Mandeville, Jamaica…[Nigel Coke/IAD]
Climaxing one hundred days of celebrating the centennial anniversary of the Adventist Church in the West Indies territory, church leaders and members gathered for a special program Nov. 10-11 on the campus of Northern Caribbean University (NCU) in Mandeville, Jamaica.
The centennial activities began in July with a weekend of Praise and Thanksgiving Services at the North Street Seventh-day Adventist Church in Kingston, the oldest Adventist Church in Jamaica.
Under the theme, ‘Ebenezer, hitherto hath the Lord helped us!’, thousands of Seventh-day Adventists from the territories of the West Indies Union, including Jamaica, The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands and the Cayman Islands, as well as other territories from around the world, converged on the NCU campus to climax the celebration of 100 years of growth and development.
Beginning with a praise and thanksgiving vespers service on Friday evening and culminating with an extensive recognition ceremony on Saturday afternoon, the activities centered on one fact: that God has been leading His church over these 100 years and that in recognition and thanksgiving to Him, the church must in turn build on the legacy left by our pioneers by erecting monuments for future generations.
The speakers for the weekend represented the hierarchical chain of command with Friday’s presentation coming from former president of the West Indies Union Conference, Pastor Noel Fraser. Saturday afternoon’s address was presented by President of the Inter-American Division, Pastor Israel Leito. The divine hour sermon was given by Secretary of the General Conference, Pastor Matthew Bediako.
Pastor Bediako impressed upon the congregation the need for such commemorative celebrations, saying that unless we make a concerted effort to remind people of God’s goodness, we will forget how He has led us.
“Unless we have celebrations like this, we will have spiritual Alzheimer’s disease,” said Pastor Bediako, a native of Ghana. “That’s why it’s important for the church to celebrate 100 years. We need to remind [people] of the way the Lord has led us in this part of the vineyard.”
Referencing Joshua 4, which tells how the children of Israel set up a memorial of twelve stones to remind them of God’s parting the Jordan so they could cross to the other side, Pastor Bediako reiterated the lessons gleaned from the Israelites’ experience.
The memorial, he said, was “to serve as a witness of God’s faithfulness in fulfilling His promise to bring the children of Israel to the Promised Land, to serve as a sign for future generations for what God has done and to remind us that God is an awesome God, and to teach the nations that God alone is God.”
Given the incredible growth of the church, with the establishment of several hospitals, educational institutions, printing houses and food and nutrition centers, Pastor Bediako warned that we must not be tempted to give in to self-importance.
“We are gathered not to sing our own praises but to be concerned with telling people how the Lord has led us,” he cautioned.
Pastor Leito, who delivered the address for the Recognition Ceremony in which 160 members of the church received awards for service, was clear in his admonitions that the members give wholehearted service. He called upon the leaders of the church in particular to render service without expecting immediate rewards.
“Serve wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord,” he quoted from Ephesians 6.
“There is only one way to serve God and that is to put your all into it, not only putting your all into it but not expecting a quick, immediate gratification. Don’t serve as if you were a slave, serve as if you are serving God… Serve regardless of the reward, regardless of consequences, …serve because you love the Lord Jesus Christ,” Pastor Leito continued.
“I can guarantee that most of those who will be honored this afternoon have served for the joy of service,” he said.
A central theme woven into the major presentations of the weekend was the admonition not to focus on self but to give the praises to God instead.
In his message to the church on the auspicious occasion, President of the West Indies Union Conference, Pastor Patrick Allen, while presenting impressive numbers to show the growth of the church over the years, cautioned that the statistics are not meant “for us to gloat with a sense of ‘mission accomplished’, but for us to exult, wonder, then trust God to guide the future as He has done in the past.”
“This is why we chose to celebrate under the theme, ‘Ebenezer, hitherto hath the Lord helped us’. In these 24 hours of celebration which includes our regular Sabbath worship, we will take time to reflect, rejoice, recognize and recommit to the faith of Jesus Christ and then live and share this great Advent Message,” Pastor Allen said.
In recognition of the fact that the contributions of some individuals have been inadvertently omitted as a result of human finiteness, the president said he was convinced that the Lord will compensate.
The Recognition Ceremony was a major feature of the weekend which identified persons who have served the Church. Some of the categories were in areas ranging from youth and education, evangelism and church planting, lay leaders, centenarians and past and current presidents of fields and administrators of institutions within the West Indies Union Conference. Other features included a colorful parade of the fields and institutions, a candle lighting ceremony representing the passing on of the legacy to the younger generation and an eye-catching pictorial exhibition of the church’s history.
Another feature of the weekend was the musical extravaganza provided by several Adventist groups.
The two-day final celebration activities were streamed live on the internet.
Starting with a mere 3,110 members in 1906, with headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica, stretching from Venezuela and Colombia in the South through Central America to the entire Caribbean. West Indies Union Conference over these 100 years has experienced steady growth and today the Union territory of 1906 has a membership of more than 2,200,000 and nearly 7,000 churches.
The present West Indies Union Conference, a much smaller territory than in 1906, now consist of Jamaica, The Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos and the Cayman Islands with more than 243,000 members.
For more details and photos of the centennial celebration, visit www.wiunion.org
