Roy Brandstater: Twenty Years as an Evangelist

Introduction

The Advent awakening of the eighteen forties was carried on the words of evangelists. Later, in the mid-sixties, Seventh-day Adventism emerged, led by such as Joseph Bates, James White, John Loughborough, John Andrews and Stephen Haskell, most of whom spent many years as evangelists before and after the formal organization of the denomination. The whole experience of the denomination was suffused by the spirit and practice of evangelism from an early date, and led almost predictably to evangelism outside the United States as the enthusiasm of Protestant missions combined with growing resources within Adventism. The first Adventist missionary to be sent from the United States, John N. Andrews, went to Europe in 1874 where he found that evangelists had already in many places laid a foundation for his work. Ten years later in May, 1885, about a dozen Adventists left the United States to propogate their faith in Australia. They erected a tent in suburban Melbourne in October of that year, holding meetings there almost every night for three months. Other series of meetings followed. Three years later the evangelists went to Tasmania where, in Collinsvale, the family of Royal Brandstater (1898 – ) joined the church.

So much Seventh-day Adventist history is tied up with the history of its evangelists, who, for fifty years or more were the advance guard of their denomination. In rented halls, or more often, in large tents they preached to congregations large and small. The only common feature of these congregations was that few if any were Seventh-day Adventists on the opening night as the evangelist preached to draw them back again and on, through Bible study and personal conviction, into the church company that would be organized at the end of the meetings.

The style of evangelism among Adventists in Australia was remarkably constant through these years, probably reflecting a steady society and a constant intellectual and doctrinal orientation in the denomination. Prophetic preaching dominated, stressing the veracity of scripture–“the more sure word”–the confluence of current events in the imminent second advent of Christ, and the need of personal preparation, which included membership in the Adventist church. Within each administrative unit of the denomination a number of evangelists worked at any one time to swell the ranks of the church. Some were more successful and durable than others.

Royal Brandstater was one such evangelist in Australia, first in West Australia and then in New South Wales. He began his ministry in 1921, a fresh graduate of the Ministers Course of Australasian Missionary College. In his reminiscences of the succeeding twenty or more years we see him learning his craft as the assistant of more experienced men; later taking charge of his own meetings; using his musical skills to enrich his ministry; raising a family. And always the evangelist was on the move: from town to town to hold series of meetings, and within an area while preaching there; visiting, studying scripture with those interested, advertising. Evangelism continues to be a major concern of the Adventist church in Australia but its mode has shifted from the tents and travels of those earlier years so interestingly unfolded here through the medium of oral history.

Maurice Hodgen, 1976