Pathfinders

The Pathfinder Club, or simply Pathfinders, is a department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA), which works specifically with the cultural, social and religious education of children and teens, but any age 10+ may join.

Here at Willesden it is our aim to hold up the banner and let the whole world know that we are the Pathfinders (and Adventurers) and we have a part to play in telling the message to the World.
Why not come along and join us? Club meetings are every 2nd and 4th Saturday (3.30 – 5pm) and Sunday (10am – 1pm) of the month.
Our Adventurers also join us on our Saturday meetings – these are the pre Pathfinders, aged 5 – 9 years old.
We look forward to seeing you

A HISTORY OF PATHFINDERING

The Pathfinder Club, or simply Pathfinders, is a department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA), which works specifically with the cultural, social and religious education of children and teens, but any age 10+ may join.

Similar in many respects to Scouting, this differs by religious emphasis on their activities. Part of the official program of the Adventist Church since 1950. Globally the Pathfinder Club is part of the church’s youth ministry, under dominican director Andrés J. Peralta.

An estimated 38% of Adventist youth aged 18 and under “Are members of Pathfinders or a similar church-sponsored youth group”, according to a 2002 worldwide survey of local church leaders.

So how did it all begin?  Who started Pathfinders?  The short answer is that no one person did, but rather that a diverse group of youth-focused, God-loving, ministry-minded individuals created “Pathfinder-like” clubs in various locations that eventually grew into the ministry we now know as Pathfinders.

The first Pathfinder Club of record was in Anaheim, California directed by John McKim and Willa Steen.  This club began in the late 1920’s and ran through the 1930’s.   In 1944 McKim died and the Steens had moved.  In 1930 Lester and Ione Martin with co-directors Theron & Ethel Johnston began a club in Santa Ana, California.

• JMV (now AJY) Progressive Classes introduced Friend and Companion classes, MV classes (now AY Classes) Comrade and Master Comrade (now Guide and Master Guide — 1951)
• A. W. Spalding and Harriet Hold advocate basic idea of Pathfinder Clubs
• Pre-JMV Classes, Busy Bee, Sun Beam, Builder and Helping Hand (now know as Adventurers, was also developed in 1930s.

Both of these first clubs were in the Southeastern California Conference and encouraged by Youth Director Elder Guy Mann and his associate Laurance A. Skinner.  For several years there were no clubs of record.

In 1946 John H. Hancock, then the youth director for Southeastern California Conference got a club going in Riverside, California.  John designed the Pathfinder triangle emblem and got a ministerial student, Francis Hunt to direct the club.   Both John and his wife Helen Hancock taught honors.

By 1947-48 Southern California Conference began having Pathfinder clubs – the first at Glendale, with Lawrence Paulson as director.  About that same time, the Central California Conference, under the direction of Youth Director Henry T. Bergh, began their Pathfinder program — starting 23 clubs that first year.

Beginning with the God-directed program, called Pathfinder Clubs, in California, the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist church adopted the program.  It thus, in 1950, became an official worldwide organization of the Adventist church, and grew rapidly.

Pathfinders is now a global ministry affecting thousands (if not millions) of young people worldwide.