In 1972, his wife, Virginia, was seriously injured in an automobile accident and doctors told him they didn't think she would live. The Rev. Silvester said the prayers of many friends, including those from many different churches, were answered and she recovered, but had a severe back problem that caused her pain and discomfort for many months.

"In February 1973, my wife and I were living in Kaysville and attended an evangelist's crusade in Provo. A young man was preaching about the healing power of Christ. When he finished, he told the audience there was someone in the auditorium with a serious back problem and then he went down into the audience and stopped near my wife, looked at her and asked her to come to the stage.

"She got up, painfully and slowly, and went to the stage with him. She had been left with a large lump on her back the size of a soft ball. The evangelist talked to her about her back and then, praying and calling aloud upon the name of Jesus, touched her on the forehead and healed her.

"When she came back she walked easily, the pain was gone and the lump had disappeared. That changed both our lives. I knew then that I wanted to find out what more God had that we needed."

The Rev. Silvester said he later attended another crusade the evangelist held in Portland and, "in September of 1973 I prayed with him in an Assembly of God Church in Bozeman and was baptized spiritually through prayer."

He was still pastor of the Reorganized LDS Church in Ogden, but left that church in the spring of 1974. In August of that year, he moved his family to a large old home he rented in Farmington and began holding Thursday night Bible study classes and Saturday youth meetings.

For months, he told people who came to his home to attend the church of their choice on Sundays. It wasn't until October 1975 that he began holding Sunday church services in his home and, by November 1975, he incorporated the building into the Inter-Faith Christian Center.

From 1976 to 1979, The Rev. Silvester's church sponsored the Inter-Faith Bible Training Center to train people for the ministry, graduating 10 from a two-year course and four from a three-year course.

In 1977-78, his church sponsored a school in Farmington, kindergarten through 12th grade, offering an Accelerated Christian Education program.

The Inter-Faith Christian Center sponsors Bible study in homes and just completed a program in Ogden. It started a second church in Wendover five years ago, called the Wendover Fellowship, whose pastors are two of the graduates of his Bible Training Center - Chris and Pat Lund. They now have a congregation of about 60.

He has a congregation of about 40, some from as far away as Ogden, but most spread from Bountiful to Layton.