Robe Recipient

“selfless service, boundless love, and unwavering”

“faith”

“mentoring through action”

“willingness to follow God’s seemingly impossible call on her life”

“second mother”

“loving and supportive Mother and an absolute rockstar of a Grammy”

“wise spiritual counselor”

“faithful friend”

“the ear who listened and the hands and feet of Jesus”

Denise (Dede) was not raised in a Christian home but came to know the Lord as a freshman in college at the University of Redlands in 1970. She soon became involved in the campus InterVarsity chapter where she met her future husband, Ralph Mackintosh (a story that didn’t really start for two more years). Dede’s passion was to become a schoolteacher which became a lifetime occupation both within and without the church. Dede began attending the Los Angeles SDB church with her future husband about 1973 where she was soon drafted into teaching in the children’s program. She began attending young adult pre-con and Conference even before her marriage in 1975.

Dede’s denominational work began immediately after her marriage. In fact, she was married to Ralph on August 9th, 1975 and reported to General Conference to spend the week teaching in the Children’s Conference program on August 10th, 1975 (some honeymoon?). Dede continued teaching in the local church and in the SDB Pacific Pines camping program. When leadership was needed, she, with her sister-in-law Jane Mackintosh, directed summer sessions of Pacific Pines camps over several years.

When her children were young in the 1980’s Dede recognized the need for better SDB specific children’s materials for our Sabbath Schools that could compete with the colorful and interesting non-denominational materials. Starting at the associational level she organized the Pacific Coast Association Children’s Committee. Gathering the talents of Ruthanne Peil, Jane Mackintosh, Pastor Steve Crouch, and others they began looking to develop age-appropriate curriculum with colorful artwork that was SDB specific. For the first modules they used the outline of materials that had been developed by the SDB Board of Christian Education called the Nurture Series and then developed additional modules of completely original material. This project which started at the Associational level was adopted and the printing financed by the Board of Christian Education. Subsequent to this project Dede was asked to join the SDB Board of Christian Education and served as chairperson of their Children’s subcommittee.

During this same time period Dede became the organizer and director of the SDB Conference Children’s programs during our annual Conference week, a position she held for several years

Dede’s love for the Lord and faithful service was recognized by her local church and she was asked to take up the role of deacon in the Los Angeles SDB church. Subsequently she has served as a deacon in the Foothill Community SDB Church in California and in the Next Step SDB Church in Colorado where she now resides. She is an active member in the Next Step church and serves on the homeless ministry team weekly as well as her deacon duties.

In the 1990’s Dede again recognized a need among the Seventh Day Baptist youth. There was an abundance of musical talent among our youth but no organized outlet for sharing this on a national level. Therefore, she again took it on herself to get something started (better to ask forgiveness than wait for permission). Dede put together a plan for the first Stained Glass singing group and went about recruiting talent, finding tour transportation, securing a musical director, booking airline flights, setting up recording sessions, contacting potential concert sites across the county, buying or borrowing sound equipment, calling in lots of favors, hosting practice sessions in her home and reaching into her own pocket for funding.

Starting with that original tour Dede gave up her next 9 years of summers to tour with Stained Glass as their booking agent, van driver, chaperone, sound engineer, rehearsal hostess, record producer and second mother to some very talented and dedicated SDB youth. As happened with the children’s Nurture Series, Dede stepped out in faith with a vision and the denomination responded by joining with funding and support.

It is with great pleasure that we award the 2024 Robe of Achievement to Dede Mackintosh.