John S. Stamm

John Samuel Stamm (1878–1956) was an American bishop of the Evangelical Church, elected in 1926.

Stamm was born on a Sunday morning (to his parents, an indication God had a special work for him), 23 March 1878, a son of Hanz and Mary Stamm. The Stamms were devout Christians and members of the Evangelical Association Church in Alida,Geary County, Kansas, which they had helped organize seven years before.

At the age of ten, John became so disturbed by a sermon he heard one Sunday morning that he went to a hillside after church to pray.

At the age of eighteen he experienced another turning point in his young life. Sitting with several other teenage boys one night when the preacher gave the invitation to come to the altar, John turned to his friends and said, "If I go, will you go?" They assured him they would. So they filed down the center aisle to the altar. "That night I found Jesus Christ as my personal Savior," Bishop Stamm later wrote. "It was an experience of great joy and meaning and still is today," he wrote in 1955. "I made a complete turnabout in life. Instead of doubting God, I now loved Him...things of the spirit had new interest and challenge for me...the call of the Christian ministry came to me with clear and convincing urgency."

Stamm had completed less than five grades of public school when he turned twenty. Nevertheless, that fall he sold his horse and other possessions to obtain enough money for a train ticket to Naperville, Illinois, the home of The Evangelical Association's North Central College and Evangelical Theological Seminary (E.T.S.). He took sub-academy courses at the College, along with others who had also not finished high school. Twelve years later Stamm had completed his college degree and graduated from the seminary. In 1927, E.T.S. honored him with a Doctor of Divinity degree. He received a Doctor of Laws degree from Albright College in 1936, a Doctor of Humane Letters from North Central College in 1949, and a Doctor of Sacred Theology from Dickinson College in 1951.

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