Wisconsin Pathfinder History: Meade McGuire

This past Sabbath was World Pathfinder Day, and we officially celebrated 75 years of Pathfinders as a youth ministry in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. And what a wonderful ministry it is! The Sabbath before, we held our Wisconsin Conference Pathfinder Camporee at beautiful Camp Wakonda, and we had over 200 attendees. Truly, and in a big way because of Pathfinders, Youth Evangelism is alive and well in Wisconsin in 2025.

However, while Sabbath celebrated the official 75-year mark for this ministry, it actually has roots and history that go back much further. It was in 1949 that the Pathfinder Song was penned. In 1948, the first Pathfinder Club Flag was designed and produced. In 1946, in Riverside, California, the very first conference-sponsored Pathfinder Club was organized. All the way back in 1929, the term "Pathfinder" was used to describe the ministry as it took place at a camp in Southeastern California.

Of course, it should be noted, that before the ministry was called "Pathfinders," it existed in the form of Junior Missionary Volunteers (JMV)--which formally began back in the 1920s--and Missionary Volunteers (MV)--which formally began even earlier. So the story of Club Ministries predates the term "Pathfinders" by quite a bit.

In Wisconsin, we have our own lore about the historical beginnings of Pathfinders and Club Ministries. Back in 1889, a young man named Meade McGuire approached his local church leaders with a request: to start a Youth Society. He had observed the other church youth programs in area churches and wanted to start something like that for his local Seventh-day Adventist Church. Unfortunately, the idea wasn't readily accepted at first. Arthur Spalding writes about it in his book, Christ's Last Legion.

“When [Meade] ventured to suggest it [to the church] one day, instead of smiles he met frowns. “No, Meade,” said the older people, “that would never do. Why should you run off by yourselves? Young people alone will fall into disorder. Stick to the church and the Missionary Society with the older people, and don’t try to be independent.”

But Brother Conner, the elder of the church, a saintly old man, placed his hand on Meade’s shoulder, and said, “My boy, you go right ahead. You may have the church for your meeting, and I’ll stand by you.” So the meetings were started, and with thirty members. They sang, they studied the Scriptures, they prayed, and they “gave their testimonies,” scarcely one ever failing to speak. The critical older members, like, critics of a long-ago time, “could find none occasion nor fault; inasmuch as [they] were faithful, neither was there any error nor fault found in” them. Said MacGuire in his after-years, “We had not the slightest disorder. I believe God restrained the enemy because He wanted this work to go forward, and the people were not sufficiently in favor of it to stand by us if mistakes were made.”

Meade McGuire later became the Associate MV Secretary for the General Conference, and was able to inform the World Church as it moved toward adopting more and more sophisticated Youth Ministries and Youth Departments. Today, when we observe hundreds of Pathfinders at our local Wisconsin Conference Pathfinder Camporee, thousands at our Lake Union Pathfinder Camporee, and tens of thousands at our International Pathfinder Camporee, we can think back to the figures of the past who listened to God's call and did something simple, like start a youth club.

It may be easy for young people to think that the things they do may not have much of an impact on the world. But right here, in Antigo, Wisconsin, one young man approached his church about getting together to pray and sing songs and do service projects with his friends, and now there are over two million Pathfinders worldwide. To our young readers, I want to end with this question: do you believe God is calling you to do something? Don't delay: do that thing today. It just might be the next big worldwide movement that affects your peers for generations to come.

Meade McGuire and other notable Youth (MV) Department leaders, at the 41st General Conference Session in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 2026.