Since there were several children and no church school, I began to discuss the need to start a school. As a result, the church voted to remodel and build on to a small building and we started our school that fall (1987). The teacher, who was having serious problems, resigned before the year was out and my wife had to finish the year. Unable to find a teacher for the next year from our conference or union, we finally hired a new graduate from Pacific Union College. But to our great disappointment, she rarely attended church and had no interest in spiritual training of our children. In view of the difficulty of securing an adequate teacher, the board voted to close the school after two very trying years.

In the meantime, a very fine young pastor in the Northport church in northern Washington, faced with several extreme members who opposed him openly and sought to control the direction of the church began to question his ability to serve as pastor and asked the conference for a leave of absence. Thinking my approach to issues of truth was needed, in 1990 the conference asked us to take the Northport district. To build on my background of working with Native people, they had decided to reconfigure the district to include the Inchelium church, located on a Native reservation, to which I had previously ministered as Native Ministries Coordinator.

And once again we found a church school was needed. It took awhile, but before retiring we were able to start a school in the remodeled basement of the new, Inchelium church building that was already begun and which we had completed with donated help in two or three years.

Light Bearers Return to the Church
Before taking that pastorate I had become acquainted with Ty Gibson who, with James Rafferty, co-leader of the Light Bearers ministry, were still teenagers when they came into the church at Spokane several years before. But they were mentored by a lady who led them right out of the church and together they started an offshoot ministry. But in later reading The Desire of Ages they came under conviction that attitudes toward the church were not right. Since she did not agree, they had separated from her and started their own, “Light Bearers Ministry.” I met Ty at a meeting we both attended in 1989 and, privileged to travel several hours with him across the US, I urged him to consider returning to the church. For though their attitudes were no longer bitter, they had no confidence in the church and did not seriously consider re-uniting, as they assumed they would be stripped of the ministry to which they felt called.

From the time we became acquainted, it seemed that every time I traveled by plane we met at the airport and were always able to talk. Thus when called to the North-port Inchelium district, I welcomed the opportunity to be located near them. Some time later, Ty and James with their staff began to wrestle over whether to seek re-admittance into the church and finally had the courage to make the contact I had urged. To their delight Jere Patzer, Upper Columbia Conference president, was kind but made neither offers nor demands. Neither of these approaches would have assured them God was leading. After many months of discussion, mutual trust developed so that the entire Light Bearers staff chose to return to the church.

Because their pastor felt it was necessary, they reluctantly accepted re-baptism, though they regretted the impression that they had not always been faithful to the message. Meantime, the conference officers welcomed them with open arms. This initiated a close relationship of mutual trust that has permitted them to continue to develop their rapidly growing publishing program, through which they have shipped Millions of pieces of literature for distribution by our lay people to many countries and most divisions of the world field. They also sponsor lay missionaries who work with the church in various countries.

Kettle Falls Company & Retirement
In this, our last pastorate, Pat and I had the privilege of developing and organizing what shortly became the Kettle Falls Church, thus forming a third congregation in the district, each located along the Columbia River, from the Canadian border southward.

I also completed my work on Adventism in Conflict, published by Review just in time for sale at the 1995 General Conference Session in Utrecht, where I was present and had the privilege of helping in its sale. By then I was wrapping up my five years of ministry there and preparing to retire. Pat had already proceeded me, arriving on the 4th of July at Lavoy in Alberta, Canada, where I joined her right after uniting two of our members in marriage.

My purpose in retiring was to have more time to write and to give seminars. Through the years I had carried on a healing ministry, seeking to bring unity between alienated individuals and the church. Not only was I privileged to encourage the restoration of the Light Bearers staff, but many a zealous person whose methods had threatened or dissolved their relation to the church were able, without any compromise of their convictions, to restore their relationship to the church by means of a two-fold principle I shared with them: the paradoxical nature of truth; and Priesthood of Believers. Neither principle without the other would be insufficient to accomplish this.

Paradoxical Truth & Priesthood of Believers
Although I had by then given 41 years to ministry, besides my half a year as assistant pastor in college, I would not have considered retiring, had I not wanted to be free to more widely promote these two principles, by means of which I had been able to help many sincere Adventist problem children (as are found everywhere) to grasp the paradoxical nature of truth. What a difference it makes to understand the two poles of truth and learn how to unite its balancing principles, between which the tension is only on the surface.

I faced a special challenge with earnest souls who confused paradoxical principles with compromise. But many ultimately saw that paradoxical principles offer the only way to prevent compromising truth. For the integrity of each depends on unity with the other. Thus to diminish either is to compromise both the minimized and the magnified pole.

My second and related burden was for priesthood of believers principles which broke the back of the Papacy in the sixteenth century, but violation of which splintered the Reformation and resulted in numerous state churches. Moreover, its violation has also both split our church and continues to prevent any serious movement toward unity.

Indeed, without the priesthood of believers principle, which is also bi-polar, it is virtually impossible to be sure we are balanced. For, within Adventism, it is rare that either principle is directly repudiated. We merely diminish one we think is over emphasized by emphasizing the one we think is wrongly diminished. It is a matter of focus, with one being resisted by a sharp focus upon the other. Since we nearly always agree to both principles but merely debate their relationships, each party tends to assume he/she is balanced, and thus right.

Bi-Polar Nature of Priesthood of Believers
It is impossible to practice priesthood of believers principles unless we honor its bi-polar nature -- that is, both a vertical principle of privilege and responsibility and a horizontal principle of accountability. The vertical principle involves the privilege of serving as one’s own priest in bringing one’s sins to God and responsibility of determining truth for oneself. The horizontal principle involves mutual submission, one to another, in the body of Christ. Both involve faith in following Christ and depending upon His Spirit.

It is the unity of these principles that helps us gain balance on all other principles of truth. For though each is ultimately and supremely answerable to God, He places us in His church under circumstances in which we must learn to humble ourselves one to the other -- the only way to learn true humility before God.

The Holy Spirit is given to lead us “into all truth” and the only thing that can prevent this is our own, unsuspected pride and independence. Thus submission one to another is an absolute essential. Moreover, it is the whole body, not just individuals, by which Christ trains us in a balance of truth. As each of us takes God's Word as sole authority but listens courteously and respectfully to others, the Holy Spirit is able to draw us into a unity otherwise impossible.

My book, Adventism in Conflict, features our Minneapolis conflict in its development of these two principles and demonstrates that their violation underlies our continued conflicts. I again review these principles in Questions on Doctrine revisited, as I examine the nature of our past half century conflict, which began over Questions on Doctrine. Violation of these principles has continued to divide us, who must come to see that the fulfillment of God’s purpose for unity in our movement is absolutely essential to the finishing of God's work in the latter rain.

Lavoy Missionary College
Thus, to be free to develop a ministry focusing on these principles, I retired in 1995. Meanwhile, my wife was to help Leanne and Dave Harding, our daughter and her husband, develop Lavoy Missionary College in Alberta. In this work-study program students paid minimum fees but worked three hours a day in gardening, yard care, janitorial, or kitchen or else in the bed frame or greenhouse industry. Pat had for some time done their book keeping while they operated a small educational program in British Columbia. In this enlarged program she would also function as registrar, receptionist, and “gofer.”

But my plans changed radically soon after I joined them. As I helped them get ready for the first year of operation and saw they were short a Bible teacher, it became evident that Dave, already seriously overloaded as administrator and developer of the all important bed frame and greenhouse industries, as well as maintenance man, would have to add that to his responsibilities.

Knowing he could not survive, I offered to teach until he could find a replacement, which was not forthcoming.

His load, however, was still far too heavy; and for health and financial reasons they and their family of four children had to drop out for some time by the end of the school year. Thus besides teaching, serving as counselor, and have a primary role in the bed frame industry, I added the role of administrator. Fortunately, by then we had on our growing staff a bed frame manager-maintenance man and a greenhouse manager.

During our operation, we had the privilege of training many young men and women in our two year program who have since become active lay workers. Some, such as our granddaughter Missy, serving as overseas missionaries. Though our purpose was to train lay people with a vision to work closely with the church, not a few young men continued their education at Weimar, Andrews, and Southwestern Union College, as well as Canadian Union College, and have entered the pastoral ministry. Nor did I regret this detour. Unable to return to college teaching because of the eight year long Native Ministries coordination, I was now able to share the two-fold principles with these young folk.

After eight years, however, new government regulations made it impossible for us to continue our work study program and we had to close our school and sell off all its assets to cover the not inconsequential obligations. By that time my wife and I were both in great need of a break from our heavy responsibilities. Indeed, I could not have continued much longer.

Ouachitah Hills College & Return to Pastoral Ministry
At that time I was invited by the Ouachitah Hills administration, in Arkansas, to teach a summer class for their college program, which was just then being added to their Academy. I then joined the college staff on a half time basis, thus being privileged to help establish another college with similar principles and objectives to that of LMC. But, health problems forced me to resign at the end of the school year.

Two or three years before closing LMC I was a guest speaker at Uchee Pines, Alabama, for a refresher offered to their previous health graduates. Since they had a very good rate for the blood testing for their guests, I decided to have my blood work done. To my surprise, I was informed that, besides my blood pressure problem and pace maker, I also had diabetes.

It was obviously not a life-style problem; for I was a lifetime vegetarian with low oil and sugar intake and had for many years followed a vegan diet. For some time I tried an even stricter diet hoping to deal with it without medication. But when my sugar increased, I had add this to my high blood pressure medication. But as my health kept declining I was barely able to finish the year. By the time we left Arkansas for Texas to spend some time with Leanne and Dave, where he was taking a medical technology course, I could not walk down their hall way without leaning against the wall to rest.

As I grew worse, Pat secured a drug book to identify the various medicine reactions and found I was experiencing a major reaction in every symptom charted for one medication. It was removed and I began to increase in strength. When at the end of the year we moved to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, where Pat was employed as a nurse, I had made considerable progress and soon after the conference invited me to pastor the local church so they could extend the present pastor's district in the opposite direction.

Norther British Columbia & Heart Surgery
After pastoring a year and a half we responded to an SOS plea by Dave and Leanne, who had returned to Canada and Dave was logging to recoup their finances before finishing his technology training. Four years before they had agreed, with our help to begin a second family with our little great granddaughter in response to our son's dying plea for us to adopt his granddaughter. And, with Leanne heavily involved in the logging, they now needed our help.

But, though I had greatly improved, a leaking heart valve suddenly became much worse while I was loading and unloading our household goods which we were putting in storage as we prepared to leave. By the time we arrived Pat was so distressed with my continued decline that within only a few days she talked me into returning to California for further testing where most of my medical tests were done and my pace maker inserted. As a result of tests I was soon on the table for surgery to replace a bad heart valve. Following surgery the doctor informed me that I still had another valve problem, but that my arteries were in excellent shape. As a testimony to the health message God gave us, the doctors and every medical person involved were astounded by my rapid recovery. As a result of my remarkable recovery, the doctor permitted me to start rehab treatments in half the normal time. And then I began at a much higher stage than was normal for those starting two or three weeks later.

Weimar and its Renewed Life
In June of last year (2007) we were about to return to Truth or Consequences when my wife saw an add in Ministry magazine for a religion teacher at Weimar. After some communication we agreed to accept the call. When we found out the economic and enrollment challenge, we chose to do so on a volunteer basis, with Pat serving as an RN in the excellent, Newstart program.

Because there was not the enrollment and financial turn around hoped for, the Weimar board voted in February, 2008, to close the college, retain the Newstart program, and establish a specialized college training program. A few weeks later, the Amazing Facts and Weimar boards negotiated a union between the two institutions, with a plan to restore an even broader college program, including pre-med. With the support of Amazing Facts and its advertising potential we look forward to an enlarged program. This will include broadened occupational training, including, agriculture.

Meantime, with the help of Dr. Doug Plata, I am at last getting my own web site established and will soon offer my books for sale, even as I supply a variety of papers free.