1864–1940

Summary

Luther Willis Warren was the pioneer of organized Adventist youth ministry — founder of the Sunshine Bands (1894), principal architect of the Junior and Senior Missionary Volunteer (MV) Societies organized as a separate General Conference department in 1907, and (with Goodloe Harper Bell) one of the chief promoters of the Adventist church-school movement that grew the church’s day schools from seven in 1890 to 594 by 1910. Born in Disco, Macomb County, Michigan, on September 15, 1864, of Adventist parents brought into the faith by J. N. Loughborough, he was already in 1879 (with Harry Fenner) the founder of a Christian Boys’ Club at Hazelton; preached his first sermon as a teenager; was elected Sabbath School superintendent at eighteen; attended Battle Creek College; married Jessie Belle Proctor in 1889; was ordained at the 1892 Cortland, New York, camp meeting; and through fifty years of ministry baptized thousands of young Adventists. Known as “the cyclone preacher,” he died at Loma Linda on May 24, 1940.

From Disco, Michigan, to the Hazelton Christian Boys’ Club (1864–1882)

Per Brian E. Strayer’s article in the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, Luther Willis Warren was born in Disco, Macomb County, Michigan, on September 15, 1864, to Doran and Ellen Warren — both brought into the Adventist faith through meetings held by J. N. Loughborough. Of Luther’s siblings, one brother and a twin sister died in infancy, and another brother, Walter, was killed by a cousin in their home; the tragedies left him with an unusual tenderness for children, and at sixteen he tried to adopt one of his own. He embraced the health reform message early and was a strict vegetarian for life.

In 1879, when Luther was fourteen and Harry Fenner seventeen, the two boys formed a Christian Boys’ Club with nine Adventist boys at Hazelton (now Juddville), Michigan. The club met weekly in the attic of the Meseraull home to pray, sing, run errands, mail tracts, and write encouraging letters; they signed a teetotal pledge against alcohol, tea, coffee, tobacco, pork, and swearing. When six girls joined, the meetings moved to home parlors. Luther preached his first sermon in L. D. Avery-Stuttle’s parlor, and at eighteen the Hazelton church elected him Sabbath school superintendent.

Battle Creek and the Move into Public Ministry (1882–1892)

Per ESDA, Luther entered Battle Creek College in 1882 at the encouragement of Eugene Farnsworth — his parents selling a cow and an aunt selling her gold watch to pay for his expenses. He stayed only one year, working at Battle Creek Sanitarium and the Haskell Home for Orphans, then returned home for family illness. He met Jessie Belle Proctor (1865–1960) in 1888 while serving as tent master for J. F. Ballenger’s meetings at Benton Harbor, Michigan, where she was Bible worker and organist; they were married in 1889 at the 1839 Courthouse in Berrien Springs. They had a son who died at three months and a daughter Rose. Between 1889 and 1891 they established Adventist churches at Frankfort and Bear Lake, Michigan, and in 1891 transferred to the New York Conference. He was ordained at the Cortland, New York, camp meeting in June 1892 by R. A. Underwood and Sands H. Lane.

Sunshine Bands and the New York Years (1894–1900)

Per ESDA, on June 11, 1894, at Alexandria, North Dakota, Warren formed the first Sunshine Band — small companies of young people organized to visit the sick and shut-ins and distribute Adventist literature. The motto was “Do all to the glory of God”; the aim was “Do something for somebody every day.” By the turn of the century nearly every Adventist church in America had a Sunshine Band.

The 1899 General Conference Daily Bulletin preserves a contemporary report on his Omaha tent ministry: “All lines are moving along nicely here in Omaha. The Lord is blessing Brother Warren in finishing up his work. The Signs has done a great work in helping the tent work here. Of the twenty-five or thirty who have come out, from ten to thirteen are those who have had the Signs delivered to them from six to nine months” (General Conference Daily Bulletin, March 2, 1899, p. 123, par. 18; refcode GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.18).

Ellen White’s letter of 1901 records her commendation of Warren and his fellow worker Brunson: “Brother Warren has his gift, and Brother Brunson has his gift. If all could have been connected with the work in New York from the beginning, the work would have been more complete” (Letters and Manuscripts, vol. 16, Letter 197, 1901, par. 5; refcode 16LtMs, Lt 197, 1901, par. 5).

Ellen White’s Counsel on the New York Notices (1903)

In 1902 Warren circulated handbills in New York City containing what Ellen White judged to be sensational notices about its destruction. Her 1903 letter recorded both her concern and her confidence in him: “Some time ago Elder Luther Warren got out some very startling notices regarding the destruction of New York. I wrote immediately to the ones in charge of the work there saying that it was not wise to publish such notices, that thus an excitement might be aroused, which would result in a fanatical movement, hurting the cause of God. It is enough to present the truth of the Word of God to the people. Startling notices are detrimental to the progress of His work” (Letters and Manuscripts, vol. 18, Letter 176, 1903, par. 10; refcode 18LtMs, Lt 176, 1903, par. 10).

The Missionary Volunteer Society (1901–1907)

Per ESDA, at the 1901 General Conference Warren helped establish the Young People’s Missionary Volunteer Society, at first under the Sabbath School Department directed by L. Flora Plummer, who in 1903 invited Warren to direct the M.V. work itself. In the next four years he established 186 Missionary Volunteer societies with over 3,500 members. At the Mount Vernon, Ohio, MV Convention of July 10–20, 1907, he succeeded in establishing the Missionary Volunteer Society as a separate department of the General Conference, with Milton Earl Kern (1875–1961) as director. He also created the Junior MV Societies, the Progressive Classwork program, the Morning Watch devotional, the MV reading classes, and the Standard of Attainment courses in Adventist doctrine and history.

Loma Linda and Ellen White’s Repeated Commendation (1907–1908)

In November 1907 Warren brought a company of young people from the Midwest to enroll at the new Loma Linda College of Evangelists. Ellen White’s letters preserve her repeated mention of his arrival and her commendation of his discourse.

The first record, in her letter of November 12, 1907: “In the afternoon, Elder Luther Warren gave an excellent discourse. Brother Warren is an able worker, and we hope he may labor for a time in this needy field. Now is a favorable time to work Redlands” (Letters and Manuscripts, vol. 22, Letter 176, 1907, par. 10; refcode 22LtMs, Lt 176, 1907, par. 10).

The same arrival recorded a few days later in another letter: “Last Friday Elder Luther Warren arrived from Nebraska, bringing with him forty-six students. Still others are coming to attend the school here” (Letters and Manuscripts, vol. 22, Letter 364, 1907, par. 8; refcode 22LtMs, Lt 364, 1907, par. 8).

A fuller record in another letter of the same week: “Friday morning Elder Luther Warren came from the East with a group of forty-six students for the Loma Linda College of Evangelists. They appear to be an earnest, consecrated company of young people” (Letters and Manuscripts, vol. 22, Letter 366, 1907, par. 2; refcode 22LtMs, Lt 366, 1907, par. 2).

A still fuller record in a fourth letter of the same season: “Connected with the sanitarium is a training school for medical missionary evangelists. The school opened this year with nearly fifty students, and last Friday Elder Luther Warren arrived from Nebraska, bringing with him forty-six more, whom he had gathered in the eastern states. Sabbath morning I spoke to this company of new students and was pleased to see such an earnest, consecrated number of young people” (Letters and Manuscripts, vol. 22, Letter 374, 1907, par. 7; refcode 22LtMs, Lt 374, 1907, par. 7).

Her 1908 letter, after Warren’s revival ministry at the Loma Linda young people’s meetings: “A special work was done for the youth by Elder Luther Warren, and at the close of the meeting a number were baptized” (Letters and Manuscripts, vol. 23, Letter 158, 1908, par. 6; refcode 23LtMs, Lt 158, 1908, par. 6).

Death (1940) and Legacy

Per ESDA, Warren and Belle moved permanently to Loma Linda in 1908; he taught religion classes at the College of Medical Evangelists, established a Bible Training School in Los Angeles, and through the 1920s — though increasingly stricken by arthritis and cardiac asthma — preached at camp meetings across the western United States, Canada, and Mexico. Sometimes he was forced to deliver his sermons sitting down. Luther Willis Warren died at home in Loma Linda on May 24, 1940, at age seventy-five, with Belle by his side; he is buried in Montecito Cemetery, Loma Linda. Belle survived him twenty years and died on July 19, 1960, at the age of ninety-five, and was buried beside him.

His phenomenal memory was such that, near the end of his life, he proved to his sister Lilla that he could recall the first and last names of one thousand young people who had become his friends at camp meetings and MV conventions.