Something is wrong! I am seeing more and more local conferences poisoning leadership to constituent relations. Conference presidents and other officers seem to think they can bully their personal agendas through the current system or create a new self-gratifying system all together.
I personally know of conference leaders who have strong-armed the Women in Ministry agenda into action even though a majority of the constituents disagree. Some conferences are aggressively closing schools instead of sacrificially partnering with the constituents to make sure our kids can have an Adventist education. I have seen conferences hold outstanding debts over school leaders and constituents, threatening to close their school if they do not pay back money owed. I even know of conferences that have written off churches (broken relations) because they did not like the way the church responded to the conference leadership. Instead of being the adult in the conference to church relationship, leaders have given up on certain churches.
Once again… Something is wrong! Where is the Christ-like attitude needed to heal and empower conferences and churches to be loving, unified, and mission-driven? Instead of threatening to close schools, conferences should be in the business of forgiving debts. Instead of pushing non-Biblical agendas through the system (like Women in Ministry), conferences should be listening to the wisdom of the constituents.
We think we have a great system in place, but something is wrong! In places where grace is needed, we have aggression and in places where discipline is needed, we have a passive attitude. Example: Letting Adventist pastors and university professors stray from our wonderful Adventist truths… giving them a license to teach Satan’s lies (Theistic Evolution and other lies).
The time has come for leaders and constituents to stand up for Jesus!!! We need to prayerfully and kindly hold each other accountable. If we stand firm on the Bible and 28 Fundamental Beliefs (and other church beliefs), we will have a church is that is solid in Jesus and uncompromising.
If you see conference leaders pushing unbiblical agenda… say something! If you see pastors catering to lukewarmness… say something! If you see church leaders teaching Satan’s lies… say something! Whatever you do… always say it in love and please be consistent.
God has great plans for our Church, but for heaven’s blessings to be poured down upon us, we need to be faithful here and now. Let’s wake and smell the Roma. Jesus is coming soon and NOW is the time to truly get to know Jesus as a personal friend… sharing Him every chance we get.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can turn something wrong into something right!
Frank Allen
June 20, 2011
Your position on woman’s ordination is not based on the attitude of Jesus.
Consider that women were ordained by Jesus himself to be the first to see and acknowledge his resurrection. This was not by accident. Women were sent on the first gospel mission by Jesus to tell the disciples he had risen (not the other way around). Women were present at the gospel commission “go into the entire world” along with the disciples when Jesus ascended up into heaven. Women were beside male disciples (leaders) to receive equally the gift of tongues—tasks needed to preach and teach to fulfill the “go” commission.
Jesus set the tone for the NT church—and he saw intending to include women in equality with men. He could not have done this any brazen then he did. He has sent his followers a message by his actions. He could have first appeared to men but he didn’t. Jesus turned upside down the cultural and religious values about women.
Better Living
June 26, 2011
Frank, one of the most common fallacies these days is that we can assume to know what God’s will is when we do not have a clear statement from God or any of His apostles or prophets to support our assumption. Your entire post is one assumption after the other, and you’ve built a logical house of straw. Here is a fact: Jesus set aside twelve MEN to be the first apostles. Another fact: the qualifications given in the New Testament clearly require that candidates will be male. Of course women were doing ministry for Jesus during his earthly sojourn and they played critical roles of ministry after His ascension. Women are gifted with the Holy Spirit, they are gifted with abundant natural and spiritual gifts, and their gifts should be given full expression in the home and in the church and society. From none of this can we safely ASSUME that women should therefore take up a role in the family or the church that is assigned by express and implied instruction for men alone. In another post on this web-site I made remarks about hermeneutics. Higher Critical method allows you to make the logical leaps you’ve made in this post. The Historical method, used by all previous conservative and Protestant scholars, stays close to the literal explicit meaning of the words of scripture. SDA have used this method, and this is why we hold the biblical beliefs that we do today.
Last week I sang a duet with a friend for the “Commissioning/Ordaining of a brilliant and delightful young lady. One after the next of her acquaintances stood before the congregation and extolled her virtues, and I feel certain that they did not exaggerate. But in all that was said and proclaimed, including a quote from her to the effect that “if God has called me to be a pastor, how can any human being deny me”, or words very much similar. I’ve attended many ordination services in my life, but never has one candidate been lavished with such attention and praise as was this lovely young woman. But not once was there even a cursory reference made to the Biblical qualifications and characteristics of one called into the role of elder or pastor. Those who arranged this extravaganza wanted us all to follow in your false line of reasoning based on human assumptions: since this young maiden tells us she is called to the pastoral ministry, since she has always been a straight 4.0 student all the way through the Seminary at Andrews University, and since she is super conscientious about her appointments, and is totally winsome (attracting a lot of young chaps to her Bible study class!), this must mean that what we are doing today is the right thing to do, and we can ask God to get up to date and bless what we have blessed, the ordination of this pretty young lady to take the role of a man in the church.
This is the same variety of logic I hear members of the Former Adventist Fellowship here in the Redlands, CA area use to argue against the perpetual holiness of the 7th day Sabbath, and in favour of Sunday and Easter. They ASSUME all kinds of things that sound logical and spiritual, but they do not point to a clear “thus saith the Lord”. Seventh-day Adventists would do well to shore up their commitment to that anchor for the soul, “It is written”.