So most folk know, or can find out pretty easily that Adventists live longer than most other people in this country and even in the world. Well it turns out there is an exception to the rule amongst Adventists, Me…well not actually just me, but Seventh-day Adventist Pastors. How crazy is that? The individuals leading the longest living people group die younger.
I wonder why? I have several theories of my own, but I will just share here what I think is the primary reason:
Any other pastors want to testify? 🙂
As the King James Version states it: “Pride goeth before destruction…” Proverbs 16:8
An article from The Christian Century and picked up by the U.S.A. Today have recently been passed around amongst Adventists affirming our church growth in North America. Yesterday my twitter and e-mail box was a buzz with this article. Most the comments from folk indicated excitement about our growth and making statements of pride regarding the growth of the Adventist Church in the U.S..
Here are a couple realities though:
We are the fastest growing church amongst the Mainline Protestant Denominations:
We are growing more than any other mainline denomination in North America, but our growth is minimal in comparison to our past history and to the world:
I believe it would be wise of all of us to celebrate the individuals that are accepting Jesus and the message we teach as Adventists, but to not celebrate our growth because we still have a LONG way to go and God can do so much more if we will all have the heart of Jesus to “save the Lost.” Matthew 18:11. If we don’t have that heart and instead our hearts are turned to pride over our “growth” we will soon find destruction!
It would be mindful to hold in our thoughts the comment of Dr. Ron Clouzet in the Christian Century article,
“We don’t feel that we’re growing very much, and that is a source of concern, especially for North America,” said Ron Clouzet, director of the North American Division Evangelism Institute at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich. Hispanic Adventists are “the one group that is growing very well,” he added. “If we didn’t have that group, we would look even more dismal.””
May God increase and we decrease!
Are you a cultural Adventist? Or we could ask are you a cultural Christian? Either way let me share this with you: if you are, then you are wasting your life!
A “cultural Adventist,” is someone who, by his/her own admission, is an Adventist solely because he/she was raised and educated in the church. Let me tell you, if this is your position you’re wasting your life and time! I personally believe to be “cultural” anything is a waste, but my wife says I am intense in all areas, so maybe that is a little extreme. It is not extreme though to say that “cultural” Christianity or because of my belief system Adventism is leading you no where but eternal separation from God. How and why do I say that?
Revelation 3:15 & 16–
“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”
This text is a description of “cultural” living. “Cultural” living is living with no passion, simply going through the motions for the sake of going through the motions. That is what was happening with the church at Laodicea. The Laodicean church was simply going through the motions, no passion, doing Christianity just for the sake of doing Christianity, not because they were truly following Christ. And Jesus said, “Because you have no passion I will spit you out!” It sounds to me like being spit out is pretty much the description of a wasted life.
So are you a “Cultural Adventist Christian” ? Would you die for Jesus? Would you die for what you believe in? Is your greatest passion Jesus and your second greatest passion the mission of Jesus, seeking and saving the lost? As you learn things from the Bible do you ask how can I live more like Jesus? Who can I share this with?
Folks don’t be anything just cause it is the culture, especially Christianity! Be passionate for Jesus and the truths you believe or be nothing, but don’t be cultural, it will just get you spit out!
Proselytizing is the act of attempting to convert people to another opinion and, particularly, another religion. For most of my Christian journey I have shied away from trying to convert folk to “Adventism” that were already Christians of other denominations. In fact when I accepted Jesus there are a couple things I said I would “NEVER” do, “I will never try to convince anyone to become an Adventist.” Well I became a Seventh-day Adventist Minister so that went out the window, but I did stick to it, in that I didn’t spend much time worrying about or even caring if other Christians became Adventist. I figured, “they are already Christian, so that is good enough.” I believe I had this view because I didn’t want our church to come across as arrogant or elitist. Over the last couple of years my journey has been away from this position, ’till now, I believe I have the exact opposite frame of mind and position than I started with. I will say it: I BELIEVE PEOPLE SHOULD BE ADVENTIST! Before you leave this blog or send off a scathing remark let me clarify a couple things. First of all this position does not mean that I believe only Adventists will be saved. This position does not mean that I believe everyone should be an Adventist RIGHT NOW. I believe there are folk that if they were currently in our churches their Christian experience would be hurt because many of our churches are not ready to receive them and love them the way Christ loves them. This position does not mean that I believe we should raid non-Adventist churches or speak ill against non-Adventist churches.
Here is what this position does mean. That when I speak of 125,000 persons in the city of Visalia and there are only 2,000 Adventists as I mentioned in a previous post, I am concerned about reaching all 123,000 non-Adventists with the parts of scripture Adventists teach that I believe are neglected in the rest of Christendom. I believe if I did not care about this, and if I am not willing to do this, then I am not fulfilling the Great Commission which tells us, “
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19, 20).
We love the disciple making part that is following Jesus. We love the baptizing part that is publicly declaring allegiance to Jesus. But the Commission also tells us to “teach people to obey everything I have commanded.” When I read that I believe Jesus is telling us to teach people to obey the totality of scripture! Part of obedience in learning the right things, learning truth.
What if Jesus had said “I don’t want to offend the Sadducees who don’t believe in the resurrection so when they want to talk to me about this subject I’m going to tell them not to worry about it. We’re all Jews. And that is really what matters!” No Jesus talked about the resurrection (Luke 20:27-39).
Or what about Paul when he visited the folk at Ephesus. Here he met fellow Christians, followers of Christ, but they had never heard about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. What if Paul had said, “well don’t worry about it. You believe in Jesus and that is all that matters.” No Paul talked about the Holy Spirit Baptism (Acts 19:1-7).
I believe the Bible teaches the 7th day Sabbath. I believe the Bible teaches a visible single second coming of Christ, no rapture. I believe the Bible teaches soul sleep. I believe the Bible teaches a pre-Advent judgment. If I believe the Bible teaches these things I would be going against my convictions and against the Great Commission if I didn’t feel it important to share every single one of these truths with others, even other followers of Jesus.
I am thankful that Martin Luther proselytized, and John Wesley, William Miller, and Rachel Oakes Preston all proselytized, because out of these different faith traditions and understandings of scripture my belief system and even my denomination has been developed and grown. I believe they in doing so were fulfilling the Great Commission and I shall do likewise!
“There is an urgent need to plant churches if the North American Division (Seventh-day Adventist denomination) churches are to maintain their current presence in North American communities,” says Dr. Joseph Kidder in a recent article entitled “Reflections on the future of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America: Trends and challenges (part 1 of 2).”
It is alarming that there is an “urgent” need to plant churches just to “maintain” our presence in our cities. But does God call us simply to maintain our presence? As I read scripture and particularly the great commission the goal from our Lord is always to “GO and make disciples”, to increase presence. Dr. Kidder states, “Increasing the Adventist presence and visibility in local communities would require even more aggressive church planting efforts.” To me what this is saying is that we must become multiplying churches! Viral churches! Churches that not only plant once, but that plant over and over again, or churches that plant churches, that plant other churches, that plant other churches…
Why does Dr. Kidder make these assertions and why do I agree with them? In 1913 when our church was growing at one of its greatest rates we had one church for every 52,000 persons, but in 2005 (and I am sure the gap has grown even more in the 6 years since) there was one church for every 65,000 persons in North America. This is one of the factors for the church going from a 3.61% growth rate from 1913-1975 to a 0.06% growth rate from 1976-2005. If we were to have the same ratio of churches to population as we did in 1913 we would need more than 1,000 new churches.
What does this mean for my community?
The current population of Visalia, California is just a little north of 125,000 persons with 2000 professed Adventists, 1.6% of population, but in actuality only 800 active (attending church at least once a month) members, 0.6% of population. If we are going to reach all these people we are going to need more churches! I used to think we would just need bigger churches, but after reading Dr. Kidder’s article and doing a fair amount of other research, “New Churches” are better able to reach folk than necessarily “bigger churches.” Which is why I think it is time to begin looking at a model of church multiplication rather than just church growth.
Three zip codes make up Visalia and in those three zip codes which include some outlying rural areas as well. The zip’s are 46,000, 38,000, & 56,000 (136,000 total) in population. Why couldn’t there be an English church of at least 500 active members in each one of those zip codes? Along with a Spanish church of at least 500 active members in each one of those zip codes? Do you know that would still only be 3000 active Adventists only 2.2% of those zip codes combined? That means there would still be 133,000 persons still to reach in just this one part of the valley. So why not then dream bigger? Why not six churches of 1000 or maybe 12 churches of 500?
Here is the great thing though, none of these churches would be competing for members! The goal would be multiplying churches not just growing “my” church! The goal would be increasing the presence of Jesus and sharing the Three Angels’ Message not increasing our membership rosters. Right now what to often happens is a competition over the Adventists that already exist, even church plants are more often church splits that just siphon off members from other already existing Adventist communities. And in reality even our growing churches mine included, is more transfer growth than conversion or Kingdom growth. We need to stop competing and we need to start planting churches TOGETHER to grow the Kingdom of God and increase His presence and His message in the hearts of all people.