Ted N.C. Wilson, president of the Seventh-day Adventist world church, challenged every one of the church’s 18.5 million members to win souls for heaven by following the example of the sower in a parable by Jesus. Wilson, speaking in a Sabbath sermon that serves as his annual world pastoral address, used his 71-minute message to emphasize a new initiative called Total Member Involvement as a top priority of the church.
The Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary has approved a document on homosexuality that it hopes will “clearly set forth what Scripture teaches concerning homosexual practices and offer guidelines on how to interact with persons of same-sex orientation.” The 21-page document, titled “An Understanding of the Biblical View on Homosexual Practice and Pastoral Care,” was approved in a unanimous vote Friday after six months of preparation.
In 1960, around 54 percent of all Seventh-day Adventists lived in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Today, church membership in the so-called Global South has reached 16.9 million, or 92 percent of the world church membership.
Justin Torossian may be best known for being the great-great-great-grandson of James and Ellen White, cofounders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. But the 29-year-old pastor studying at Andrews University spoke humbly about his prominent family tree, saying in an e-mail interview that Ellen G. White correctly wrote in Christ’s Object Lessons: “Christ recognized no virtue in lineage. He taught that spiritual connection supersedes all natural connection” (p. 268).
The election of a last batch of Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders to five-year terms is expected to dominate the weeklong Annual Council, which opens Wednesday evening and is the church’s first major business meeting since the General Conference Session in San Antonio last summer. The Annual Council, an Oct. 7-14 gathering of several hundred church leaders from around the world in the Adventist Church’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, starts with a two-day LEAD conference that will focus on sharing the gospel across various cultures.
Three Angels Broadcasting Network announced Monday that it has raised more than $400,000 for Seventh-day Adventist schools in three months, putting it on course to achieve its goal of contributing $3 million to Adventist education by the end of next year. 3ABN, an independent Adventist media organization based in West Frankfort, Illinois, raised the funds as part of its “Triple Your Donation Value” Adventist Education program.
A Seventh-day Adventist mother was among those killed in a shooting rampage that targeted Christians at a community college in the U.S. state of Oregon, her pastor said Friday. Sarena Moore, 44, a college student and member of the Grants Pass Seventh-day Adventist Church, died along with at least eight other people in the attack by a lone gunman on Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, on Thursday.
Ted N.C. Wilson, president of the Seventh-day Adventist world church, launched his own Twitter and Facebook accounts on Thursday in an effort to better communicate the church’s activities directly to members and other people. Wilson said he would use his Twitter account — @pastortedwilson — and his Facebook page — facebook.com/pastortedwilson — to share his personal prayers, favorite Bible and Spirit of Prophecy materials, information about his current outreach activities, and photos and news from his travels.
More than 17,000 people rallied at a Seventh-day Adventist-organized event in Madagascar to pledge their support for religious liberty. The daylong “Festival of Religious Freedom,” held in a sports arena in the capital, Antananarivo, was the first such event to be held in the Indian Ocean island nation.
When it comes to communications and evangelization within churches, Seventh-day Adventist pastor Richie Halversen gets it. His studies in communication give him an insight into the importance of effective communication strategies for churches and ministries. He is committed to reaching out to this new, global, social and mobile generation.
Drive from North Carolina to California and you’ll most likely travel on Interstate 40. As helpful as the mile markers are that you pass along the way, the most important signs are the “reassurance markers”: blue shields that ever so often tell you that you are heading in the right direction on the right road.
Asmall team of Seventh-day Adventist volunteers met its goal Sunday of distributing 1 million tracts with titles like “Hope for Families” and “Sabbath” to scores of people packing Philadelphia for a weekend visit by the pope. The volunteers — a mix of people from Philadelphia itself and as far away as Hawaii — have been passing out GLOW tracts for the past 10 days as part of an initiative that they said has been blessed by God amid indications of a struggle between good and evil.