Notes, by Wilma Erwin,  from Bro. Clifford Muse's book:

The Life and Work of

Archimades Piper Hurst

Archimades after the famous mathematician, called Kimbo or Kim from childhood

Born June 19,1852, son of Alfred and Susannah Swim Hurst, Triplet Creek, 7 mi N of Morehead

A Christian Minister for Sixty Years

Edited & Arranged

By

Alfred Wesley Hurst

His son

Dates in this book

Married Caroline ’Carrie’ Ham and started preaching 1876

The first 25 years in eastern Kentucky

Franklin’s Mills, Kentucky 1890 

Olive Hill, Kentucky 1900 baptizing

Emporia, Kansas 1909

Cedarville, New Mexico 1911 baptizing

Muses Mills, Kentucky 1918 w 2nd wife, Mary Fultz, and 2 children

Muses Mills, Kentucky 1918, 1st of 8 churches organized during his ministry

Albany, Missouri 1920 delegate to Western Convention of Christian Church, Palmer College

Albany, Missouri 1923

Elkhart, Indiana 1926

Elon College, N. C. 1932 80th birthday at church parsonage

To his Lord 1936

Recollections of Kim recorded in “Big Chief” pencil tablets at various times during his advanced years. It included life experiences, adventures, confessions, fortunes and misfortunes of a circuit rider, preacher, pastor, revivalist, pilgrim and servant of God and man.

He had a genius for friendship and warm relationships were formed with scores. His education, as was Kentucky of the day, was second to farm duties and sparser than he wanted them to be. He farmed and preached on weekends after being called. He had some knowledge of music and taught singing schools to supplement his income. He could preach and sing for weeks without becoming hoarse. Pastoral income was so low he was compelled time after time to teach for funds.

He advocated learning and scholarship and took interest in colleges founded by the Christian Church. To him religion was a matter of mind and heart. His parents were Methodist, but he liked the Christian principles and believed the faith would finally unite all denominations under such a sound doctrine. He thought the unity would break through and spread like wildfire. Actually the doctrine became smaller and fewer churches represented the faith at the end of his life than when he started. He believed Christian Character would be the true test of church membership.

He organized or reorganized 14 churches in no particular denomination. Many times the churches did not remain due to lack of leadership to conserve and develop. Many perished as would a foundling. Those who survived were isolated and did not work in team-work or coordinate efforts. The only had a vague consciousness of being a part of a great ongoing movement. They did not unite and pull together toward common objectives. They had six common principles that Kim tried to emphasize, but still many did not comprehend the force possible with unity.

No uniform standards for ordination were held. Some had only a desire to preach without the concept of the fellowship as a whole. Many of these pastors did little pastoral or organizational work and spent little time in study. Of nine Kansas churches Kim served in, only two remained at the time his son wrote the book: Towanda and Matfield Green.

Some rural churches were served only once a month by a ride-in minister. Services were Saturday night and Sunday twice, unless the minister had to return home to work his own farm for survival. Many times there were no buildings for church and schools and homes were utilized. Kim traveled by foot, horseback, horse and buggy and steamboat, yet missed only 2 appointments in his first 5 years. The churches ‘hired’ a preacher for one year at a time. This contributed to a static situation where long range plans were not made. Kim held many 2 & 3 week Revivals but little pastoral instruction or adequate follow up assured growth in the new Christian life.

Kim was an expository (the setting forth meaning of a particular scripture, using explanations, background information and helps to understanding) type minister with illustrations from farm and home to warm the human part of people. He preached with zeal and conviction ending with exhorting people to make a decision to accept Jesus Christ. His central theme was God’s love for all men, the savior-hood of Jesus Christ who could transform lives. Kim knew conversion could be sudden and startling or to others undramatic and gradual. Most thought there had to be a long agonizing prayer after great emotional stress. Kim’s services in the east were characterized by people falling prostrate, people falling on each other’s neck, hugging, etc. In the west they were more restrained but yet very moving.

Kim recognized that one person may know the time of his birth while another experienced nothing striking. He suggest the test of an experience was the fact that one has a new life and is now alive.

Kim’s theology was simple and rather rigid:

1. The Bible sole authority and infallible guide for faith and conduct

2. God a personal, righteous, and loving Father

3. Man, a sinner and the work of Christ for man’s redemption

4. A judgment yet to come and the gospel a way of escape from eternal damnation

5. Heaven and hell and a personal devil

6. Expectation of a second coming of Christ to usher in the millennium of peace as described in the book of Revelation.

Conversion was not the highest point or the climax but the beginning. He believed the person should then push on to entire, wholly, consecrating themselves to Christ’ will or sanctification.

At the turn of the century Kim went to Kansas.. In 1910 he went to New Mexico to homestead. The altitude was too much for him and he returned to Kansas. For the next 2 decades he preached and conducted singing schools in Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, and North Carolina.

Kim got his license from the Kentucky Christian Conference. The oldest conference in the Christian Church, the oldest indigenous (originating in the area) religious body to appear in America. It was the confluence (flowing together) of independent movements which arose in geographical separation at the close of the eighteenth and the opening of the nineteenth centuries.

The first in North Carolina nad Virginia was led by a small group of Methodist clergymen of independent temper who affirmed the right of the individual and yearned for freedom from the bishopric and episcopal appointments. At first the issue was not doctrinal but governmental. In time, however, it came to mean the right of the individual “to read for himself, think for himself, interpret for himself, and act for himself, as well as give an account for himself.” In this new movement all ministers were to be on an equality and laymen were to have the balance of power in legislative matters. Executive business was to be left to the church collectively.

The second stream which later flowed into a united body of Christians arose among some Baptists in Vermont who proposed to build a church nonsectarian in name and in freedom from sacramental and creedal requirements. Christian character was declared to be the only valid test of fellowship and membership in the church. They were convinced that on no other basis could all followers of Christ be incorporated in one visible fold. They held that Christian unity is possible without uniformity of belief and practice, and that no church should erect a test that excludes any follower of Christ.

The third tributary arose in Kentucky where some Presbyterians rebelled against “the rocky stones of ecclesiastical (church or minister) doctrine” and agreed to take the Holy Scriptures as their only rule of faith and practice. For a time they continued the Presbyterian form of government, but soon concluded that even this savored too much of ecclesiasticism and that each church should be autonomous (not controlled by outside forces). The church was to assume her native right of internal government.

Thus, the Christian Church descended from a Methodist ancestry in the South, from Baptist forbears in New England, and from Presbyterian parentage in Kentucky. At first these three movements had no knowledge of each other, but state and regional conferences were held as early as 1804 in Kentucky, 1807 or 1808 in Ohio and New England, and 1814 in Virginia. These early conferences had no authority and were careful not to violate the liberty of churches or members. When in session they advised, debated, discoursed upon, gave reasons for and against, but they neither legislated nor commanded. They feared

...to be continued