"I ran for 32 years," he said of not heeding a call he received at age 14.

But when another call -- a vision -- came two years ago, Brown listened. Candles of Love was the result.

The idea is simple: believers place a lighted candle in the window of their home or at their place of work as a sign of their belief in and love for Christ. In responding to questions from others about the symbolism of the candle, the believer is given the opportunity to witness.

Initially, candles were placed in the windows of First Church after a baptism or when someone came forward to receive Christ"s salvation, then remained lighted 24-hours-a-day. "At first we had eight or nine candles in the window, and then it got to be 20 and 30," Brown said.

The increasing number of candles became a conversation piece around town and "it became clear to me people were having to witness" about the candles, he said.

One Sunday, Brown suggested every member search for the next two weeks for as many of the electric candles as they could find and bring them to church.

"They brought them by the hundreds," he recalled.

During the invitational hymn that week, he invited those who felt God calling to pick up a candle and put it in a window at home. Nearly everyone took a candle.

"The next Sunday I suggested they pick up two candles," he said, "and give one to their neighbor on the right, and one to their neighbor on the left.

"If their neighbor loved Jesus, they could share it (the candle), and if not, they could pray about it and witness."

Again, everyone picked up candles.

Then Brown challenged his congregation to take candles into the streets and to their workplace, anywhere they could think of to witness to Christ"s love.

Week after week the windows of homes throughout the Creedmoor area were being filled with more lighted candles. A local service station owner told Brown that his customers were asking why all the houses had candles in the windows.

"The candles are never turned out," Brown said.

After local newspapers and a television station carried the story of First Church's Candles of Love, calls for candles started coming in from other churches. Some people even sent money to help pay for them.

Brown contacted a local merchant about buying additional candles but was told they were stocked only during the Christmas holidays. The merchant put him in touch with a wholesaler who orders candles from China, however, and Brown chuckles at the irony of the candles being manufactured in a communist country and the opportunities to witness which may arise.

"First we ordered 2,500 candles and they were gone in two weeks," he said. "Then we ordered 5,000 and they lasted no more than two weeks."

Brown didn"t told his congregation when he handed out the first candles that the vision he'd had was for a worldwide ministry, but Candles of Love was well on its way to being just that. And now the day had come when he knew a larger order would have to be placed.

"As long as I have been a member here at First Baptist, and I've been a member since I was one-day-old, we've never stepped out in faith on anything," Brown said. "But we ordered 30,000 candles and didn"t have the money to pay for them."

When the truck pulled up in front of the church, his wife came running across the street from the parsonage waving a piece of paper. It was a check for $30,000.

"Money comes from everywhere with notes that say Śwe want to support your ministry,' " he said. "We"ve never taken a dime out of our general fund. A man who owns a bread company in North Carolina even sent $500, saying he felt led to support our meaningful ministry."

He tells of a church member who drives a truck to the west coast every two weeks and witnesses at truck stops: "The waitresses have candle orders for him each time he stops."

When Brown visits church members in the hospital, he takes two candles: One is for the patient's favorite doctor, the other for a favorite nurse. But, they aren't to tell anyone why they have the candles unless asked and then they can share their witness.

"Now when I go to Durham Regional, the nurses call me the candleman," he said. "People on the elevators stop and ask about the candles."

Each time, Brown has another opportunity to witness for the Lord.

"This is one of those things that only the Lord could do," he said, still incredulous as to how Candles of Love has changed so many lives in so short a time. "What's more important, though, is that we are nothing more than the seed.

In North Carolina, the Baptist State Convention's Evangelism Division has taken up the cause, processing most of the orders that are received, and spreading the message of the Candles of Love Ministry.

Brown is hoping the Southern Baptist Convention will take on the project, as well. But he wants to make certain everything is in place before the words "nationwide" and "worldwide" take on their full meaning.

"We order 30,000 candles about every three months," he said of a warehouse which must be kept stocked. "When we get down to 15,000 of 20,000 candles, we order more. It's takes about four weeks for the order to come."

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Barile is a staff writer for the Biblical Recorder.)