Russell Burrell
George Knight has characteristically dealt with every current hot button in the church in this challenging article. Since Adventists are obviously spending immense amounts of energy on these issues, it would seem as if Adventists were spending more time listening to the devil than to God. He may be right, at least in some churches.

Yet there are some hopeful signs on the horizon. While resonating with much of his challenge, I am hopeful that we will accept God’s challenge to become a mission organization once again. I want to emphasize those hopeful signs.

Innovation, especially among the young, is one issue that stirs up great controversy. It is the classic old against the young. Yet there are signs that innovation is beginning to happen in many Adventist churches across North America. As I travel, visiting a different church almost every week, it is now rare to find a church that has not engaged in some kind of worship renewal. While recognizing that improvement is still needed, I am encouraged that worship innovation is beginning to happen. Of course, it has not gone far enough for the young and has gone too far for the old. The result is no one is happy, but something is happening.

If our innovations totally pleased the young, we would freeze out the old. We must not do that. Yet we cannot ignore the challenge of the young. That’s why the best solution seems for the old to support the young as they start innovative congregations. The old can then be happy with how they worship, and the young would be exuberant in their praise. The North American Division has planted more than 600 new churches during the last quinquennium.

We mustn’t equate innovation with apostasy. Knight is right: Ellen White was the greatest advocate of innovation in the history of the Adventist Church. Anyone who stands in opposition to innovation is outside the heritage of Ellen White and Adventism. We must keep pushing the boundaries to find new ways to reach people with the everlasting gospel. We cannot compromise our faith, but our faith is not compromised by innovation.

Like Knight, I would suggest the church define the minimal core values for all Adventist churches. Outside of those very few essential core values and the 27 beliefs, a church should then be free to innovate. Our current problem stems from the fact that we have never defined essential denominational core values. The result is a congregation that innovates contrary to perceived core values and is soon outside the denomination. People then feel that any innovation will lead outside the church. If we advocate innovation, we must define our essential core values as we proceed.

There are real, hopeful signs that indicate the church is moving in the direction of the priesthood of all believers, where pastors are equippers and all members are ministers. The Seventh-day Adventist Seminary has recently redone its curriculum with a clear emphasis on the pastor’s role being that of an equipper and trainer, rather than performer of ministry. In pastor and laity meetings, as I have presented these concepts, I have found an amazing acceptance to both my presentation and books in this area. This has given me tremendous courage that God will bring us back on track for the ministry of the laity.

George Knight has challenged us once again. He is like the prophet who keeps prodding us to keep on track to accomplish our mission. Hopeful signs are on the horizon, but if I were the devil, I would cause us to become satisfied with what we have accomplished so that I could send us right back to Laodicea.

We have begun, but we must not become content.

_________________________
By Russell Burrill, director, North American Division Evangelism Institute (NADEI), and chair, Christian Ministry Department, Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan.

Michael Tucker
After reading George Knight’s sermon, I was left with the impression that Knight is a man who loves his church too much to allow it to remain unchanged. And indeed, if this church is to accomplish its mission, it must undergo a dramatic transformation.

Knight suggests that the transformation must begin with the attitudes of the church toward the upcoming generation. I fear that often we not only reject the ideas of the next generation, but fail to hear them in the first place. An example of this could be seen in Toronto. It was difficult to find a delegate to our most recent General Conference session who was under the age of 30—and this in a movement that was started by young people.

It is important that we understand the difference between personal preference and orthodoxy. Worship styles have more to do with culture and our own likes and dislikes than with right and wrong. I agree with Knight that the church should have 50 different ways of worshiping. There’s no “right” way to worship God. And the only wrong way to worship is any way that bores or shows little forethought or preparation. God deserves our best.

The first small steps are being taken by the denomination to correct the problem of a growing bureaucracy. At the North American Division’s year-end meetings in October 2000 a plan was unveiled to reduce the cost of supporting unions, the division, and the General Conference by 16.7 percent over the next five years. This money, eventually amounting to 5 percent of the tithe in North America, will remain in local conferences. While this is a good start, it should not be seen as the solution to the problem.

Currently our system encourages successful pastors to leave the pastorate for administrative or departmental work. More must be done to encourage the best pastors to remain as pastors. Reducing the number of administrative types and eliminating the differences in pay between administration and pastors will go far to accomplish this.

I am grateful that Knight didn’t gloss over the flaws of our church. Instead, he has forced us to take a hard look in the mirror, and to our amazement we find that the devil has indeed been busy. Let’s accept the full complement of gifts offered by the Holy Spirit and bravely set about the task of changing the church to better accomplish that which God has called us to do.

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Michael Tucker is senior pastor of the Arlington, Texas, Seventh-day Adventist Church, and associate ministerial secretary of the North American Division.

Cynthia J. Prime
If smoke is enveloping a building and flames are dancing at the windows, you don’t utter precisely formulated injunctions in well-modulated tones. You yell, “Fire!” No grace, no glam, just a raucous urgency.

This is a different world than most of us grew up in, and the one constant is the electrifying pace of change. This generation of techno-savvy youth wants a church with a “can do” attitude, willing to embrace the challenges, changes, and opportunities of life in the twenty-first century. If the salvation of their souls is of lesser concern than the rhythm in their songs and the fit of their jeans, they have no problem tuning out and seeking elsewhere for something real, relevant, and revolutionary enough to enable them to transcend their physical, spiritual, and emotional limitations.

Gen-Xers, as well as those who came along two or three decades earlier, want the white-knuckled excitement of experiencing and witnessing about a God who can still teach them to walk on water and make life’s good but difficult decisions with an in-your-face confidence.

The issues Knight raises—of leadership quality and effectiveness, membership diversity, communication (internal and external), and mission prioritization—can be addressed with one four-letter word: love. That’s what articulates the mission, ministry, and personality of Jesus Christ.

Our love for God would prohibit majoring in minors and building walls instead of bridges. It would impel us to empower our youth to embrace their own salvation and become instruments to save their peers. Love would take us past the thunder of their drums and the twanging of their guitars, past the informality of their manners and their conformity to fashion, to a celebration of their seeking after God.

Love is a language that all understand. It bulldozes socioeconomic, ethnic, gender, and even religious borders. That’s how a disparate group of varying nationalities and life experiences came together and bonded in the upper room. That’s how former prostitutes, satanists, and other social scum were welcomed as part of that gathering. Love today should define our mission and hold us true to it, to show the world what Jesus is like and win the world with His contagious love.

If Jesus lived on earth today, He would focus on the message more than the medium. He would use new technology as well as tried-and-true vehicles. He would use the movie marquee and the stage as well as the sanctuary. He would serve up salvation with basketball and touch the lives of struggling moms through church-connected day care. He would support and subsidize counseling services, pregnant teen programs, and shelters for victims of domestic violence. He would invest in ministers of music as well as ministers of the Word. His people would be known by their joy and their love.

If I were the devil, I would want Adventists to resist the stretch to grow, to give—to be and become the testimony God is seeking to vindicate His character before the universe.

_________________________
Cynthia J. Prime lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, and is a senior vice president for public relations and marketing with Parfums Llewelyn. She is also a motivational speaker and chair of the board of Women in Renewal in Berrien Springs, Michigan.

Rudy Torres
George Knight’s forthright, insightful, and courageous talk is a breath of fresh air. Without mincing words or ducking issues, he cleverly describes what the devil is already doing to stymie God’s work. As a pastor I have seen congregations split over worship styles, theology, dress standards, youth ministries, power, and cultural diversity. Thus I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with Knight and concluding that when we feud, think small, and reject the ideas and plans of the next generation, etc., we are indeed participating in the work of the devil.

It is only through God’s providence that we have grown from about 100 believers in 1848 to roughly 11 million members today. “Yet,” Knight says, “growth has brought about its own complications and challenges” created by our cultural diversity as Adventists living in more than 200 nations and speaking more than 700 languages. He points out that if we unite in mission, our diversity can propel us to unprecedented growth. But if we allow the devil to exploit our diversity and splinter us into feuding factions, our mission will be impeded.

Knight challenges us to “start thinking, planning, and acting in a manner that will defeat the devil’s game plan.” I agree and offer a pastoral perspective.

First, while this planning must go on at every level of Adventism, it is in the local congregation that this battle will be fought and won. Congregations need encouragement and help from every level of our church, but that help must focus on the local congregation.

Second, if we are going to develop plans under the Holy Spirit, we need to distinguish clearly between our problems and their symptoms. Developing new modes of worship and evangelism and decentralizing power in the church, etc., will not solve our problems. Infighting is not our problem. It is a symptom of the problem.

Our problem is that the Holy Spirit is not optimally working in us as individual members and congregations. Too many of us are ego-filled and not Holy Spirit-filled. Too many of our congregations are people-led, not Holy Spirit-led. The problem that limits us is a spiritual one, not an administrative or sociological one.

Our task is to seek the power of God in our lives. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14).

When our congregations are Spirit-filled, they will explode qualitatively and quantitatively, and the Holy Spirit will lead us in creating and implementing strategies to meet our expanding mission. As Adventists we will continue to be dynamic, relevant, and continually surprised.

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Rudy Torres is senior pastor of the Garden Grove, California, Seventh-day Adventist Church.


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