore & J.A.Holbrook held a meeting in Searcy which resulted in the building of a small church on West Pleasure Street about the year 1904.

Because of increased membership & the inconvenient location of the church, it became necessary to build again, in 1922, the present building was erected.

Seventh Day Adventists are deeply interested in missionary work at home & abroad. As their name implies, they believe that the second advent, or coming of Christ, is at hand & with gifts of money & their sons & daughters to missionary endeavor, they have carried this message to the ends of the earth, preaching it in 325 countries & islands, in 539 languages, oral & written.

This Searcy church is no exception to this rule, for it has sent as missionaries James B. Ross, who was born here, but educated elsewhere, who with his family is located in Bogota, Columbia, S.A., and Mr. & Mrs. Byrd Denard, the latter known to many friends in Searcy as Miss Georgia England. The Bullards have, for a number of years, labored in the West India Islands, being at present located in Porto Rico. The present pastor of the Searcy church, Eld. Geo. M. Brown, was for a number of years a missionary to Mexico & Cuba.