ASI president Steve Dickman walked with Daniel M. Matte, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Uganda, to a private residence near the church’s headquarters in the U.S. state of Maryland. He knocked on the door. No answer. The pair went to the next house. Again no answer.
Church leaders have approved minor changes to the 20-year-old logo of Seventh-day Adventist Church that aligns the flame with the Bible, representing an alignment of the Holy Spirit and the Bible, and centers the cross with the flame and the Bible. Leaders attending the 2016 Annual Council also voted for slight edits that the world church’s communication department said would give the logo a bolder appearance, creating a sharp presence on various platforms.
Jiwan Moon often tells young people that they face three important days in their lives: the day they were born, the day they realize why they were born, and the day they start to live their God-given mission. Moon hopes that this coming weekend will provide one of those important days for a least one Adventist university student or young professional somewhere in the world.
Six months after losing his wife of 40 years, Seventh-day Adventist television host and pastor Mike Tucker lives by putting one foot ahead of another. “I think about her every morning and every evening and throughout the day,” said Tucker, 64, of his wife, Gayle Tucker. “Yeah, it’s tough, and yet you keep going ahead with life, doing the things you think are right and living the life you’re supposed to live.”
Annual Council delegates approved on Tuesday a document that details steps on how to deal with Seventh-day Adventist Church entities not adhering to voted actions of the Adventist world church. In a 169-122 vote, members of the General Conference Executive Committee endorsed a three-page document that calls for a patient, multi-step process of dialogue and prayer to bring about reconciliation between these entities and the church’s voted policies.
Ted N.C. Wilson, president of the Seventh-day Adventist world church, compared the challenges that are facing Adventist education to David’s fight against Goliath and presented hundreds of church leaders with Ellen G. White’s book Education to use as “stones” in a battle against worldly influences attacking Adventist schools. Wilson, speaking in a Sabbath sermon that serves as his annual world pastoral address, appealed to Adventist educators and schools to always put the Bible and the writings of White, a church cofounder, at the center of Adventist education.
G.T. Ng, executive secretary of the Seventh-day Adventist world church, called on every Adventist to actively nurture new church members to stem an outflow that is seeing one of every two newly baptized members eventually leave the church. Ng, who presented his annual report Sunday to church leaders at the Annual Council business meeting, said evangelistic meetings and baptisms are key in the church’s fulfillment of Jesus’ Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20 to make disciples of all people.
Jacques B. Doukhan, a professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Exegesis at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in Berrien Springs, Michigan, is no stranger to the writing process. His books “Secrets of Daniel” and “Secrets of Revelation” are well known in Adventist and non-Adventist circles.
In the world, though not of it, the Seventh-day Adventist Church faces the same economic conditions confronting any global enterprise. Church treasurer Juan Prestol-Puesán told Annual Council delegates Monday, Oct. 10, that the continued strength of the U.S. dollar versus eight global currencies means the church’s “income, liquidity, and working capital levels will take time to return to the levels they were before they dropped in 2015.”
Church leaders from around the world are welcoming a special conference on Seventh-day Adventist education that is placing a renewed emphasis on the Bible and the writings of church cofounder Ellen G. White at a time of growing secularism. Adventist Church president Ted N.C. Wilson urged leaders gathered for the three-day LEAD conference at the church’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, to “Stand for the Right” in leading the institutions under their charge.
A high-level committee consisting of world and regional officers of the Seventh-day Adventist Church voted on Oct. 6 for a document detailing actions to be taken in response to certain entities of the world church that are not in compliance with an action voted on by more than 2,000 representatives of the 19.5 million-member denomination at its most recent General Conference Session held in San Antonio, Texas from July 2-11, 2015.
Hiring Seventh-day Adventist teachers to work at Adventist educational institutions may not only further the church’s mission, but it is also becoming a legal imperative to minimize lawsuits, a lawyer said. Adventist schools can help shield themselves from litigation linked to homosexuality and other controversial social issues by hiring committed Adventist teachers and making sure that the views of current employees align with the church’s mission, said Jon Daggett, an Adventist lawyer with the Hiroshima Daggett law firm, who has represented the church in California courts.