At about that time, he met a young formerly Baptist lady who was a member of a UPC church nearly 60 miles distant but who came to hear Pastor Baxter almost every week, and she invited him to attend the Elgin, IL UPC church then pastored by Bro. George Taylor. Shortly after attending a nightly revival there for a couple of weeks listening to a Bro. Terry Denny and fellowshipping with them, he felt the need to enter the realm of Gospel literature, writing and preaching the truths of Jesus' name baptism but avoiding the "I'm right, you're wrong," attitude he saw in many UPC members. He felt he could reach more people by remaining independent.

Up Way Publications was founded in September 1969 while its founder was still attending and doing typing, mimeographing and learning offset printing at the Independent Assembly located at Broadway and Grace in Chicago. The name UP Way was formed by taking the U and P from UPC and replacing the C with Way. An early theme song was "Higher Ground," but although that song name fit the ministry name, it was felt more appropriate to use the song, "Do You Know My Jesus?" as the theme for radio broadcasts he would soon begin in Evanston, Illinois and years later in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

Soon, he felt the need to move on into more complete ministry and for a number of months, served as Assistant Pastor to Rev. Carl Nelson, a former Presbyterian turned semi-Pentecostal at the Chicago Evangelistic Center and Chicago Missionary Society. After seeing some lives turned around from drunkenness, promiscuity and drug abuse, the disagreement with Pastor Nelson over the need for repentance and water baptism caused Smith to join with other local churches where he served as worship leader, adult  Sunday School teacher, Sunday School Superintendent, Assistant Pastor and then pastor of a small Church of God of the Mountain Assembly. During this time, he published two issues of Up Way for Living magazine.

Forced to close the church after just a few months by debts and problems left by the former pastor,  although he tried to make good the former pastor's debts, he was soon introduced by a former pastor to a lady who seemed specially qualified to be his wife and because of her ended up in Zanesville, Ohio and attending a church in Crooksville, Ohio that she had attended. Before long, he went to work for the State of Ohio in their new Income Tax Division in Columbus and really launched into the literature ministry with the publication of several tracts. First to be published was What's Your Treasure?*, followed by If You Want Joy, Is Belief Enough? and the forerunner of Live the Power Life! Then he began the quarterly magazine, Up Way  for Christians and made a couple of evangelistic trips before resuming taxicab driving as a ministry and source of income for both personal and ministry needs.

Many other events happened to Smith in the years since then, far too many for mention in this brief history.

Tract titles alone now number close to 150 including several translated into up to eleven foreign language versions. 

Books already published include MARRIAGE: Delight or Disaster (First and Second editions), Foundations Firm Quarterlies, To Be A Minister subtitled "A Manual for Ministers Desiring Original Apostolic Ministry, "and the Pocket Truths Bible Study series designed as shirt pocket size booklets for break and lunchtime Bible study.

  Followers of Jesus Christ Ministries includes the former Bible Apostolic Study formerly based at the Bible Apostolic Church in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, the missionary trips of Rev. Samuel M. Smith to the Philippines in 1989 - 90 the missionary trips to T'bilisi (biblical Tubal), Republic of Georgia and Moscow, Russia in 1991, 92, 93 and 94.

It was intended that Followers of Jesus Christ Fellowship be a local church congregation in Kailua, (Oahu) Hawaii and a ministerial fellowship, but Rev. Smith has instead worked to bring the Total Gospel message to several pre-existing Filipino congregations in that area and the original "Fellowship" name was replaced with "Ministries".

  Since 1994, Rev. Smith has worked to build the website for anyone in the world to be able to read and study the message of "The Gospel as Jesus Christ and His Original Apostles would Preach Today."

Originally the Up Way Publications Main Menu was on Earthlink, then was hosted by Rev. Steve Bennett and his OneGod.Org web domain, but when he encountered hacker and virus problems, Rev. Smith registered the domain name followersofjesuschrist.org which has been hosted mostly by GoDaddy.com, who also handles our domain registration.

In 2001, we registered the name apostolicinternet seminary.org and are also working to build a seminary dedicated to training ministry to minister like Jesus' original Apostles did.

Rev. Smith has long felt the need to provide literature for the training of Christians, no matter what denominational ties they may have, to go Back to the Bible and "Rightly divide the word of truth." There are over 1670 recognized "Christian" denominations or church organizations according to the 1991-92 Almanac of the Christian World (Tyndale House). So which one is right? Who is really rightly dividing the "word of truth?" How can any sincere Christian know? How can any young or new minister be sure he is preaching what Jesus Christ and His Original Apostles Would Preach Today? We attempt to teach sound methods of study which, if followed by everyone, would bring the unity to the body of Christ that Jesus spoke of when he said, By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to the other." (John 13:35).

    We believe that while a normal understanding of all scripture is sufficient for anyone to see God's genuine plan of Salvation, it is important to our spitritual health to study the Bible with understanding of the immediate context, the whole Bible book context and finally the overall context of the whole Bible teaching on any given subject.

4. Translation work was first done on If You Want Joy by a school teacher in Columbus, Ohio who was trained in Brazillian Portuguese but no copies were ever printed and the translation has been mislaid. No more translation work was done until after Smith returned from T'bilisi, Republic of Georgia and Moscow, Russia, but now 11 languages are available in the All Scripture Verse (ASV) series and several written tracts are also available in 4 languages, Russian, Georgian (Kartvelian), Ilocano (Philippine) and Brazillian Portuguese.

•     In July, 2005, a request came to provide funds for translation and printing in Burmese and approximately 30,000 of the "God's Plan of Salvation" and "The ONLY Way to Heaven..." were translated, printed and distribution begun. Almost immediately afterward, a similar request came from the Andra Pradesh area of India and Up Way Publications India came into existence under the able direction of Pastor V. Blessing and about 35,000 Telegu language "God's Plan of Salvation" and "Why All The Calamity" tracts were translated, printed and published.
•     Later that same month, Pastor Muazzam John in Karachi, Pakistan, requested funding to translate and publish two (2) titles in the Urdu language and Up Way Publications Pakistan came to be under his able direction. The tracts of first choice were "If You Want Joy," and "Fire! Fire!! Neighbor Your House is On Fire!!!" Another 35,000 or so were published and distribution has reached into far areas of Pakistan.
  
•    Then in January 2006,  A brother laboring for the Lord in a real danger zone country contacted Up Way Publications about translating into Tamil, Hindi and Malayalam Indian languages. I will say the least about the work of this brother, but the result is that his father is officially Up Way Publications South India based in the Trivandrum area of the extreme Southwestern tip of India.
•    In October 2007, Brother Ebacha Rogers in Cameroon wanted 35,000 English language tracts for distribution in the High and Secondary schools of that country and we actually provided about 36,000 which were printed in Ocala, Florida and shipped to him by air.
  
• There are three (3) brethren in Brazil who regularly request a few thousand tracts in Portuguese for use in prison and hospital and "villa" ministry. These also are printed in Ocala, Florida and air shipped.
  

UP WAY  PUBLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL
   P. O. Box 1015
Kailua, HI 96734  U.S.A.          Printed in U. S. A.