Back To The Future: Remembering How God Has Led

Introduction – Remembering the Fire

My grandfather tilled the farm soil of Eastern Idaho in much the same manner as Noah and Abraham—by faith, by sweat, and by seasons. His world was defined by rhythm: sunrise, plow, prayer, harvest. He believed that what you sow, you reap, and that everything good begins in dependence on God.

But faith didn’t always come easily to him.

My Uncle Emil, when he was just a teenager, came down with scarlet fever. It racked his body with pain and discolored his skin. The suffering was unbearable.

One day, an itinerant Adventist preacher stopped by the farmhouse and asked Grandpa if he could pray for the boy. Grandpa wasn’t exactly known for his piety in town—but that day, he said yes.

The preacher climbed the narrow staircase to Emil’s room, knelt beside the bed, and prayed a simple prayer. Then he left.

That night Emil was healed. The fever broke. The color returned.

And by morning, Grandpa and Grandma had given their lives to Jesus.

Faith took root that night—and generations later, I’m still standing in the shade of that miracle.

I’ve often thought, if it had been a Mormon missionary who stopped by that evening instead of an Adventist preacher, I might have grown up Mormon. But God, in His mercy, sent someone with the message of His soon return. And that message changed the course of our family forever.

When we talk about Back to the Future, we’re not borrowing from Hollywood—we’re talking about what happens when faith remembers its roots. Because every great movement of God begins with remembrance.

---

A Faith That Grew Up

Those early Advent believers had no buildings, no publishing houses, and no formal training.

What they did have was conviction—and an unshakable sense that God Himself was guiding them.

They studied by candlelight.

They preached from wagons and barns.

They printed tracts on hand presses and carried them by horseback across the countryside.

They weren’t perfect—but they were passionate.

And from those small, rough beginnings came a worldwide movement centered not on human achievement, but on divine leading.

What they lacked in sophistication, they made up for in surrender.

They believed truth was not a possession but a trust—something to be lived, not merely argued.

And slowly, their faith grew up.

---

From Then to Now

Fast forward to today.

We have technology they couldn’t have imagined: livestreams, satellites, hospitals, universities, humanitarian agencies.

We’ve gone from saddle bags to satellites—but the same question remains:

Do we still remember why we began?

Because the danger of success is forgetfulness.

When faith becomes comfortable, conviction can grow soft.

And when the memory fades, mission loses its urgency.

That’s why this story still matters.

It’s not nostalgia—it’s necessity.

Remembering is how we keep our compass pointed toward home.

---

The Arc of Every Institution

The pioneers started with raw conviction.

Then came structure—schools, hospitals, presses, committees—all good and necessary things.

But over time, movements tend to solidify. The flame becomes a framework, and the framework becomes furniture.

That’s the arc of every institution.

It begins with evangelism—born in the wild air of faith and mission.

It settles into institutionalism—organized, efficient, and respectable.

And if we’re not careful, it ends in fossilism—preserving the past instead of pursuing the promise.

We need to reject fossilism.

And the only way to do that is to go back to the future—

back to the passion that started it all,

back to the faith that believed God could do the impossible,

back to the simplicity of Scripture and the power of the Spirit.

Going back to the future means remembering how God has led—not so we can relive the past, but so we can reclaim its purpose.

---

The Evangelistic Model

Some parts of the church never really passed through all the stages of growth.

We matured organizationally, but not always methodologically.

We still depend on models of evangelism that worked beautifully in the 1950s—when families gathered around a single radio, when a marquee preacher could draw a crowd just by putting up a tent and turning on a microphone.

But society has changed.

People no longer come because there’s a platform; they come because there’s a relationship.

They don’t respond to celebrity; they respond to authenticity.

We can’t simply recreate the old crusades of the past.

We must learn to live the gospel in the present—to meet people in their stories, their questions, their struggles.

The world doesn’t need louder preachers; it needs deeper witnesses.

Evangelism isn’t a program—it’s a person.

It’s Christ in you, the hope of glory.

---

Uneven Growth and New Leadership

Until quite recently, most of our church administrators came up through evangelism.

That was the proving field—they knew how to preach, how to call, how to count decisions.

And thank God for that heritage; it gave our church its heartbeat for mission.