Rocky Mountain Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

24 Apr

A QUIET WITNESS IN THE WORLD

The editor of this magazine sets the bar high for his writers. Every quarter, the dance he’s arranged comes dressed in its most beguiling colors. We writers have only to step onto the floor and take the hand of the lovely dance partner. The invitation is (almost) irresistible, but for me, to whom “graceful” is a distant adjective, this is a real challenge.

The topic, as I understood it, was how the Adventist church might engage the society and culture around it. And, thus, I tripped before even stepping foot on the dance floor.

It’s the “church” bit that throws me. A friend of mine, a former Union president and a keen analyst of the church’s political moves, has convinced me that the greatest contribution the Seventh-day Adventist Church has made to the world is its global network of hospitals. It is there, where people are the most vulnerable, that the institutional message of caring service shines the brightest.

No dispute there. I thought to add the educational system from kindergarten to advanced degrees, but that has an indirect effect on the world because it is, for the most part, a closed system built primarily for members. That’s not to say that Adventists don’t value education. Anecdotally, I’ve heard that Adventists have the highest proportion of college-educated members of any Christian denomination. We have “studied to show ourselves approved” by God and humans.

No, what doesn’t work is the notion that the official church body, the public-facing institution of Adventism, has a relative influence on the billions of people in the world. When the pope issues an encyclical or makes a comment about some current issue, it’s newsworthy. When the president of the Southern Baptist Convention speaks out against the ordination of women or the president of Liberty University hosts Donald Trump, it’s newsworthy.

When Adventists make the news it’s often for the wrong reasons: our links to the tragic debacle at Waco, Texas, or a local minister embezzling funds, or a teacher at an Adventist boarding school brought up on sexual assault charges. Granted, the “news” is often bent toward the salacious and the gratuitous, rather than the uplifting or even the commonplace, but my point is that pronouncements from official Adventism have little effect on the world.

I have noticed, over the years, that we Adventists seem to suffer from an inferiority complex. We admire celebrities, especially those who might have some link to Adventism. When I was in college at an agape feast or an informal Bible study, someone would comment that Billy Graham had read all of Ellen G. White’s books. “He’s just waiting for the right moment to come out,” they would assert confidently. The implication was that Graham’s public recognition of the Spirit of Prophecy and his subsequent joining the church would elevate Adventism and bring it into the mainstream of American religious life.

I had known that Little Richard attended Oakwood College during a period of his life when he had withdrawn from rock ‘n roll. Until his death in 2016, I did not know that Prince had been raised with Seventh-day Adventist roots. Adventist Today reported the connection in April 2016, and noted Prince was the kind of person who might embarrass the denomination but conjectured that his creative genius may have sprung in part from his Adventist faith and could have positively affected millions of young fans.

My reaction on reading this was probably typical. I was first surprised, then gratified (he was one of ours!), followed by relief that an Adventist publication thought it possible God could be at work in the life of a superstar rock musician. Then I was amused about my own reaction, sensing an electric thrill that someone famous was part of my religious tribe.

Where did that come from, I wondered. Did I really need that validation, such as it was, to be comfortable in my Adventist skin? Did it mean we Adventists weren’t as weird as we are sometimes portrayed? Or did the association, however tenuous, somehow make me cool?

It occurred to me that in living a life of meaning, subject to both reason and imagination, no question about our relation to others and to God is trivial. If I count myself as part of the Adventist Church, do I have an obligation to answer for how the official church body faces the world? Just as I, as a member of a society, cannot avoid my role in the polis and thus my attitude toward politics, do I have a responsibility toward my denomination to support its stance on public issues or to defend its avoidance of them?

The way in which I thought of these questions as a teenager in my newly awakened faith in Christ was different than how I think about them now, over fifty years later. In that first flush of excitement about my faith in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I saw the church as a slow beast which could be prodded into action, a stubborn donkey which might respond to either a carrot or a stick. I thought of myself as both: generally, a persuader holding a carrot, now and then a youthful agitator wielding the stick of righteous action. A favorite text in those days was from 2^nd Timothy where the Living New Testament says, “Do not let anyone look down upon you because of your youth.”

What I could not admit in those days (and did not want to believe) was that the Church, like most institutions, was as much about self-preservation as it was about mission. Change would threaten both, but only the threat to mission would be acknowledged. Self-preservation was embedded so deeply in the structure of the church that it was part of the “peace that passeth understanding.”

Now I see those individuals in church administration, whom I regarded as obstinate donkeys as men (occasionally women) who had played the game long enough to become highly skilled at keeping their positions while in service to the ongoing mission of the church, which was to survive to the end.

I cannot unfairly judge them because, like them, I cannot see the big picture. More to the point, my voluntary association with the church calls me to be on the boundary between “the church and the world.” As an individual, I can engage with the world in ways that an institution cannot. And I would argue that the institution needs individuals who can give a reason for the hope that is within them.

In college, I held the view that the Adventist Church would play a critical role in last-day events, perhaps as the hinge of history, but surely as a doorway to salvation. I still believe in the doorway, but not the hinge of history. There are many ways Christ draws people to himself; the Church, no doubt, is one of them. But it is not the first way, nor will it be the last.

I no longer have an expectation that the Adventist Church will be publicly forthright on pressing political and social issues. It simply doesn’t have the moral authority or the deftness to navigate those troubled waters. But the many individuals guided by the Spirit within the church—that’s where spiritual life can be awakened in the lives of others. I find Jesus’s warning against an ostentatious witness to be compelling.

I was a teacher for many years, both within the church and in secular universities. It was a rewarding vocation, a privileged calling, in which I did what I loved every day and got paid for it.

Now I am retired and have returned to my first love—the arts, specifically, poetry. Now I have time to study it and the pleasure of reading and writing it. I am finding my voice, haltingly, as someone immersed in humanity made in the image of God, with all its blemishes and glories. The challenge of touching others through the poetry of faith is exhilarating.

Everyone reading this has something they do which they love. Anything that is good and true and beautiful can permeate one’s life in such a way as to create openings for the Spirit to live and move and have its being in us.

The metaphors of discipleship which Jesus gave us are many and varied. The ones most moving to me are salt, light, and a little yeast. They create an image of the fellowship of Jesus affecting the world quietly, pervasively, without fanfare, until the day that Christ becomes all in all.

Barry Casey has published in Adventist Society for the Arts, Brevity, Faculty Focus, Lighthouse Weekly, Mountain Views, Patheos, Spectrum Magazine, The Dewdrop, and The Purpled Nail. His collection of essays, Wandering, Not Lost: Essays on Faith, Doubt, and Mystery, was published by Wipf and Stock in November 2019. He writes from Burtonsville, Maryland. Email him at: [email protected]

24 Apr

HOW WILL THEY KNOW?

I grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist faith tradition, and, as a young person attending Adventist churches and schools, I frequently heard that I was supposed to be “in the world but not of the world.” Don’t hang out with those people because you’ll become more like them. Don’t watch the wrong television shows or you’ll become less sensitive to the evil in the world. Don’t read the wrong books or you won’t want to read the right ones. Perhaps there was a degree of wisdom in this counsel, but I don’t recall hearing much about how to be “in the world.” There was much more focus on how to stay separate from the world than how to impact it.

When we think about how Seventh-day Adventists influence the world around us, we tend to focus on famous Adventists. The famous singers, physicians, preachers, and authors. The famous hospitals and schools. These people and organizations have impacted the world in many positive ways, but what about ordinary Adventists leading ordinary lives? How can we be in the world and influence it positively for the kingdom? Albert Einstein said, “Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means.”

We can set a good example by focusing on the right things. I knew a woman who worked with several Adventists and had positive interactions and experiences with them, but she didn’t know much about Adventist beliefs. She knew what these people didn’t eat, what they didn’t wear, and when they went to church, but that was about it. One day she saw a preacher on television and called the phone number on the screen. They sent her a book. It eventually led to Bible studies with a local pastor and her decision to be baptized into the Adventist church.

Her friends celebrated with her and showed up at the service to support her. As she stepped into the water, the sweet preacher who helped lead her to choose a new life in Jesus leaned down and said, “Your toenails shouldn’t be painted red. God didn’t make them like that.” Thankfully, she had the wisdom and maturity to put his criticism in perspective and laugh it off, but not everyone could have done that.

This is a silly (but true) story. It happened a long time ago and likely wouldn’t happen today, but in many other ways, it’s still happening. While living in a world that desperately needs our Savior, we focus on the wrong things and set terrible examples of what freedom and joy in Christ look like. How can we positively impact the culture outside our faith community when we can’t focus on what really matters in our own spaces? While we sling arrows at each other on the inside, the culture around us considers us out of touch and even irrelevant.

There is disagreement within our faith community about what really matters, and this is perplexing for people who claim to be “People of the Book.” The Bible states repeatedly that God’s law is fulfilled when we love our neighbors as ourselves. When Jesus was asked to clarify who our neighbors are, He replied with a story about showing kindness and mercy. He didn’t reply with a list of qualities of worthy neighbors. If we had such a definitive list, we would no doubt study the lives of the people we don’t like and diagnose them as unworthy based upon their lacking enough of the stated qualities. Who are our neighbors? Everybody. All of them. Each other. No exceptions.

We would have an out-sized influence on the culture around us if we were known as people who love our God and love each other. Full stop. We try to make it so complicated, and it just isn’t. Neither is it easy.

Truly loving each other within the Adventist community would require an extraordinary level of humility. We’d have to admit that we’ve focused on the wrong things. We’d have to stop trying to control each other with our own preferences and let love guide our every action. If we demonstrated that love is our greatest commandment, we would celebrate and ordain women who are called by the Spirit to preach the gospel and minister in our communities. If love were our guide, we wouldn’t tolerate racism in any form and would use every position and platform to fight it. If love was our highest goal, the LGBTQ community would view our church as a refuge from hate, fear, and judgment. If we really learned to love, mental health challenges would no longer be judged as weakness and lack of faith.

Imagine what influence we would have on society if we could be known as people who love really, really well. We would be more inclusive, more accessible, more compelling, more relevant. Perhaps more people would want to belong to our communities, and sometimes it seems like that might actually be the problem. If we become more relevant, are we subject to being diluted? Will we become more “of the world” if we become more inclusive? Of course, this is ridiculous, yet we’ve all seen newcomers to our faith pressured to assimilate and become more like us and less like, well, them. If we just love them, are we somehow less like us? Have we influenced the culture around us, or has it now influenced us?

Loving all our neighbors is extraordinarily complicated when we’re faced with the prospect of loving people who behave horribly. I’m having a very difficult time contemplating how to love the man who recently killed a young mother and her child, dumping their bodies just down the road from our home. It’s almost inconceivable that God loves him as much as He loves me, and yet, He does. I’ve concluded that loving neighbors like this requires a love that is only possible when Jesus abides in us. When we commit to living lives that represent Jesus to the culture around us, He creates in us a love that makes no sense whatsoever. It’s impossible on our own.

Love is a simple concept, but it requires a miracle within each of us to do it well. We’re accustomed to picking and choosing where and how we love, but Jesus didn’t leave us that option.

Jesus told His disciples, So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples (John 13:34-35, New Living Translation).

Jesus made it very clear how we can impact the world and culture around us: Love each other.

Joyce Newmyer is a member of Crosswalk Portland in Portland, Oregon. She loves people and immensely dislikes snakes. She is the Chief People Officer and Oregon Network President for Adventist Health. Email her at: [email protected]

24 Apr

A CULTURE OF LOVE

My church is infallible.

Well, at least it’s in-fall-able.

We have been promised that “the church may appear as about to fall, but it does not fall.” ¹

But why even talk about failure, or falling? We are one of the fastest growing and most diverse religious denominations in the world. We have the largest Protestant educational system and the largest Protestant healthcare system in the world. Our members, at least in North America, live 10 years longer, on average, than the typical American. One of our members ran for U.S. president and served in a presidential cabinet position. A major Hollywood movie about another one of our members won numerous national and international film awards, including two Academy Awards. We Adventists are doing quite well, thank you.

And yet….

Many of the local churches with which I am acquainted seem to be living on life support, and “two radically different versions of Adventism are competing for the future” ² of the church.

Perhaps it would be well for us to remember that “the promises and threatenings of God are alike conditional.” ³

I believe culture is basic to the conditions that are threatening our church.

Culture is a society’s way of life. It includes its art, its music, its theology, its manners, its food, its dress, its language, its entertainment, its customs, and its standards of morality. The scope of a culture may be worldwide, or may include an entire hemisphere, a geographical region, a single country, a business, a religious organization, a small group, or even a single family.

Cultures are also constantly at war, at least since the Middle Ages, when we have the deceptive sense that there was some level of cultural tranquility. Subsequently, however, there has been constant tension in almost every society between what we may call a conservative view, with those who wish for things to remain as they are, or to even retreat into the safe, warm bosom of the past, and what we may call a progressive outlook, made up of those who are consistently agitating for change. I believe these two divergent views clearly describe the two versions of Adventism that are currently competing for the future of our church.

The conservative cry is, “We have abandoned the faith of our forefathers! We must nail down and stand firm on the principles of truth!” The response of the progressives is, “We are still here. ‘Had the church of Christ done her appointed work as the Lord ordained, the whole world would before this have been warned, and the Lord Jesus would have come to our earth in power and great glory.’ ⁴ Change is necessary and we must constantly be alert to revealed present truth.”

To the progressive, “knowledge is elusive and mistakenness the inescapable human condition.” ⁵ To the hard-core conservative, “there is one clear truth in the world and many liars. The other side is not merely wrong, it is lying … The very best you can say about people who deny obvious truth is that they are … ‘willfully naïve.’ ” ⁶

Despite those who fight change, culture is constantly changing, and that change is bi-directional—smaller groups influence larger groups, and vice versa. While most religions attempt to change the culture around them, many groups are more worried about how the larger culture of “the world” will impact their members, especially their young people. This is especially true in small groups, but can also be true in larger ones, even entire countries. China, Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan historically limited or excluded foreigners from entering their countries in attempts to preserve their religions and unique cultures. Conversely, many non-religious people now worry that the cultures of religious organizations in America are impacting them and their families in ways they feel are detrimental to their way of life.

The Seventh-day Adventist church is a worldwide organization, and the overall culture of the church varies from country to country. Although there are wide variations in what is considered necessary or allowable in each of the following categories, I believe there are six principal arenas of social life that are commonly found among cultural Adventists: an abiding interest in healthful living; an impetus for a witnessing ministry, including the healthcare ministry; a strong motivation for educational achievement; a traditional standard of morality; an awareness of last-day events; and a reverence for the seventh-day Sabbath.

In each of these areas, we have had significant impacts on the culture of the world. Vegetarianism and veganism are now viewed as integral parts of a healthy lifestyle. Our hospitals and health facilities for many years provided the best health care available in many countries. Governmental leaders and politicians around the world have been educated in our schools or raised in our churches. Our official stance on the inability for women to be ordained and the perception of a growing acceptance of Headship Theology in the church continues to impact our society. And the two doctrinal beliefs highlighted in our very name, the second coming of Christ and the value of a Sabbath-like rest, have moved from being obscure theological ideas to widely appreciated principles in many religious denominations.

It could be argued, however, that the greatest influence our church has had on the culture of the world has come from two unlikely sources—the music of Little Richard and the dietary innovations of John Harvey Kellogg. Richard Penniman, professionally known as Little Richard, strongly influenced popular music and laid the foundation for the rock and roll music that has inspired rock groups and young people around the world since the 1950s. John Harvey Kellogg’s inventions changed the world’s eating habits with his breakfast cereals and, at least in America, the vital ingredient in peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

Adventism, however, was not primarily founded to introduce the world to Long,Tall Sally, or to help the world enjoy peanut butter. Our ultimate mission should be like the mission of Jesus—to provide the world with a clear revelation of the character of God.

When the object of his mission was attained—the revelation of God to the world—the Son of God announced that his ork was accomplished, and that the character of the Father was made manifest to man.⁷

To help us with our mission, we were given some cultural aids: guidance on a healthy lifestyle, a health-care ministry, an educational ministry, a Sabbath-like rest, a prophetic voice, and a cosmic picture of God’s activities for the salvation of his creatures. This includes a somewhat nebulous timeline to help prepare the world for the “soon” Second Coming of Christ. These aids have, to a large degree, helped form our unique church culture.

We as a church have benefited from these cultural aids. We are a healthy church. We are a health-giving church. We are a well-educated church. We are a diverse church. We are a prophetic church. We are a growing church.

All these things are good, in and of themselves, but they are not, and never were meant to be, our ultimate mission. They were intended to be useful in helping us achieve our ultimate mission, but too often they have distracted us from that mission. We are famous for being the best or the largest in many arenas, but I have never yet had anyone tell me that our church has the best picture of the character of God that they have ever seen. No one has ever told me that they believe our church exhibits the greatest ability to love others unconditionally and disinterestedly that they have ever experienced.

Christ was clear about how the world would be able to recognize his followers. This is how all men will know that you are my disciples, because you have such love for one another (John 13:35, J.B. Phillips translation). Until it can honestly be said of us that we are a healthy church because we love, that we are a health-giving church because we love, that we are a well-educated church because we love, that we are a diverse church because we love, that we are a prophetic church because we love, and that we are a growing church because we love, the world has every right to look away from us because they do not recognize that we are followers of Christ.

And until we preach the gospel, the best of all good news, that the character of God the Father is just like Jesus showed it to be, we will continue to be just another cymbal in the cacophony of the world’s culture.

Mark Johnson, MD, is a retired public health physician and the chairman of the Boulder Adventist Vision Board. Email him at: [email protected]

¹ White, Ellen G. Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 380.

² Johnsson, W. G. (2017). Where Are We Headed? Adventism after San Antonio. Oak and Acorn Publishing.

³ White, Ellen G. Selected Messages, vol. 1, p. 67.

⁴ White, Ellen G. The Desire of Ages, p. 633-634.

⁵ Rauch, J. (2013). Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought. The University of Chicago Press.

⁶ Ibid (p. 107).

⁷ White, Ellen G. Signs of the Times, January 20, 1890.

24 Apr

Light To Suffering Humanity

Possibly one of the most profound ways that Adventism has influenced the wider culture has been through healthful living. From breakfast cereals, courtesy of the Kellogg brothers, to cutting edge surgeries such as when Leonard Bailey transplanted a baboon’s heart into a human infant known as “Baby Fae,” to proton treatments, Adventists are recognized for their innovations that have changed everyday lives, whether people realize it or not, in significant ways. Even more recently, National Geographic recognized those Adventists living in the Loma Linda area as one of the “blue zones” of longest living people groups on the planet.

While perusing the archives recently, I came across a series of letters from I. H. Evans, the first president of the North American Division (1913-1918) who, during his leadership, was responsible for several initiatives. One of the most significant was the need for a site for physicians and nurses connected to the College of Medical Evangelists at Loma Linda (today, Loma Linda University) for clinical training. But since the institution was in the rural San Bernardino area with not enough people to support such a facility (hard to imagine today!), it was decided that it was an imperative necessity that such a hospital be built in downtown Los Angeles.

In a newly discovered letter by G. I. Butler, former church president, he expressed his strong support for naming the institution after Ellen G. White, as the White Memorial Hospital (an Adventist healthcare facility that continues to exist in Los Angeles, California). He described it as the “crowning feature” of the Adventist medical training work that showed the rest of the world that Adventists care for and desire to uplift “suffering humanity.” He added: “Sister White has been the apostle of this health movement among our people and the world. Light from heaven came through her to our people on this stupendous subject.” He recounted what a blessing this health message has been in the development of the church as many other health institutions have been and continue to function around the globe.

So, what was the health message?

Adventist historians have, for many years, recognized that there were many health reformers in the nineteenth century. And so it is not surprising that a movement that was birthed in the crucible of reform would recognize how important it is to live a healthy and whole life. In fact, one of my favorite books is a book highlighting the supposed “good ‘ol days” that were indeed terrible! In addition to shortened lifespans, which was typically dependent on the region and decade, one could, if you were fortunate, live into your 30s or maybe your 40s. This is approximately half of what it is today. Dangerous drugs were regularly prescribed, and American physicians were generally perceived as some of the most backward in the world. Oliver Wendell Holmes once famously quipped: “I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica could be sunk to the bottom of the sea it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes.”

Ellen G. White, in a series of visions, would come to increasingly recognize the significance of health reform. Her most far-reaching vision on the subject occurred at the home of Aaron and Lydia Hillard, Adventists living in Otsego, Michigan, when on Friday evening, June 5, 1863, Ellen G. White had a health reform vision. During those 45 minutes, as she later recounted, she discovered eight “true remedies” (as found in Ministry of Healing, pg. 127): pure air, sunlight, abstemiousness, rest, exercise, proper diet, use of water, and trust in divine power.

What is not as well known is that this prescriptive use of natural remedies was far from unique to Adventists. As already pointed out, there were many other health reformers of her day, but what did, in fact, make it unique was the spiritual and holistic emphasis. The notion that we are a whole person composed of body, mind, and spirit (or spiritual). This holistic emphasis was reflected in how Adventists understood the state of the dead (as a sleep until the resurrection) to other aspects of Adventism such as the unique nature of Adventist education (once again, most Adventist school logos and mottos will often reflect these three aspects of body, mind, and spirit). In other words, Adventist health reform was unique and significant because of this spiritual component and emphasized the composition of the whole person.

Every person has a sacred responsibility to observe health laws, or natural laws, just as they take seriously the law of God, such as the seventh-day Sabbath, and keep it out of love. This latter part was especially important because some people might view it as some sort of legalistic obligation, but as early Adventist health reformers (and especially Ellen G. White) emphasized, following these natural laws contributed to a happier and longer life. God knows what is best for us and wants us to be in relationship with Him to the best of our ability.

Gerald Wheeler has noted that these early understandings about what was right and wrong were “strongly conditioned by cultural, as well as time factors.” During this time “the white middle-class population felt threatened by their own declining birth rate and a rising tide of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. They saw political control slipping from their grasp. The authors of the popular health articles saw in the eight laws of health a means of keeping the women of the white middle class in good health so they could have more children. They believed that the future of the nation literally rested on the health and fertility of the Anglo-Saxon Protestant women.” ¹ In other words, through the prophetic gift, Ellen G. White was able to select from culture what was valuable and timeless from that which was not helpful.

Ellen G. White also recognized that the health message had strategic value, not only for living a healthier life, but also for helping to improve the lives of others. “The medical missionary work is as the right arm to the third angel’s message which must be proclaimed … They awaken spiritual joy and melody in the hearts of those who have been free from suffering, and thanksgiving to God arises from the lips of many.” ² Elsewhere she wrote: “The health reform, I was shown, is a part of the third angel’s message, and is just as closely connected with it as are the arm and hand with the human body. I saw that we as a people must make an advance move in this great work.” ³

Another Adventist pioneer, J. H. Waggoner, wrote in 1866 about how “we do not profess to be pioneers in the general principles of health reform.” Instead, “we do claim that by the method of God’s choice it has been more clearly and powerfully unfolded and is thereby producing an effect which we could not have looked for from any other means.” ⁴ In other words, through the prophetic gift, God was helping our spiritual forebears to realize that he truly does love and care for us. In fact, as a group recognized as a “blue zone” or some of the longest living people on earth, this knowledge is a blessing meant to be both experienced and shared with others. The true test of Adventist health reform is that it should make us live healthier and happier lives. It is therefore only fitting that in 1916, as Adventist church leaders wrestled with what to name the new hospital, that they named it after Ellen G. White herself.

The Adventist understanding of healthful living, along with many creative innovations in its wake, continues to undergird one of the largest medical systems in the world. And arguably, continues to be one of the most profound ways that Adventism has and continues to shape the culture around them.

Michael W. Campbell, PhD, is director of archives, statistics, and research for the North American Division of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. He has spent over a decade teaching in higher education in schools in Texas and the Philippines. Previously he pastored in Kansas and in the Rocky Mountain Conference. He is married to Heidi, a PhD candidate at Baylor University, and they have two teenage children, Emma, and David.

¹ Wheeler, G. “The Historical Basis of Adventist Standards,” Ministry, Oct. 1989, pg. 10-11.

² White, Ellen G. Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, p. 229.

³ White, Ellen G. Counsels on Diets and Foods, p. 74.

⁴ Waggoner, J.H. Review and Herald, August 7, 1866.

24 Apr

BETWEEN NOT AT ALL AND VERY LITTLE: ADVENTISM’S IMPACT ON OUR CULTURE

So, the question is: how does Adventism impact the surrounding culture?

The answer I am tempted to offer, from where I sit, is: somewhere on a continuum between “not at all” and “very little.”

But that is not very helpful, nor is it quite fair. A better response would be that the impact is “patchy.”

I write from Europe, from England, where the situation is no doubt different from the place where many readers of this journal live. In the whole of Europe, there is only one Adventist hospital—in Berlin. There are a couple of institutions which bear the name “university,” but they are very small and do not really resemble what I understand by the term. Fine institutions that they are, and well-qualified though the faculties may be, they enroll relatively few students and offer a narrow range of courses rather than a “universe” of options.

There are a few residential homes for the elderly. There are some scattered elementary and secondary schools in European countries, and they no doubt make their mark on local communities. The biggest presence is in what might loosely be called “seminaries.” Many European countries have their own small Adventist colleges which focus largely on the education of intending pastors and biblical studies. As the students find their way into ministry, they do, of course, influence the communities in which they serve.

So, the answer to the original question may be towards the “very little” end of the spectrum. Publishing houses do exist, but the glory days of vegetarian food factories, and sanitoria, like the famous Skodsborg San in Denmark, are gone. Yet all this only deals with Adventist institutions, just one aspect of the picture.

I could tell you another side of the story.

I could tell you about the London Adventist Chorale which has sung at great state occasions—at Buckingham Palace for the golden jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II and at other premier venues like Toronto’s Sky Dome. They sing a wide repertoire from spirituals to the western choral tradition. One music critic said their music is distinguished by “discipline with fervor.” Their conductor, Ken Burton, is the BBC’s go-to person for Gospel music and more.

I could tell you about Herbert Blomstedt, a Swede, who has been one of the world’s leading orchestral conductors for a long time. Now in his mid-1990s, he is still conducting. It is well-known in classical music circles that he is a Christian and a Sabbath keeper who will perform on Sabbaths, but will not practice because performance is joy, but practice is work.

I could tell you about Marianne Thieme in the Netherlands who founded the Party for the Animals in 2002 and became an Adventist four years later. Though this is a secular party, Marianne draws inspiration from the Adventist commitment to vegetarianism and Ellen G. White’s writings more generally. The Party has had representatives at all political levels from the European Parliament to the Dutch Parliament to regional governments.

I could tell you about the Adventist bikers in Serbia, the “Three Angels,” rather than the Hell’s Angels. They combine their passion for Jesus with love for being on the road. They organize rides, do “ordinary stuff,” as they say, and allow the Spirit to work gently.

I could tell you about Alan Collins, an English Adventist sculptor. “The Good Samaritan” sculpture at Loma Linda is his work. He fashioned the “Gilded Angel” atop the tower of the Anglican cathedral in Guildford, southeast of London, as well as its nine statues of “The Gifts of the Spirit.” He also has other work in various public spaces.

I could tell you about the recent prime time TV program in the UK which focused on those places in the world where people live longest. Loma Linda is featured alongside a Greek Island and a Japanese mountain community. Exercise, diet, a sense of community, and finding meaningful work well into retirement were common themes and, in Loma Linda’s case, an undergirding faith in a generous God.

I could tell you about Jean-Claude Verrecchia, my friend and former colleague at Newbold College. He is a New Testament scholar of some distinction who has long helped to direct the French Bible Society.

I could tell you more stories such as these about individuals or small groups who exercise influence in various groups in different countries in Europe. The influence is significant, but largely local. For Seventh-day Adventists in Europe, name recognition remains poor and understanding of what the Church represents is, I suspect, no better.

In trying, with difficulty, to understand these different measures of the Church’s success or “impact,” I have wondered whether the ideas of H. Richard Niebuhr, the American scholar (1894-1962), might help. In his great classic Christ and Culture, he tried to trace the relationship between Christ’s church and the surrounding culture.

Niebuhr suggested five possible relationships—and here I must simplify greatly because of the restrictions of space.

Is Christ against culture? This view holds that the values of Christ are simply at odds with those of the wider secular society.

Should we speak of the Christ of culture? That history is the story of the Spirit of Christ infusing itself at every turn in our civilization?

Perhaps, rather, it is a matter of the Christ above culture. That is to say that all history is a preparation of the soul for communion with God.

Another option is Christ and culture in paradox. There is an ongoing struggle between faith and unbelief, and we are now in the time between the moment of promise and its fulfillment.

Lastly, there is Christ transforming culture. History is the story of humanity’s transforming responses to the presence of God in time.

In the case of the Adventist church in Europe, we might well see elements of all the above, but none is adequate in itself. Adventists do recognize the evils and excesses of the world in which we live. We are to be “in the world but not of it.” That means that we affirm that God’s good Spirit is constantly at work in human affairs. The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes says Jesus of the Holy Spirit to Nicodemus in John 3.8. We do seek to prepare ourselves and others to come into relationship with God. Many of us are inevitably children of our culture, and at some time struggle between faith and unbelief and know what it is to doubt the goodness of God. We do believe in God’s transforming power even if we do not expect it to revolutionize the structures of our societies.

Helpful as Niebuhr’s model may be, it does not offer a full account of our lives lived between the extremities of our flawed societies and the overwhelming love of the Lord of the Church, of the Lord of all.

Adventists in Europe live in among all these tensions. It is clear now that the answer does not lie principally in the establishment of thriving institutions. These reach the end of their usefulness at some stage. We have shown, by much of our organized activity, that we do not believe in an ongoing head-on crash with the wider world. Indeed, in Europe we increasingly seek varying but real involvement of our Church in wider community ventures, as the sterling efforts of all the European country Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) offices show.

Not only that, but local Adventist churches are increasingly much involved in community services of various kinds. The response to needs which arose during the Covid pandemic and to food poverty show that well enough. We do see the life and work of outstanding Adventist individuals and groups being highly regarded.

So, to come back to the original question about Adventism’s impact on culture, none of the responses I offered at the outset is adequate. No impact at all? Clearly not the case. Little? Yes, but at certain times and in certain places, it has been and is quite marked. Patchy then? But that is not very flattering, and it really does not do the Church justice.

The word “impact” is a strong one implying something forceful, dramatic, muscular, public.

Maybe we can more helpfully talk about “influence” rather than “impact.” Adventist influence where I live is, I think, best described as “local” and “gentle.” Maybe not unlike the impact of Jesus in his own lifetime, in his own culture. For the most part, that influence took a long time to show itself. A slow burn rather than an explosion.

I believe that the wind still blows. The Spirit still moves. That gentle Spirit still woos us with its fierce tenderness.

Michael Pearson is Principal Lecturer Emeritus at Newbold College in the UK. For many years he taught topics in ethics, philosophy, and spirituality. He and his wife, Helen, write a weekly blog pearsonsperspectives.com Email him at: [email protected]

24 Apr

LEARNING TO BE IN AND FOR THE WORLD

I remember the first time I ever saw a movie in the movie theater—as well as the lecture I received from my mother as a result. I was 10 or 11 years old and had a sleepover at one of my neighbors’ houses on a Saturday night. When they announced that the plans for the evening consisted of going to a movie, I gulped.

I had been taught from very early on that going to a movie at the theater was wrong and perhaps even sinful—that somehow, some way, the same movie you’d watch in your house was more evil and less holy if you watched it in a theater. I knew that didn’t quite make sense, but being a pretty obedient young boy who didn’t like to get in trouble, I’d carefully followed that line of thinking, despite the fact that my older siblings had been less compliant.

Nevertheless, my opportunity finally came, and I was unwilling to be a difficult guest. So I went and felt an overwhelming sense of guilt the whole time I sat in that dark theater—a guilt which was only exacerbated when I returned home the next day. My mother had somehow learned of my great sin and took me privately into her room, where she expressed great sadness and disappointment about my decision.

For the record, my mother is a very kind, gracious, and Jesus-loving person who, I believe, was just doing the best she knew how. And also, for the record, I’m not even necessarily trying to address whether going to a movie theater is right or wrong. I respect everyone’s personal convictions on that.

What I’m speaking more to, and what strikes me as interesting, is how Seventh-day Adventists have, historically, had a bit of a complicated relationship with the wider culture. We don’t know exactly how to relate to it.

There are many people who have a very adversarial stance toward it. Everything the “world” produces is evil and must be resisted and avoided. Popular culture—movies, music, television, even social media—is a prime tool of the devil to draw people away from God and His truth.

There are plenty of other Adventists, of course, who take the opposite approach. Culture is something to be celebrated and embraced. Not only should we fully imbibe our surrounding culture, but we should be active participants in it and even positively contribute to it. At the same time, whether one has explicit Christian goals when engaging and participating in culture, is somewhat irrelevant under this model.

Somewhere in between is perhaps the biggest group of Adventists. There is an underlying ambivalence and perhaps even cognitive dissonance when it comes to culture. There’s some participation and consumption of the surrounding culture, but not a full embracing of it. It’s like my upbringing where we wouldn’t watch movies in the theater but would watch those same movies in our home. We aren’t quite sure how to relate to culture—on the one hand, we enjoy it, but on the other hand, we’re also a little nervous about it.

What’s more, with this stance, if we do participate in the surrounding culture, we only do so with explicitly Christian goals. The music we create, the services we provide, ever have in mind some larger evangelistic goal. We would have a hard time writing a song, for example, that didn’t have explicitly Christian lyrics. Or we couldn’t imagine serving a marginalized population without making sure we provided them with plenty of Christian literature.

Simply put, to whatever degree we do step into our surrounding culture under such a model, we want to clearly communicate we’re doing so because of Christ, and with an eye toward inviting them into a commitment to Christ.

So, what are we to make of all this—and how should we relate to and either participate in or avoid our surrounding culture?

Christ and Culture

Seventy years ago, H. Richard Niebuhr, who was one of the twentieth century’s most influential theologians, wrote a seminal work entitled Christ and Culture. The book addressed the topic we’re presently discussing and largely set the parameters within for discussion over the next many decades among Christians.

Niebuhr proposed that there were essentially five different models of how Christ—and, by extension, Christ’s followers—relates to culture. Those five models, to some degree, map very well on to the three categories I outlined above. The first model is Christ against culture, where “the world” is so corrupt and irredeemable that one must avoid it altogether, living in complete isolation from and ignorance of the culture. The second is the Christ of culture, where there’s very little distinction between the values of “the world” and the values of Christ, encouraging the Christian to fully participate in it.

The last three have significant overlap and represent the sort of “middle road” that has been characteristic of much of Christian history—the Christ above culture model, the Christ and culture in paradox model, and Christ the transformer of culture model. These three approaches, to various degrees, basically propose that one shouldn’t wholly avoid culture, recognizing there are important reasons to participate in it, while keeping one’s Christian commitments and priorities firmly intact while doing so.

For Niebuhr’s part, he never fully revealed which model he preferred or embraced, though many have noted that he seemed most sympathetic to the last view—that the Christian should choose to participate in the culture for the purpose of ultimately trying to transform it for Christ’s purposes and glory.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I think the first model is very problematic—the idea that Christ is against culture. As Niebuhr points out, seeing “the world” as purely evil fails to account for the fact that we are all evil—even us Christians. Trying to therefore escape from culture does not at all remove us from the influences of evil because evil resides in all our hearts. And, unfortunately, and ironically, sometimes that evil is even more pronounced—and hidden—in separatist religious groups, where it can exist under the cloak of darkness and remain unchallenged. At the same time, completely separating from “the world” makes it really difficult to reach, much less love, the people of “the world,” which Christ clearly calls us to do.

And yet the Christ of culture approach also seems to inadequately account for the ways in which “the world” does have its challenges and limitations. Not everything created in the name of culture is praiseworthy. Similarly, we do have a God who, while embodying Himself in this world in the Person of Jesus, does stand outside this world and points beyond it. Indeed, we do live with an eye toward a “new earth” that we want to tell people about—a new earth that more fully aligns with God’s heartbeat than the present one does.

At the same time, I don’t think we should be myopically focused on trying to “convert” the world, only participating in it if we can be annoyingly explicit about our evangelistic agenda. Serving and blessing and benefiting others, whether they know we’re doing it because of Jesus or not, is worth doing no matter what.

This doesn’t at all mean we should bury the gospel component; we should ever want to be open about our faith in Christ and how He has been our only true source of hope. But we don’t merely focus on proselytizing others in our cultural engagement, and we recognize how the full range of human experiences and emotions reflect God, whether we ever mention Him or not.

On the other hand, we also recognize, as those who believe Christ will return before the whole world gets fully transformed, that cultural transformation will ever be an unfinished task this side of heaven. At best, we can be, as N. T. Wright likes to put it, “signposts” of what the new heavens and new earth will look like, but never its full realization. So, we seek cultural transformation with the understanding that it will ultimately be incomplete.

Christians have traditionally said, playing off Christ’s words in John 17, that we should be in, but not of, the world. I’m not sure if this is or isn’t a good way of explaining it, but I think I prefer another way I’ve heard it articulated: following the lead of Christ, who loved the world so much that He stepped into it and gave His life for it, we should be in and for the world.

In so doing, we don’t run away from culture, but we also recognize the ways it can be used to ultimately undermine the world’s well-being. We recognize the ways we’re all evil, and yet we recognize the ways the Spirit is working on every heart, since, in the words of Paul, the Spirit is not far from each one of us (Acts 17:27).

So, yes, let’s listen to the ways the Spirit is working on everyone’s heart—through the culture they create—and ultimately point to God’s other-worldly love through the culture we create.

Shawn Brace is a pastor in Bangor, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil student at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter @shawnbrace, and sign up for his weekly newsletter at: shawnbrace.substack.com

20 Apr

The Adventist Calling: Nurturing a Culture of Hope

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
– Jeremiah 29:11

This article is about despair and about hope—in the personal realm, in the society in which we live, and in what is happening on a global scale. It is about the culture of despair that dominates the context of our twenty-first century lives. And it is about the culture of hope that flows from the good news of Jesus Christ.

A Culture of Despair

Dictionaries, and books that analyze our time, provide us with various definitions of despair. Some authors point out how despair results from being so much concerned with the present that it clouds people’s eyes for the future. Others emphasize that despair is, first, a deep discontentment with today’s culture and with our own role in it. All descriptions have in common that despair is a total loss of hope. Former pastor and author Rob Bell pointedly said, “Despair is believing that tomorrow will be just like today!”

As I write this article, it was twelve days since the powerful earthquake destroyed parts or Turkey and Syria and left thousands of men and women in utter despair, silently waiting till the bodies of their loved ones are recovered from under the rubble. They have no idea where and how they will live a month or a year from now. Tens of thousands of wives and mothers in Ukraine and in Russia are despairing about the fate of their husbands and sons who are fighting in a war that is as terrible as it is senseless. A culture of despair envelops the western world as one crisis follows the other, and as leaders are unable to provide political and economic stability, while ever-increasing polarization rips nations and societies apart. In his book The American Culture of Despair, sociologist Richard K. Fenn (b. 1984) writes about the cycles of crisis that create wide-ranging despair and are undeniable evidence that America, like other parts of the world, is running out of time. The recent Covid-pandemic caused millions of people world-wide to wonder in desperation whether they would also fall victim to this sword of Damocles that was hanging over our world.

Despair has assumed global proportions as wars, natural disasters, hunger, and poverty ravage entire regions of planet Earth. But beneath these global dimensions is the anguish of the millions of individuals who have lost all sense of hope: people who have no roof over their head, as well as men and women whose relationships have been shipwrecked and who experience unbearable loneliness. Annually, in the United States alone almost two million people get the devastating diagnosis that they have cancer. Each year more than 800,000 people world-wide see no other escape from their misery than to end their own lives—that is: one suicide every 39 seconds!

The Antidote for Despair

Christians maintain that there is another way of looking at the world at large, and at our personal lives. They claim to have a message of hope, and echo what the apostle Paul wrote to encourage the believers in the city of Rome, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13). For most non-Christians these words may sound quite hollow. Can there really be hope amid all the hopelessness they see around them, and which they so often experience themselves? The reply of the Christian is: Yes, there can be hope! The words of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah are as true today as when they were first spoken: there is a God who looks after us, and this God wants nothing more fervently than to provide us with a solid hope and firm trust in the future (Jeremiah 29:11).

It is crucial, however, that we have a clear concept of what real hope consists of. For many, hope is little more than wishful thinking. Hope often is the unrealistic expectation of winning a big prize in a lottery, or it is focused on tomorrow’s weather. For others hope equals optimism. True hope, however, goes far beyond this. It is certainly good to be an optimist and to be able to see the good aspects of a given situation and not be entirely absorbed by its negative elements. True Christian hope is inextricably connected with our faith—with our trust in the One whom we have accepted as our Lord. Hope is, therefore, not just a matter of feelings. It is primarily an attitude, a state of mind. In some sense it may even be called a decision. It is a divine gift that can change our outlook on life and deliver us from anxieties. Vincent McNabb (1868-1943), an Irish poet and priest, expressed it like this: “Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace, that God gives to control our fears. Not to oust them.” ¹

Christian hope is centered in a Person—in the risen Christ. Faith in the risen Christ means the inner certainty that there is life after death; that there is a new world, even though many things seem to indicate that our present world is hopelessly falling apart. Our hope is not based on an idea. It is not based on a clever philosophy, but it is anchored in a Person. Not just in any person, but in the God, who created us, who sent his Son for us as our Redeemer, and who continues to guide us through his Holy Spirit. Our hope is based on our trust in who He is. With such a God there is always reason for true hope. Charles Allen (1913-2005), a well-known American Methodist minister once said, “When you say a situation or a person is hopeless, you are slamming the door in the face of God.” The poet who wrote Psalm 147 assures us, The Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope
in his unfailing love.²

A Culture of Hope

There is a widespread misunderstanding that hope is primarily a matter of emotion. It is difficult—or it maybe even impossible—to hang on to an emotion when circumstances deteriorate. In his book Making Hope Happen, psychologist Shane J. Lopez (who has been called “the world’s most preeminent expert on hope”), argues that true hope is active. People who have hope can imagine the future and dare to set goals. Hope precipitates action. Our faith allows us to harness the kind of hope that enables us to endure the present and set realistic goals for bringing about change in the future. At the beginning of this article, despair was defined as “believing that tomorrow will be just like today!” This is in stark contrast with hope, which is the trust that tomorrow can and will be different.

Seventh-day Adventists enjoy singing the hymn that Wayne Hooper (1920-2007) wrote as the theme song for the 1962 Adventist world congress, and has ever since been the favorite of countless church members: We have this hope that burns within our hearts … The sad reality, however, is that, for many Adventist believers, their hope is mingled with a firm dose of despair. They believe that Christ is coming back, and that He is the hope for our eternal future in a new and perfect world. But they have also been taught that before He appears on the clouds, when the dead of the past will be resurrected and those who are alive and expect Him will be changed from mortal into immortal, lots of terrible things must first take place. For many Adventists the prophecies about end-time events have been a source of deep-seated fear rather than the basis for a joyful expectation. Unfortunately, Adventist eschatology has often been part of a culture of despair, rather than the epitome of a culture of hope.

Seventh-day Adventists face the momentous challenge to create and nurture in their community a culture of hope. It is only when genuine hope becomes the main denominator of the Adventist fellowship of faith, that the Advent message of hope become attractive and credible.

Adventist Christians are called to first foster a culture of hope in their local churches. The ways in which they express and live their faith, and how they share it with others, must emanate hope in such a way that it can chart a path of positive Christian action—for the individual believers and for the denomination.

Surrounded by a culture of despair, Adventists are called to be a people of hope, who impact trends and events by their counterculture of hope. Bringing hope to others will continue to strengthen their own hope—as the prophet Isaiah so powerfully underlined, Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint (Isaiah 40:31).

Reinder Bruinsma, PhD, has served the Seventh-day Adventist Church in publishing, education, and church administration on three continents. He writes from the Netherlands where he lives with his wife Aafie. Among his latest books is I Have a Future: Christ’s Resurrection and Mine. Email him at: [email protected]

¹ https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/vincent_mcnabb_105844

² I lifted these two paragraphs from one of my recent books: Bruinsma, R. (2019). I Have a Future: Christ’s Resurrection and Mine. Autumn House.

20 Apr

EDITORIAL: YOU WANT TO IMPACT YOUR CULTURE? GOOD.

We have big dreams, we Adventists. With a prophetic mandate woven into our DNA, we want to impact our world for Jesus and His kingdom. And as we watch what impacts our culture today, we see that it takes big stuff to get the world’s attention.

Well, we have some big stuff, too. God has richly blessed us with a highly visible and fully professional hospital system. We have major media outreach ministries, both church-sponsored and independent. We have a nationally known medical school along with several colleges and universities, some of which show up high on the list of the U.S. News & World Report rankings of colleges.

We’re proud of these entities and ministries, and we stand behind them. And not just as a statement of support. Often what we do is stand behind them in terms of expecting them to be the big stuff that captures the world’s attention. So, we stand back and let them be our big splash. After all, it takes big stuff to impact our world.

And, of course, that feels safer. Standing behind something big makes us feel less vulnerable. Plus, we are always anxious about being too close to the world, because, well, we worry about what the world might do to us if we stand too close. After all, if you take a clean, white glove and grab some wet mud with it, you don’t end up with glovey mud, you end up with a muddy glove. So, we keep our distance from the mud and depend on other things, bigger things, to interface and impact the culture. Bigger things are more immune to culture’s potential contamination.

When I was senior pastor of the Keene Adventist Church on the campus of Southwestern Adventist University, our church and the university partnered to present a full-on depiction of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as other campuses have done around the North American Division. It took about 450 volunteers to make it work, and we used various settings all over the campus and in the church to depict important scenes in the life and death of Jesus. Some 5,500 people saw the presentations annually, with most of the viewers being either non-churched folks or people who were members of other denominations. Every year we would get busloads of members of other churches bringing many of their members to walk through our two-and-a-half-hour program, many walking on an Adventist campus and in an Adventist church for the first time in their lives.

In addition to the major goal of telling the gospel story to as many people as we could, one of our goals in this large event was to be an entrée, if you will, to the Adventist name and to let them know that we believe in Jesus and His sacrifice as our only means for salvation. It was big stuff. But we did it because we wanted to make it easier for our local Adventist churches to reach their own neighbors since the big stuff of our program introduced Adventists easily in a positive, Jesus-connected way.

So, it wasn’t the big stuff, in the end, that would be the touchpoint for connecting with people. For that, we depended on the willingness of the members of our local churches to take good advantage of the seeds we’d planted. In the end, it still takes individual men and women, young and old, to reach out on a very personal level and make the contacts that can lead to changed lives and connection with the Savior.

Do we need the big stuff? Absolutely. But those things alone are not enough. The real impact on our culture comes one person at a time, when we, when YOU, become the hands and feet of Jesus. You want to impact your culture? Good. So do I. But it happens best one person at a time, reaching out for one person at a time. You might think that one person at a time hardly impacts the culture. But in the end, it may be the only thing powerful enough to actually do it.

Mic Thurber is the RMC president. Email him at: [email protected]

20 Apr

DAYS OF NOAH OUTREACH ATTRACTS FARMINGTON, NEW MEXICO, COMMUNITY

Angie LeGrand with Ron Price – Farmington, New Mexico … The idea for the Days of Noah DVD series came to Angie LeGrand after she had viewed the series a year ago. She is a leader of the Tuesday 12:30 Women’s Bible Study at Piñon Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church in Farmington, New Mexico. This Bible study group consists of nearly ten women, meeting weekly for the last seven years.

She explained, “I had expressed to the women of having frequent urges that we should be doing more to share the gospel of Jesus to our community. It was during this conversation that we discovered that all of us had been feeling the same urge but had not acted upon it.

We decided that, through prayer and seeking God’s direction, we would look at different prophetic studies that would fit the needs and questions of our church family and community. A couple of us had seen the Days of Noah series and felt that it was a perfect fit for where God was leading us. It had science, scripture, biblical, and world history all combined into a format that all could understand.”

The group sought out a member of our church, retired Pastor Rick Roy, to teach and answer questions. An adult program was established that would include a children’s program as well. “It was our intention to seek donors to fund the project. We put together a proposal and presented it to our church Board for approval,” Angie explained. Mark Phillips, the church pastor, and the church board approved the project, and, from there, the Noah program was off and running.

“God was with us every step of the way and there was a tremendous amount of prayer as well. The biggest worry we had was time restraints that prohibited us from advertising, but, as women of prayer, we forged ahead with a thought. ‘Yes, we would love to have a packed house, but our mission is to reach that one person that would come that God was urging, that one lost sheep,’ ” Angie continued.

As Pastor Rick Roy commented, “Using the Days of Noah videos, we are doing an evangelistic outreach that has brought us five members from the community, and five former Adventist church members. These videos supply a lot of information. The questions that come during follow-up sessions have to do with issues that were not found in the videos but are general questions that attendees had about the Bible concerning other issues. We are excited to see what the total outcome will be when we have completed all four videos.”

The videos are being presented every Wednesday in the month of April with one of the four DVDs played weekly. Angie LeGrand said that nearly 70 attendees came on the first night two of which were children. The meetings averaged 65 attendees and the children’s program has grown to eight children. “We are thrilled with this attendance and as a church, excited that we are getting the Good News out within our community. This has been a blessing for all that have been involved. As a group we are now looking over ideas to advance our Women’s Ministry to the community. It is our desire to serve our Lord in sharing the gospel in these dark uncertain days,” she said.

—Angie LeGrand with Ron Price, ministry leaders at Piñon Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church in Farmington, New Mexico. Photo supplied.

19 Apr

SOUTHEAST COLORADO CHURCH LEADERS GET A BOOST

Anton Kapusi – Pueblo, Colorado … Local congregational leaders and the leaders-to-be, along with some Southeast Colorado regional pastors, participated in the Regenerate – Church Revitalization Conference, April 14-15.

Dr. Brad Cauley, Northern New England Conference executive secretary and director for church revitalization, spoke during the opening session to those present in person and on ZOOM about the need revitalize our church life.

About 60% of Adventist churches are either in stagnation or in decline, according to the latest North American Division (NAD) statistics. His research proved that pastors and local leaders with a “turn-around” temperament and mindset, led by the Holy Spirit, could bring the necessary direction change to local churches.

On Sabbath morning, Cauley spoke about steps a local church could take to be vibrant and growing. The personal and corporate prayer life of an Adventist Christian, the mission and evangelism focus of the congregation, and the local pastor’s empowering role were some of the points he conveyed.

During the afternoon sessions, he further emphasized the need for leaders making leaders and disciples making disciples as the core value of church growth and multiplication. He called this proliferation “Hero Making,” using the simple five-step multiplication model (see: Dave Ferguson with Warren Bird, Hero Maker: Five Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders, 2018, Zondervan):

I do. You watch. We talk.
I do. You help. We talk.
You do. I help. We talk.
You do. I watch. We talk.
You do. Someone else watches.

The conference participants left encouraged to turn things around in their churches. They were inspired to grow as local leaders who can make a difference in their congregations, as one participant said: “This seminar was to the point, simple, and motivational. I can’t wait to make a difference in my church.”

—Anton Kapusi is lead pastor of First Pueblo Adventist Church. Photos supplied.

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