Bite Size Talks, a platform to explore the intersections between faith and food, held its first faith-based food conference at West Covina Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church in West Covina, California, United States, on April 23. The one-day event, which included Adventist health practitioners, health-based food business people, and chefs as presenters, highlighted the intersections between food, faith, and fun.
An official prison chaplain. A successful community gardener. A civic leader. A radio speaker, evangelist, and lecturer. Every one of these titles somehow seems to define what he is, though not fully. Santucci is the driving force behind “Marketplace Ministry,” a multi-faceted loosely-connected set of programs designed to make a positive impact in the communities of the Caribbean nation of Bermuda. “If [pastors and Bible instructors] are the only ones doing what the church is paying them to do, then it is not ministry,” said Santucci in an interview with Adventist Review. “But what type of ministry did Jesus do that caused people to run to him?” he asked before answering himself, “A marketplace ministry!”
More than 200 student and professional filmmakers and guests attended the 2017 Sonscreen Film Festival held at Loma Linda University in California. The three-day festival, run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America (NAD), screened 39 official selections from student filmmakers. The event culminated with a closing reception and awards ceremony, with 10 student films garnering awards.
Communication and technology professionals of the Seventh-day Adventist Church during its annual Global Adventist Internet Network (GAiN) conference will be challenged to help leaders reach areas of the world with little to no presence of Christianity. Organizers of the GAiN conference have chosen “Wired for Mission” as the theme for this year’s conference, which will be held on the campus of Brazil Adventist University, Campus Engenheiro Coelho, in São Paulo Brazil, August 9-13.
The Executive Committee of the Seventh-day Adventist Church voted new world directors for two of its departments at the denomination headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States on April 11. Ramon Canals, who served as Associate Director of Sabbath School and Personal Ministries at the General Conference (GC), was voted as the new department director. Likewise, Gary Blanchard, Youth and Young Adult director in the Texas Conference church region, will be the new Youth Ministries department director. Canals will replace former department director Duane McKey, recently appointed president of Adventist World Radio (AWR), while Blanchard will replace Gilbert Cangy, who last year asked to return to his home division region.
The members of the Executive Committee of the Seventh-day Adventist Church voted to accept a statement on transgenderism on April 11. The document was voted on the first day of the Spring Meeting, one of the two major annual business meetings of the world church. While the statement acknowledges “the limitation of our knowledge in specific instances,” the 1,400-word document sets out to first define the key terms commonly used when referring to the topic, then to review the biblical principles relating to sexuality and what it calls “the transgender phenomenon.”
On April 12, during the 2017 General Conference Spring Meeting, Daniel R. Jackson, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America (NAD), and Adventist World executive editor Bill Knott shared a report on the inter-division, international “Partners in Mission” literacy program. Part of the report included a video shot during the NAD January 2017 trip to El Salvador. In the video, Maitland DiPinto, Adventist Community Services associate director and Partners in Mission coordinator, reports on the progress of the initiative — and on the lives changed by it.
The treasurer of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Juan Prestol-Puesán said that the financial turnaround the church headquarters experienced in 2016 is nothing less than God’s intervention. Prestol-Puesán made his remarks as he presented the Treasurer’s Report on the first day of the General Conference Executive Committee Spring Meeting, one of the two major annual business meetings of the church.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s top leadership voted on Tuesday to approve a new identity system during this week’s Spring Meetings, held at the Church’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. The Spring Meetings are one of two annual gatherings of the world leadership; the other, Annual Council, takes place in October.
On March 22, 2017, two former Kellogg employees made their appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit after a lower court found insufficient evidence that the two Adventist plaintiffs were treated unfairly when they were fired for failing to work on Sabbath. A decision from the court of appeals, located in Denver, Colorado, is expected in approximately three months.
Twenty-five deaf people were baptized in the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s first deaf baptisms in Burundi as church members step up efforts to share the gospel with the hearing impaired across East Africa. A total of 27 people were baptized during a joyous ceremony at the Kamenge Seventh-day Adventist Church in Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura, on March 25. In addition to the 25 deaf people, the baptismal candidates included a blind person and a hearing person.
A Seventh-day Adventist school archaeology center will be directly involved in the development of a long-planned, state-of-the-art museum in an ancient town with biblical significance. Douglas Clark, director of the Center for Near Eastern Archaeology Center in La Sierra University, an Adventist-operated school in Riverside, California, United States, recently signed on a grant that will launch the project in the Jordanian town of Madaba.