The former speaker of the Breath of Life television ministry, Brooks is well known among Seventh day Adventists as an evangelist. His sermons are legendary and widely distributed. He held his first campaign in the early 1950s, while a pastor in Columbus, Ohio. After going on to be senior pastor of the Glenville Church in Cleveland, where he also held campaigns, Brooks became a full time evangelist for the Columbia Union Conference. In the summer of 1964 he led a major campaign in a large tent in Philadelphia during the "long, hot summer" of urban rioting, defied a plea from the mayor to shut down and still baptized nearly 300 people. He was elected an associate secretary of the General Conference Ministerial Association and from that platform has fearlessly preached the Adventist message around the globe. There are a number of Breath of Life congregations, church plants resulting from evangelism campaigns conducted by Brooks.
