Blog

By Sandy Hodgson

Vista Ridge Academy is blessed with support from Boulder, Chapel Haven, and Twin Peaks Adventist churches. Our constituent churches are committed to helping their families desiring a Christian education to attend our school. Enrollment increased 25 percent last year due to our marketing and recruiting efforts with retention and new student enrollment. With the addition of three-year-olds in our preschool program, 70 percent of our preschool students are from our community while community families make up 38 percent of our students in the K–8 classrooms. We have learned that community families share similar faith values with us. When we give community families cam- pus tours, we are often asked what Seventh-day Adventists believe. Parents want to know how our beliefs align with their beliefs. We proudly share our central belief that “Jesus became human to save us, and through Him, we can begin again. He is preparing heaven for us and will return to take us there.” Many parents, showing relief, say they also believe this. We also share that we are part of a worldwide education program sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Parents learn that our Bible curriculum is implemented without apology and approached with the understanding that many of our students, Adventists included, may not be knowledgeable regarding the truths found in the Bible. These parents desire a Christian learning environment for their children and appreciate our approach to Christian education.

Community parents often reach out to our teachers about our Adventist faith, and often an invitation follows asking the parent to attend one of our Adventist churches. Through the years, several of our community families have become members of our church through ministry taking place at our school.

Some challenges we have encountered with community families has involved the aligning our Adventist beliefs with opportunities set forth by community parents. Whether there is a suggestion of serving alcohol or meat at an event or hosting events on Sabbath, we are committed to uphold- ing our Adventist beliefs and values in all our planning. We have found that once community parents learn more about our beliefs, they approach their planning differently and are respectful of our beliefs.

Another challenge for us is how to navigate the “us” (Adventist) versus “them” (Community) mentality. Our Fundamental Belief #14 states, “We are all equal in Christ, who by one Spirit has bonded us into one fellowship with Him and with one another.” Vista Ridge Academy provides Christ-centered elementary education for all students, both Adventist and community children. We know we can learn a lot from our community parents, so we have always been intentional about inviting all parents to help us with Home and School events and projects, marketing events, commit- tees, classroom activities, etc.

We want all our families to feel welcome at Vista Ridge Academy. From the first point of contact to enrollment and beyond, we focus on giving great customer service to all our families. This process involves phone calls and texting, emails, personal notes, campus tours and face-to-face meetings. During the first month of school, all families are invited to our Dedication Sabbath and Back to School Night. We also host a Welcome Breakfast for new families. We invite our constituent churches to these events to share their church ministry with the parents. This past summer, Boulder Adventist church invited families to attend Vacation Bible School, held at our school. Twin Peaks Adventist Church invited all our families to join their Adventurer and Pathfinder Club. This year, Parent Ambassadors are reaching out to new families to see how they are adjusting to having their children at Vista Ridge Academy. One Parent Ambassador is doing this by hosting a dessert night in their home for all the Pre–K and Kindergarten moms.

One of our community families said, “You’re one of the best secrets around.” Vista Ridge Academy is committed to letting our community in on the secret. We want our school to be the first choice for Christian education in the north Denver metropolitan area, creating strong students and community engagement and a reputation for excellence in academic achievement and personal growth.

To help make our vision a reality, we have put together a three-year marketing plan. To reach community families, we are participating in several events with the town of Erie and the Erie Chamber of Commerce. Some of these events include hosting Business After Hours and Meet the Candi- dates, having a booth at Erie Country Christmas, Erie Town Fair, Erie Block Parties and the Erie Miner’s Blast. This year, we are working with the Erie Community Food Bank by collecting personal care items and helping to create Thanksgiving baskets for local residents in need.

Vista Ridge Academy is excited to offer a Christian education to all families who desire one. We join the Rocky Mountain Conference in supporting and empowering all our families foremost to “know Christ and to make Him fully known.”

Sandy Hodgson is principal of Vista Ridge Academy. Email her at: [email protected]. Marsha Bartulec is vice principal and marketing director of Vista Ridge Academy. Email her at: [email protected]

By Jessyka Albert

Making hasty generalizations is one of the perils of being human. We make snap judgements about people, places, things, and ideas based on limited knowledge and evidence every day. We make broad claims like, “All politicians are liars!” “Every kind of vegan ice cream is disgust- ing,” or “The Broncos are the best team in the NFL!”

While some generalizations can be humorous, many can be harmful. Harmful to someone’s feelings, to a reputation, to God’s character. I’m sure we could all muster up a handful or two of hasty generalizations we have about the Seventh-day Adventist Church—some funny and many harmful.

Over the past two years working in Boulder, Colorado, at a local church, generalizations have brought me to tears more often than to laughter. Unfortunately, for many kids, teens, and adults, these generalizations hold a place of reality instead of fallacy in their hearts and minds. Because the church is the body of Christ and should strive to be the best representation of His character, the conclusions many of us draw about church are often transposed onto our view of who Jesus is.

As for the source of my tears, I’ve spent the better half of this year working closely with kids and teenagers whose hasty generalizations have become their reality. This is by no means making an excuse for the many teens and young adults who are leaving our church, but rather giving context to this generational exile. In many ways church has generalized Jesus out of the picture. Sure, we still pray that He is the center our churches, but is He the center of our lives?

Jesus is not satisfied when we restrict Him to our church addresses and Sabbath hours. He is an anywhere anytime kind of guy, so when we leave Him at church on Saturdays, we set ourselves up for failure. We try to push Jesus back into the temple to preach, when He’s trying to say, “Hey, I’m coming to your house for dinner tonight.” In the New Testament, we see Jesus hanging out in boats, on hills and mountains, in homes. When He talks, He talks about ordinary things, people, and situations. Jesus places Himself in the midst of life, in the midst of people’s Tuesday afternoons as they are going about mundane routines. Where is Jesus on your Tuesdays? If He’s not just as present in your life on Tuesday as He is on Saturday, what’s the point? When we leave Jesus out of our everyday life and place Him only in a church, only on Saturdays, we miss out on who He really is. For example, if you only saw me at church on Saturdays, you would only get to know me to a certain extent. The same is true with Jesus. When you just study your Bible, pray, and worship on Saturdays you’re missing out, and you can easily fall victim to generalizing Him.

When you box Jesus in at church on Saturdays . . .

. . . and your parents won’t let you go to prom because it’s the Sabbath, you begin to generalize Jesus as restrictive and a fun squasher.

. . . and your kids are throwing socks, throwing tantrums, or throwing up as you try to get everyone ready for church, you begin to generalize Jesus as stress-inducing.

. . . and you go to church and someone treats you poorly or talks down to you, you begin to generalize Jesus as hurtful. Do you see where I’m going here? Church won’t always be perfect. The sermons won’t always hit you to your core. The music might not be your taste. People might be, well, people. So when we confine Jesus to that place and time, we end up programming our minds to see Jesus only in that context, whatever that may be.

I make it my job (literally) to make Saturdays at Boulder Church the most fun day of the week for the kids. Last week before church started, I led a group up to the balcony because we would catch way more air with our paper air- planes from up there! When we sing in our kids division, Camp Sanitas, everyone gets an instrument. Our motto is: Sing Loud. Dance Loud. Love Loud.

Although Saturdays are the busiest day of the week for me, it’s my favorite day of the week. The trap of generalization is a double edged sword, and I have to remind myself that Jesus is not confined by church, when I’m leading a Bible story, or praying or preaching; He’s in my Tuesdays as well. That Jesus has a place when it’s just me, when I’m not leading anything, when I’m grocery shopping, folding laundry, hanging out with friends.

Jesus spent every day with His disciples, doing the everyday kind of things with them. Using ordinary things to describe an extraordinary God. Our discipleship to Jesus has to be a daily walk, because when it’s not, we make conclusions about who He is based on one place and one time, and pass that down to future generations.

I hope and pray that every person of every age seeks a personal journey with Jesus Jesus outside of their churches.

I challenge myself and you to ask the difficult questions:

Where is Jesus in my workplace or my school? Where is Jesus at my dinner table?
Where is Jesus on Tuesdays?
Where is Jesus on your Daily Walk*?

–Jessyka Albert is associate pastor at Boulder Adventist Church. Email her at: [email protected]

By Michelle Morrison

The question: You raised six incredible children and all of them are in the church today. What did you do to achieve such a wonderful feat? What does it take to keep our own children in the faith of their parents? What are the ingredients in the menu of education and spirituality that come to mind, and can be of help to others?

The answer? Fruit. “Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit” (Matthew 7:17, NKJV). My husband and I started life together much like many of you did. We fell in love and always planned on having a large family. We were quite young, and kids came quickly. Unlike many young women of my generation, what I wanted most, more than a career, was to have a happy Adventist, united-in-the-faith home. And I was willing to do anything to get it. I guess God took me at my word.

It was the 1980s. Righteousness by faith was being rediscovered, and we were both working hard at “fruitfulness.”  There were lots of dos and don’ts and being new to Adventism myself, I embraced it all. Wayne (my pastor husband) is a fifth-plus generation Adventist, so he had the rules down and was in the middle of every committee and ministry while starting and running our own business and playing hard on the weekends. Oh yeah, and managing a family.

We crashed. I did first. And it was the fruit that got me. I looked at my life, all the stuff I was doing right, what the church and Ellen G. White said to do, and felt I was faithful, doing it right. But the fruits—my closest and most important relationships, my husband and our marriage, our children and their relationships with me—were bad. The kids seemed more afraid of me than trusting. My husband was never home and, I thought, liked it that way. I was confused, felt betrayed by my church and God. And that’s when I broke. Everything broke. Rather than trade God in, I challenged Him to show me a better way.

That’s when I found the first of my life verses, Psalm 51:6: “Thou desirest truth in my inmost being, therefore give me wisdom in my secret heart.” My church had one definition of “truth.” God gave me another definition, much broader and grayer, that continues to shape everything I am, everything I do and who we are as a couple and family.

I began praying for truth, clarity, guidance, and peace, in my inmost being. God gave me that truth and it hurt, incredibly. But somewhere during the pain of seeing and taking responsibility and owning my stuff, I found a God who really does want to make it as easy as He can.

Wayne jumped on the search for truth bandwagon and we hurt some more. Singly and together, we waded through issues. The fruits, maybe not plentiful, were there, between us first, then spilling over onto the kids.

Structured family worship wasn’t consistent but as parents, we were diligent in providing an example of personal devotional time. Bible storytime, while not a production, was a nightly ritual. Our kids attended all types of school: church, public and home schools. We didn’t mandate much but church attendance was non-negotiable. So too was work; from the time they were little with charts, or as soon as they could help pay their school bills, the kids earned for themselves and for their academy bills, most of which they paid.

The biggest guiding principle of our home was allowing choice. As appropriate to age and responsibility level, we let out the reigns and encouraged the kids to own the consequences of their actions. We didn’t rescue or control the outcomes. We avoided judgment, and shaming or blaming speech; or at least we tried to! These were hard choices, ones that didn’t make sense, yet God was calling us to be transparent and struggle through, as a couple and family. But we learned the hard way that to be in God’s perfect will for us is more important than what we want, and the blessings that follow obedience are worth it.

I was a stay-at-home mom for all of them until they went to school (20 years!)—and while that in itself lends security to their formative years, the most important thing to me was a husband and father who loves God with all his heart, loves us like he loves God, and protects, plays, laughs and leads us with wisdom and strength.

Now the fruit, 37 years later, seems to be showing up most brightly in the collective lives of our children. Recently, on a family message thread, my daughter-in-law stated, “. . . and how many of us are on the church payroll?” Our oldest has taught in four academies since graduation, our second is a dean in the second academy of her career, our third and her husband were a volunteer pastoral couple for a time, our fourth is a recruiter and does music ministry for one of our colleges, the fifth is in the residency program at Adventist Health System, the sixth is active in his college’s campus ministries, using his talents of art and music for Jesus. Finally there’s us—a business-turned-pastoral couple with me recently exchanging my nursing career for a music teaching career at one of our day academies.

What can I say? We did nothing but follow Jesus’ lead out of darkness into light—bright light. Truth and only truth is what sets us free. “I am the way, the truth and the life, . . . and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. If the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed!” (John 14:6; 8: 32, 36). Jesus isn’t a formula, or a bunch of dos and don’ts or black-and-white rules. He is a Person, and the way to know Him is perhaps best expressed in John 10.

It says, “My sheep know My voice and follow Me, they will not follow another.” Once Wayne and I learned His voice, how to discern it, listen for it, see it, even to what some would call mystical (He is Spirit, after all!), we taught our kids how to know His voice too. When they can hear for themselves, we are no longer between or in the way. And what a great place to be when you have a relationship with anyone—on the side, cheering them on, encouraging the still, small voice and letting God be God in their lives, not us!

For you and your family it will undoubtedly look different, as our personalities, situations and lives are different—except as we let God’s Spirit reveal the truth about us to us, and learn to hear and follow His leading voice wherever He goes (even when it doesn’t make sense).

And the making of fruit? Only God can do that!

–Michelle Morrison is a pastor’s wife in Brighton, Colorado. Email her at: [email protected]

By Samantha Nelson

“And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41–42, KJV).

This verse reminds me of myself, and I’m sure many of you reading this can relate. It seems like life is so busy and there are constant demands from every direction. How is anyone supposed to find time to relax?

My stepfather, for all his faults, taught me the lesson of hard work, perseverance and striving for excellence. He may not have intended to teach me all those things, and he didn’t necessarily live them out in his own life, yet they are lessons I gleaned from the childhood I had under his rule.

Unfortunately, he did not teach me moderation or balance and, even though he’s been deceased for many years and I have not been under his control since I was 16 years old, I can still hear his voice at times echoing in my head. Maybe it isn’t even his voice anymore—maybe it is now just a deeply rooted pattern of thought and behavior molded by his words and treatment of me?

You see, nothing I did was ever good enough for my stepfather. I was a straight-A student, but if an exam had 10 extra bonus points and I failed to get them, that wasn’t good enough for him. If I got a 98 instead of a 100 on a test, that wasn’t good enough either. “Why didn’t you get a hundred?” “Why didn’t you do better?” “You’re so stupid!”

Those words, along with abuse and other things taking place as I was growing up, led me to strive for scholarly perfection and also drove me to control the one thing I could—my eating. I became severely anorexic, but I had perfect grades! I learned to mask the pain I was in (emotion- ally, physically, and spiritually) and put on a smile and keep pressing on. It makes me think of a different, and better, kind of pressing on that I need to focus on as “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14, KJV).

God has blessed and healed me from the pain of past abuse, the anorexia, and the need to be “perfect.” Yet something still lingers of the lessons I learned from my stepfather. This is very evident whenever I become sick or even when I’m just extremely tired. I have failed to learn the lesson of balance and resting when I need to do so. Maybe his words from long ago, or maybe just the ingrained patterns from all these years of trying to please my stepfather, have caused me to always push myself. Why else would I work 12 hours in the office while battling a major infection when I should be in bed resting?

I no longer perceive myself as trying to please my step- father or anyone else other than God and my husband, yet clearly I have not been able to balance the demands of work and ministry with my body’s demands for rest and health!

Jesus said in Matthew 11:28 (KJV), “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Oh, how I long to be able to rest more often without guilt. Without my stepfather’s words, “You’re lazy!” rattling around in my mind. May his words be replaced by my Savior’s words, “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat” (Mark 6:31, KJV).

My greatest desire is to know God on the deepest level possible and to “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10, KJV).

May God help me achieve the greatest thing I need right now—balance and rest in Him. Work can wait. It will have to wait. My health and time with Jesus are more important.

What about you? Where do you stand? Do you need to come apart and rest awhile? If so, I pray you will choose “. . . that good part, which shall not be taken away . . .” (Luke 10:42).

–Samantha Nelson is a pastor’s wife and the CEO of The Hope of Survivors, a nonprofit organization dedicated to assisting victims of clergy sexual abuse and providing educational seminars to clergy of all faiths. Email her at: [email protected]

By Michele Stotz

Beginning on January 5, 2018, the Good News will blanket the Denver area—and unlike some snowstorms that hit the region, the results will stick around for a very long time. Revelation Speaks Peace will take place January 5–February 3 in downtown Denver—the culmination of years of planning by the Voice of Prophecy (VOP), Rocky Mountain Conference and local churches.

The way the Lord has led during the series has already made an impression on the event coordinators. After the original venue fell through, an incredible series of events led to the team securing one of the best venues in town: the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, centrally located in the Denver Performing Arts Complex.

And if recent Revelation Speaks Peace series in places like Seattle, Minneapolis and Indianapolis are any indication, some incredible stories will start to emerge as people’s lives are dramatically changed as they learn truths straight from the Bible.

One recent incident perfectly illustrates the lasting impact of this series. During VOP’s “Evangelism Boot Camp,” held at Mile High Academy the weekend of September 29, more than 150 people from area churches learned how to actively lead someone to Christ and give a Bible study. Some of the church members in attendance approached VOP speaker/director Shawn Boonstra and asked, “Remember me?” And as it turned out, these members were baptized during Pastor Boonstra’s 2004 evangelistic series in Denver!

Right now is a critical time for pre-work as hundreds of thousands of Bible study invitation cards are arriving in Denver homes. Local churches are playing a massive role when it comes to engaging with these interested people as they study the Bible and are invited to attend the series.

Regarding this process, Pastor Boonstra said, “We at the Voice of Prophecy want to help church members see that the actual heavy lifting in the work of evangelism is done by God for us. We have nothing to fear if we learn the simple principle that we are simply along for the ride—to love the people that God is busy converting all around us!”

Pastor Boonstra and his team believe that the Voice of  Prophecy exists to support churches, not the other way around. The VOP’s recent projects (including the recent A Pale Horse Rides series) have focused on featuring local pastors, placing attendees in the church that is just the right fit for them, and giving church members an opportunity to answer the call of God and take their place in His work said Vicki Snyder of the True Life Community Seventh- day Adventist Church, “Until this weekend, I was struggling with helping out with more Bible studies. The boot camp was so uplifting, inspiring and refreshing. My walk with God is closer and I’ve decided to take on five more Bible study students!”

Dee Henry from the Golden Seventh-day Adventist Church concurred, “What a blessing the weekend was. The VOP team members were full of energy and passion for the Lord’s work, which bubbled over to the attendees.”

These efforts will continue until (and throughout) the Revelation Speaks Peace series. As hundreds of Bible study requests arrive at the VOP daily, some churches have already begun to feel that they could use extra help. It’s a great challenge to have, as so many people are seeking answers to life’s greatest questions.

If you live in the Denver area and would like to be a part of this outreach effort—whether as a Bible instructor or as a volunteer at the actual event—please talk to your local pastor to sign up. And as handbills arrive in homes later this year, we ask that you pray that those who need to attend will find their way to Revelation Speaks Peace.

We also invite you to share details about this series with friends and family who live in the Denver area. Please have them visit revelationspeakspeace.com.

–Michele Stotz is VOP public relations director. Email her at: [email protected]

By Rajmund Dabrowski

“Can you pack your bags and be ready for a trip to Albania next week?” was the invitation I wanted but never expected to get. “What do you mean?” I asked Robert Manchin, a Hungarian friend who worked for the European section of Gallup. My question was not without hesitation. It was just before Easter of 1991 and Albania was still pretty much closed to the external world.

For decades after WWII, Albania worked hard to be isolated, and its infamy was that it banned the practice of religion, making it constitutionally illegal. Churches tried to get in, but even if a visit could happen, visitors were closely monitored and exposed to the “wonder of atheism” and saw religious structures that had been turned into warehouses and cinemas. What they also saw were bunkers aimed at protecting the state dotting the mountain sides. Enver Hoxa statues were everywhere you turned your head. He was an iron-fisted infamous Albanian dictator, loved by a handful, hated by most.

But I dreamed about such a trip. The call came quite early in the morning, but when I heard the words, “Tirana, Albania,” I was quite awake.

On Sunday afternoon, April 15, 1991, the Swiss Air plane from Zurich landed at Rinas airport outside of Tirana, the capital. Stepping on the tarmac, I felt like kissing the ground. I was in Albania, the European secret. John Arthur, ADRA director of the Trans-European Division, followed me. Ours was a “mission possible” for the church again.

Naturally I wondered how we would be able to meet with anyone who could take us to discover our fellow believers. We had skimpy information about a family living in Korçë, in the south of the country—a city where Daniel Lewis, an Albanian from Boston, Massachusetts, established a pharmacy after responding to a call from the General Conference and becoming a missionary to Albania in the 1930s. Lewis reported five converts in 1939. His missionary activities landed him in prison, sentenced to 20 years, but four and a half years later he died in inhuman conditions. His Italian wife, Flora, was also imprisoned, and later moved back to live with her daughter, Esther. We received Flora’s address from the church in Italy and it led us to their home.

Thus began a series of emotional meetings, where we discovered that a group in Korçë, and the Gjika family in Tirana were waiting for someone to come from abroad, conduct Bible studies, and baptize several of them!

I met Meropi Gjika, who was 87 then, on my second visit to Albania a few months later, and this became perhaps the most inspirational moment for me. “The Lord sent you to us,” Meropi whispered adding to a hug which even today makes me well up and get goose bumps.

I learned how she hid a Greek Bible, which she read from Genesis to Revelation once a year. She translated it into Albanian and made sure her three children, Thanas, Victor, and Marherita, read the Scriptures, too. Her translations were meticulously written in a series of journals.

Meropi’s son, Thanas, a historian of Albanian literature at the Albanian Academy of Science, shared that she would often stop him as he left for work and ask, “Have you read your Bible text today?” Then he added, “Only when I said ‘yes’ could I go to work!”

Meropi’s granddaughter, Esther Pocari, who was soon to be employed as a secretary in the newly re-established Albanian Adventist mission, explained, “My grandma used to distribute pieces of paper with messages translated from the Bible. She gave them to everyone she met. I remember that whenever I visited her, she used to give me one to take with me. She put them in my pocket.”

One of Meropi’s greatest desires, when I visited with her, was to be relieved of the burden of keeping her tithe hidden. “What must I do with my tithe, which I have saved all these years?” she asked me. “Can you take it?” Meropi’s two sons explained that their mother would not keep the money in a bank because she didn’t trust the authorities.

Agreeing to return her tithe to the church, Meropi brought out a plastic bag from under her bed. In it was a carton full of Albanian leke and a few American dollars. For more that 20 years she had been on a $4.00 per month pension, yet she put aside her tithe and offerings. When we opened the carton, we found 24,629 leke and $41.00 in US funds. All told, she had saved the equivalent of US$533.89.

A few weeks later, Meropi was delighted to hand over the tithe to Pastor David Currie, a missionary-evangelist and a colleague of mine from the Trans-European Division office. After meeting Meropi, David returned to his hotel room that evening to count her tithe money. He told me later that he felt as if he was touching a sacred package. “I could not help but get on my knees and thank God for the faith of this vibrant Christian.” A total of US$533.89 was placed in a bank account of the revived Albanian Mission. In another emotionally-rich experience, I had the privilege of studying the Bible and praying with Meropi, her family and a few ready-to-be-baptized Albanian Christians. On April 18, 1992, a wonderful entry was written in the annals of Adventist history. It was on that Easter Sabbath afternoon that Meropi’s dream to be baptized came true. She was joined by her daughter, Marherita, granddaughter Esther, and five other believers. Together with Flora Sabbatino-Lewis, they became charter members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Albania.

Today, the church is not only present in this once-atheistic country, but has established several congregations and is a vibrant contributor to what Meropi was dreaming about—building a church in her country. She waited four decades to see her dream come true.

After my last visit with Meropi and her family ended and we bid farewell in her tiny one-bedroom flat, our eyes met but we did not need to say a word. As the family gathered on the balcony of their apartment block and we waved goodbye to each other, sister Meropi raised her hand, pointing heavenward. She nodded in the same direction. Words were not needed. We all knew—the Lord is coming back and we shall meet again, for eternity.

–Rajmund Dabrowski is RMC communication director and editor of Mountain Views. Email him at: [email protected]