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I woke from a vivid dream, a dream full of portent, heavy with decision. It lingered in wakefulness and hovers these nearly twenty years later….

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As I have said before, I grew up on the grounds of two different SDA hospitals. The first was Porter Memorial in Denver until age seven. The second, until sixteen, at Paradise Valley hospital in San Diego. In those days, hospitals were much simpler, much less hierarchical, much more service and mission oriented. Paradise Valley contained, in addition to the hospital, a grocery store and gas station, a book-and-bible store, a K-12 school, a Quonset hut used for meetings, its own water supply, its own phone system, and, the point of this piece, its own church.

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Our family moved onto the hospital grounds in mid-December, 1952. We met in a church built in the late nineteenth century. The main sanctuary consisted of a platform, a main floor and a two-step-high raised “balcony.” We always sat on the front edge of this raised area on its north end. Downstairs were children’s classrooms.

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The brethren decided we needed a new church. A board went up showing the amount of money earned. Members went from house to house soliciting pledges. Building began.

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When finished, it was a white concrete boat of a building. A bell tower without bells stood on its west side. It held nearly a thousand people. A real balcony graced the back. The platform was backed by a curving wood wall in golden oak. The baptistry was behind a vertically sliding panel which lowered to reveal the head and body of baptizer and baptize. I was second person to be baptized, at age nine, in this new church. Elizabeth “Sissy” Jackson, the daughter of the store managers, asked first to be first.

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Now there was no need for the “old” church, the one in which Ellen White had spoken and thus held sacred by many congregants. It was torn down. My friends and I helped. It was even memorialized in an eight-millimeter movie. The boards were dumped in a nearby “canyon” to be burned.

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As I was contemplating leaving the SDA denomination, I dreamed the dream. It combined elements of both churches.

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The scene was inside the “new” church. Congregants were scattered around the main floor. My wife and son sat near the back on the west side. I walked down the aisle to sit on the front row. An assistant pastor already sat there. Stacked around the thirty-foot walls was the debris of the old church. It reached in chaotic piles halfway to the ceiling. As it is in dreams, I suddenly held a torch and knew it was my duty to light the old board on fire. They were old and dry, would probably ignite with a mere spark, much less, a torch. Touching this spot and that all around the body of the sanctuary, a flame ignited with each touch of my torch, then immediately flared out.

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I returned to sit beside the assistant pastor and said, “We need to light this on fire.” He remained sitting, facing forward, unmoving as a statue as did all the people. I tried again, then gave up.

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No longer holding the torch, I walked up the aisle. My wife and son joined me. We walked out. No one tried to stop us.

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As dream became reality, I thought to myself “This is really significant, but I cannot base a major decision like this on a dream alone. “Please confirm this to me,” I prayed.

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Immediately two verses flashed into my mind: “Come out of her my people that you do not participate in her plagues,” and “Abraham went out, not knowing where he went.”

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So it was confirmed to me that I was free to leave my childhood church, abandon my three-generations deep ties to the SDA denomination. It has been a glorious journey and I am grateful to the dream giver.

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