join the club

SUPPORT THE GENERAL FUND OF THE NATIONAL HOME MISSIONS DEPARTMENT

by David Crowe

MEMBERSHIP, WHICH WAS ONCE ONLY AVAILABLE to churches, is now available to individuals. For many years, Home Missions has sponsored and promoted the Benjamin Randall Club. This has been exclusive to FWB churches that gave $50 or $100 a month to the general fund of Home Missions. This membership provides some special benefits and free materials from Home Missions, and it gave churches a way to support the whole program of Home Missions. The general fund allows Home Missions to operate without using funds designated to specific missionaries. God has truly blessed this program over the years, and thousands of dollars have been given through the Benjamin Randall Club and the Benjamin Randall Offering each November.

Now, every individual Free Will Baptist can become a member of the Benjamin Randall Club. Each person who joins the club will receive several benefits and some free gifts. Membership in the club requires a Faith Promise commitment of $10 per month for a year. This $10 per month will help accomplish several things.

1. It will help keep the entire program of Home Missions financially sound.

2. It will help us to never take a percentage of designated missionary giving to operate the office.

3. It will allow you to partner with us as we plant Free Will Baptist churches across North America.

4. It will allow you to have a part in every service that each of our four staff men are in each year. In 2004, our staff preached over 600 times in 136 Free Will Baptist churches. And 2005 will probably surpass 2004.

5. It will give you the opportunity to be a part of hundreds of first time salvation decisions, hundreds of rededications, and countless young men and women answering God’s call to full-time Christian service.

If these were the only benefits of joining the Benjamin Randall Club, it would be well worth $10 a month! But, we want to give you a gift for joining. I have received many gifts for different donations through the years and most of them went in the trashcan or in a drawer somewhere, never to be seen again. We want to give you a gift that will be cherished for a lifetime and passed from generation to generation.

For the last ten years I have been collecting antiquarian Free Will Baptist books. I have had the privilege of accumulating close to 500 of these with most of them printed in the 1800’s. Many of these books are extremely rare and very difficult to find. Many of them sell for $100 to $2000. These prices put the books out of range for most of us, and they are getting more expensive each day. At Home Missions we wanted to find a way to provide these wonderful resources to every Free Will Baptist.

We have begun to reprint some of these rare, Free Will Baptist books. The originals are taken apart, and each page is professionally scanned and printed. We put nothing in and take nothing out. They are reprinted exactly as they were published. They are then bound in a beautiful and durable, brown imitation leather, hardback binding, and gold stamped. We print one book each year, and they are sized to be a matching set. The following four volumes have been reprinted to date:

1. The Centennial Record is an 1881 publication printed in Dover, NH at the Freewill Baptist Printing Establishment. In 1880, Freewill Baptists gathered for a Centennial Celebration at New Durham, NH. Over 4,000 Freewill Baptists attended this great meeting. This book was printed the next year detailing everything that took place at this meeting. This was one of the first original books I acquired, and it stirred my interest in FWB history and heritage more than any book I had ever read.

2. Life of Colby was printed in 1854 in Dover, NH, at the Freewill Baptist Printing Establishment. John Colby was one of the greatest American evangelists, and he was a Free Will Baptist. One writer said that John Colby was D.L. Moody and Ira Sankey all wrapped up in one! This book will change your life as you read about this young man’s dedication to Christ. He died one month before his 30th birthday, but he made an impact on New England that will never be forgotten.

3. Life and Labors of Rev. Ransom Dunn was a 1901 publication printed in Boston, MA, at the Morning Star Publishing House. Ransom Dunn was a church planter, professor, theologian, pastor and preacher through the mid and late 1800s. He helped to found three colleges for Free Will Baptists.

4. History of Free Will Baptists is an 1862 publication printed in Dover, NH at the Freewill Baptist Establishment. I.D. Stewart authored this book that covers the history of Free Will Baptists in the Northern movement from 1780 to 1830. To my knowledge, this was one of the first exclusive histories of Free Will Baptists. All modern Free Will Baptist history accounts reference back to this publication. It is probably one of the easiest reading histories I have found.

The bad news is that you can’t just purchase these books. The good news is that if you join the Benjamin Randall Club, we will give you the latest volume just for joining and committing to $10 per month for one year. Once you are a member of the Club, you may purchase the previous volumes for $10 per book (printing cost). When you have been in the program for a year, you will receive information about the next book in the series. You will receive the next volume in the series every year that you stay in the Club. It’s almost like Time-Life Books for Free Will Baptists, except so much better! The next volume is already in the printing process and it’s a great one.

You can join in several ways:

1. Call Home Missions on our toll-free number, (877) 767-7674 and ask to speak to Sarah Hadley. She will take the necessary information to get your books to you in an expedient manner.

2. Email Home Missions at shadley@nafwb.org and say, “I’d like to join the Benjamin Randall Club.” Someone will reply to your email to get the necessary information and get your books to you right away.

3. Go to www.homemissions.net, click on the Benjamin Randall Club icon on the home page, and follow the step-by-step instructions. Then wait for your books to arrive in the mail.

Join the hundreds of Free Will Baptists who are already members and learning more about our grand and glorious heritage as Free Will Baptists.

David Crowe, director of church growth for Home Missions, travels the nation preaching and speaking at retreats and camps. David loves FWB history and has done extensive research into the early development of Free Will Baptists. Contact David at david@nafwb.org.