Adventist Book Centers
KEENE, TEX. – The work of the Adventist Book Center is one of the earliest ministries of the Advent movement. It started with the first organized institution of the Seventh-day Adventist Church: a publishing house. As each new conference was organized, the first departments often to be appointed were tract and missionary societies. These departments later evolved into Book and Bible Houses and then Adventist Book Centers (ABC).
Today, ABCs are how the printed word gets into the hands of Seventh-day Adventist Church members and non-Adventists alike. In each store, every day, the staff are being used by the Holy Spirit to connect the right book or tract with the right person, often never knowing this side of Heaven how it has changed a life.
As ABC manager for the Texas Conference, and a true believer in the ministry of the printed word, I am always amazed how God can use an author, a publisher and a store to get an important message to one of His children.
Many of us can trace our roots in the Seventh-day Adventist Church to a book, a magazine or a piece of literature. I get to see it every day, but it’s easy for some to forget just how important the work of our ABCs are in advancing God’s Kingdom.
The mission of the Texas ABC is to provide Seventh-day Adventist Church members with truth-filled books for their own spiritual growth as well as literature for them to share with non-Adventists.
Health food is also a part of the ministry of many ABCs. The Texas ABC has one of the largest selections of health foods in the Southwestern Union Conference, including meat and milk substitutes, dried fruits, nuts, grains and other natural grocery items. We even sell fresh baked bread made daily. We enjoy helping church members find what they need to stay healthy and live for God.
In addition to Texas Conference members, the Texas ABC services customers throughout the Southwestern Union Conference, helping those customers reach out to others with the message of God’s love.
Throughout the year, you’ll find the Texas ABC displaying books and food at camp meetings, women’s ministries retreats, men’s ministries retreats, constituency meetings, ministries conventions, workers’ meetings and marriage retreats both in English and Spanish.
Texas ABC also supports events for the five conferences as well as the Southwestern Union. Our staff goes to meet people wherever they are to get God’s Word out. We want to help churches and members meet their ministry goals and share their faith.
As the only ABC left in the Southwestern Union, we want to service our sister conferences as well. To do that, we created a program to deliver products to churches known as “Direct to You” or D2U. Pre-ordered food and other materials are delivered on a predetermined schedule — based on the response of members — to churches, schools and members throughout the Southwestern Union for a nominal delivery charge of $5. We currently operate nine routes across the five states that make up the Southwestern Union territory.
These are challenging times for publishing houses and ABCs as more and more resources are available online only. Many ABCs, such as our previous sister ABCs, had to close their doors due to poor sales figures.
We are grateful for the support of our five conferences and union administrators, church staff, school employees and church members alike. We couldn’t exist without you.
We have three websites to inform you of events, provide updates on D2U delivery scheduling and offer the convenience of shopping from your home: ABCKeene.com, ABCKeene.org, and AdventistBookCenter.com. You can also order by calling our toll free number at (800) 333.1844.
Thank you for supporting your ABC.
By Mickey Johnson, Adventist Book Center Manager
