Literature Evangelist / Colporteur

A Seventh-day Adventist who regularly sells denominational books and magazines from house to house to the public. He or she is considered a gospel worker whose efforts are coordinated with those of the other evangelistic workers of the church. The work is a sacred one and partakes of that of a minister, a teacher, and a salesperson. Going directly into the homes of all classes of people, literature evangelists (LEs) tell their customers of the way of salvation and pray with them, hoping that God will impress them as the books they leave in the homes are read and studied. Many are thus led into fuller understanding, spiritual conviction, and then into church fellowship through the influence of the press. Thousands of people who become interested in the SDA teachings first, in this way, enroll in Bible correspondence schools or attend evangelistic meetings and become members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Literature evangelists receive a commission on their sales and also certain financial benefits if they meet stipulated requirements set forth in denominational policies. History of the Work of the Literature Evangelist . Probably the first book evangelists worked in Europe during the 1860s. These men, Jean David Geymet, Sigismond Hanhardt, James Erzberger, and Michael B. Czechowski, although not under the sponsorship of the General Conference in Battle Creek, nevertheless proclaimed the Advent message, including the seventh-day Sabbath. Their ministry covered portions of Italy, Switzerland, and France. In 1879 Ellen White began urging the two publishing houses, the Review and Herald and the Pacific Press publishing associations, to sell doctrinal books to the public through house-to-house canvassers. In 1880 Dr. J. H. Kellogg wrote a large book on health, Home Handbook (1,600 pages), which he sold by this method in advance of publication. One of the men who sold this book was a Canadian, George A. King, who had already canvassed several years, selling tracts, small books, and subscriptions to periodicals such as Good Health . King’s success with Kellogg’s subscription book may have been what fired him with the desire for a large volume setting forth SDA beliefs, published in an attractive subscription edition for the general public. King once had a desire to become a preacher. James White, who was skeptical of King’s abilities, requested Richard Godsmark to take King out to the Godsmark farm near Battle Creek, Michigan, and let him practice preaching, and then report on him. As the story is told, King would often be heard in his room praying early in the morning. At other times he would place his charts in the living room and preach to empty seats. One day after a Sabbath school conducted in the Godsmark home, he preached his trial sermon and made a miserable failure. Godsmark informed him that he would never make a minister, but encouraged him to try selling SDA publications to the people in their homes, and offered to supply him with some tracts and pamphlets. King went out with these and sold them, thus proving that he could sell SDA publications. This incident must have occurred some time before 1878, because in 1878 King had been canvassing for periodical subscriptions and for books in Ontario ( Review and Herald 53:54, Feb. 13; 53:78, Aug. 28, 1879, etc.). In 1881 he came to Battle Creek again, this time not asking to preach, but asking to put into systematic operation Mrs. White’s plan of evangelistic bookselling. Having found that he could sell Uriah Smith’s two small books on Daniel and the Revelation, he urged the Review and Herald to print the two books as one in a subscription edition in a larger size. The publishing house finally agreed to print 5,000 copies of the combined book, Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation, in improved format, if King would assume responsibility for 1,000 copies. First, they made up sample copies by binding together already existing sections of the two books. After King and others sold these successfully, the two books were reprinted together with continuous paging in a larger size, and with illustrations. On Apr. 3, 1882, King sold the first copy of this new Daniel and the Revelation to D. W. Reavis for $2.50. The story of the beginning of the work of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in many parts of the world is the story of literature evangelists preparing the way for the preacher. In all the South American countries except Peru, the SDA work began either through SDA publications being sent into the countries or through the work of LEs. The first SDA LE or colporteur on South American soil was George King, who in 1887 canvassed for several months in British Guiana and sold 400 books. In 1891 the General Conference sent three colporteurs, Elwin W. Snyder, C. A. Nowlen, and A. B. Stauffer, to open up the work in South America. Their original plan was to begin work in Montevideo, Uruguay, but after a “thorough looking over” they decided to go to Buenos Aires, Argentina ( Home Missionary 4:46, February 1892). Stauffer went to the northern part of Argentina and worked among the Germans, and his two companions began their work in Buenos Aires. After four months, they had sold about 200 books and made a number of converts, among them Lionel Brooking, an immigrant from England. In July 1892 Brooking sold books in the Gran Chaco of Paraguay ( General Conference Bulletin, Mar. 4, 1895, pp . 461, 462). At that time it was extremely difficult to sell books there. Early in 1893 Stauffer and Snyder returned to Uruguay to sell SDA publications. Stauffer sold The Great Controversy and other books and gave Bible studies to several families in the German-Swiss colonies, while Snyder worked in Montevideo. In 1896 F. H. Westphal baptized 18 converts and organized the first SDA church in Uruguay ( Review and Herald 74:89, Feb. 9; 74:507, Aug. 10, 1897). The first SDA to enter Ecuador was the literature evangelist Thomas Davis, who with F. W. Bishop had previously (1894) helped C. A. Nowlen initiate the work in Chile. In spite of many difficulties, great opposition, and the death of his wife, Davis canvassed for four years (1904–1908), working among the towns and villages along the railway that runs from Guayaquil to Iquitos. One year after his arrival, in 1905, the first Seventh-day Adventist preacher arrived in Ecuador. R. A. Caldwell pioneered the book work in the Philippines, as well as in Malaysia and China. He remained in the Philippines for several years, being joined by other colporteurs, first of whom was Floyd Ashbaugh. The Chinese province of Shaanxi was entered in 1915. This province, in the interior bordering the Yellow River, is the oldest site of Chinese civilization and culture, and here, at Sianfu, was the first capital of China. A colporteur found there a town called Gospel Village, which had been built 30 years before by a company of Christians emigrating from Shantung. Here his literature was gladly received, and the SDA faith made steady progress. At the beginning of the SDA work in Australia and New Zealand, the leader of forces was S. N. Haskell, a strong promoter of literature distribution. In his company was William Arnold, one of the earliest and most successful SDA colporteurs, who, in the face of initial difficulties, led in putting this work on a paying basis there. The Publishing Department of the General Conference, organized in 1902, laid plans to build publishing houses in strategic areas over the world, so as to serve the different language areas; secure proper publishing leadership; and recruit literature evangelists. Today more than 23,000 literature evangelists go from door to door selling the products of 59 publishing houses. Their retail sales annually in the world field exceed $100 million. But the work of the literature evangelist is evangelistic. For example, these men and women annually distribute millions of pieces of free literature and pray in nearly 1 million homes. Baptisms each quinquennium as a result of contacts by literature evangelists total approximately 150,000. Training of Literature Evangelists . Throughout the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church the training of literature evangelists has received much attention, and many SDA educational institutions, especially outside North America, trace their beginnings to training schools for colporteurs and Bible instructors. The current program for training literature evangelists in North America includes a short indoctrination session usually held at one of the publishing houses. Through lectures, training filmstrips, and the reading of training materials, the candidate is introduced to the elements of book production, the purposes and methods of SDA book distribution, and the principles of effective salesmanship of health and religious literature. This is usually followed by a period of individual on-the-job training by the conference publishing department secretary or one of his assistants. In many countries outside North America, literature ministry seminaries conduct three- to five-week training courses for literature evangelists, creating more professional workers. The literature evangelist in the field is kept in touch with the developments in his line of work through periodical bulletins issued by local and union conference publishing departments and the quarterly, Literature Evangelist, issued by the Publishing Department of the General Conference. The LE also attends three or four district LE sales meetings a year and an annual LE institute, where additional training is given. An increasingly important role in the training of literature evangelists is being played by the LE clubs on the campuses of SDA colleges and academies. Special student LE training classes are planned by conference publishing leaders before the students go out for their vacation-time work. Some of these students later become full-time literature evangelists or leaders in the publishing work.