Fifteenth Business Meeting
58th General Conference session, July 8, 2005, 2:00 p.m.

MARIA A. LOPES: [Opening Prayer.]

PAGUNSAN SINGERS: [Provided special music.]

GERRY D. KARST: In this afternoon's session we conclude the “Challenges to Mission” series. We are combining yesterday's and today's topics, “The Challenge of the Cities” and “The Challenge of Secularism,” because they tend to go together. Today's presentation is going to be brought to us by Dr. Patricia Gustin, who for years has been director of the Institute of World Mission, training missionaries going overseas to various places. She herself has spent most of her life focused on mission, and we look forward to her presentation today.

PATRICIA GUSTIN: I think that we can report to the leaders of this church that this is the faithful of the faithful—those who are at a meeting at 2:00 on a Friday afternoon. This week we have looked at the challenges of mission. We started by looking at our own spirituality, because mission must grow out of our own relationship with Jesus. On Monday we looked at our need to integrate meaningfully and positively into our societies, our communities, our neighborhoods, so that we have opportunity to witness. Then on Tuesday we were reminded of our desperate need to find more and better ways to avoid apostasy and help those who come to faith through our ministry to stay strong. And now today we are looking at the challenges of the cities and the challenges of secularism.

I have been given the task of doing twice as much in half the time. So I will try to live up to the challenge that has been given me. Every organization, but especially a church who feels strongly that they have a unique mandate given by God, must constantly examine and reassess their priorities and their progress toward their God-given goals. They always face the danger of getting sidetracked and doing ever so many wonderful things but not necessarily those things that are most essential to reach their goal, and perhaps in a subtle way they face the danger of complacency. In this last week we have very appropriately given praise to God for the remarkable growth that we have seen in our church. We have seen a church that is now nearly 14 million, and for this we praise the Lord, and that is appropriate. But 14 million in a world of 6 billion? We certainly cannot say that we are almost finished. There is a huge task ahead of us. We must examine our priorities. And so what are our priorities? As Christians we have to accept the fact that our priorities are always determined by the Word of God. Our church is to go into all the world, to every nation, kindred, language, and people, discipling and teaching.

That is our reason for existence; that is why we are here. So the question is Where are these languages, these peoples, these nations? Well, it could rightly be said that they're everywhere. They're my next-door neighbors in College Place, Washington; they're your neighbors in Cooranbong and Copenhagen and Cape Town and Calcutta. Everywhere there are people who need to meet the Lord. However, as a church, as a body, we have always been driven by where the needs are the greatest, where the concentrations of those who do not yet know Jesus are.

As a church we must prioritize according to where the needs are, and I've listed for our consideration the five greatest needs, the unmet, unreached challenges of today. The first three I think we're quite familiar with. The Chinese and the Buddhist world—way more than 1 billion people; the Hindu world—those unreached in that area, another billion; and then of course, the Muslim world—another billion. Just in these three we've looked at roughly half of the world's population, and most of these are located in that part of the world that we call the 10/40 window, which we've heard a great deal about over the past five to 10 years. But beyond that I would say there is another one or two that we will mention today. The next one is the secular world. This is much harder to quantify, but many would say that it too probably is around 1 billion. And then the last of the five is the world of cities.

The world's cities. The most conservative estimates today tell us that there are at least 2.5 to 3 billion of the world's population who are living in cities, half the world's population. What does that mean for us? For this reason we as a church must consider the challenge of the church in the cities of the world. And closely connected, as Elder Karst mentioned, is the issue of the church as it faces secularism, and so these are the two topics we will focus on today. But before we go any further, perhaps it would be good to at least define secularism, since it isn't a term that we use very often.

Secularism is the result of secularization, and so here we have a definition, the process through which religious thinking, religious practice, and religious institutions lose their religious and/or social significance. The concept is based on the theory held by some sociologists that as societies become more industrialized, their religious morals and values and institutions give way to secular ones. And some religious traits become common secular practices. Industrialization, the growth of cities, seem to go hand in hand with the rise of secularism. At the turn of the century 100 years ago, the ratio of Christians to secular people was roughly one secular person for every 172 Christians. In 2005 it's one secular person for every 2.5 Christians. Our task has become greatly increased. In 1900 roughly 14 percent of the population of the world was urban.

In North America it was only between 3 and 4 percent. This was a very rural country. And in 1900 there were only 12 cities in the entire world with a population of more than 1 million. London and New York were kind of megacities, with between 3 and 6 million population. In March 2005, 45 percent of the world's population was urban. And there are today nearly 400 cities with more than 1 million in population. We've gone from 12 cities of that size in our world to about 400. For the sake of this group I decided to discover how many of these cities are contained in each world division.

The Northern Asia-Pacific Division has 76 cities of more than 1 million population. Forty-six of those are in the great country of China. The North American Division is second, with 47 of these mammoth cities. Euro-Africa has 46 (the same as China); Trans-Europe, 37; Southern Asia, 35; Inter-America, 28; South America, 25. I'm sure that the leaders in these areas are well aware of these statistics, and I'm sure that you're concerned, as all of us are. But many of us may not be as familiar. Southern Asia-Pacific has 20; Euro-Asia, 18; West-Central Africa, 14; Southern Africa-Indian Ocean, 9; East-Central Africa, 7; and South Pacific, 6. There is not a church division that

doesn't have a serious challenge of reaching the huge cities, never mind the smaller cities. And then of these nearly 400 cities there are 58 that we call megacities, in which the population exceeds 5 million, and then of that group there are the urban agglomerates of Tokyo, Mexico City, Seoul, New York, and Sao Paulo, with more than 20 million population each.

The challenge of the cities is massive. In fact, the numbers are so big that I reached the point where they're just numbers. They almost don't have meaning to me. But the challenge is more than numerical. There are other challenges that go with the cities. For starters, every city has scores of different ethnic and language groups within that city. Reaching a city is not as simple as one approach, one language, one culture to be reached. The city of Los Angeles has around 100 or more languages just in the public school system.

There are displaced peoples in every city, people who are refugees, who are immigrants, who are in transition, who are moving in and out of the cities for economic reasons, and this results in fragmentation and various losses of connections with their past, with their values. There's crime; there's fear. There are vast slums. Most conservative estimates would tell us that 1.2 billion people in the world live in slums, scattered around the globe. But the challenges are more than that. There's all kinds of subcultures that we have to consider. But perhaps the greatest challenge for us as a church is the fact that the cities are the center of secularism. And the Adventist Church's fastest growing challenge is these cities, these areas where secularism and masses of people come together. From the Institute of Church Ministry Dr. Roger Dudley observed very, very astutely that the Adventist Church was begun in rural settings, and its appeal has tended to be directed to rural areas and smaller cities.

Many of these large metropolises have become secular, and here we have the blending of the cities and the secular—for example, New York, London, Tokyo, Shanghai. The interesting thing is secularism cuts across all religious and philosophical boundaries. It can be found anywhere. Through the years Adventists have drawn most of the converts from other Christian backgrounds. The church today faces the challenge of devising methods to reach those who either do not believe in God or who have no time for Him in their lives.

At any rate the future growth of the church lies in city evangelism. As the cities of the world have not only grown numerically but have become more and more secular, there are fewer and fewer people that we can reach with the methodologies that have worked so well with other Christians. The words of Dr. Dudley should ring a bell of common knowledge to some of us. As early as 1891, and there may be a statement earlier than this that I have failed to find, Ellen White outlined the challenge of the cities.

She stated that close around us are cities and towns in which no efforts are made to save souls. Why should not families who know the present truth settle in these cities and villages to set up there the standard of Christ? I am amazed that Ellen White's incredible musicological insights in this quotation. She is urging families to move into the hearts of these cities and settle there so that they might interact, live, be a part of the communities, and thus become salt or light in areas of desperate need.

Today we talk about incarnational mission, in which we move into an area and become as much like the people as possible. We learn the language, learn the culture, integrate into the neighborhoods, and become a part of life, and this is what she was suggesting. This ministry, she said, would be an important one for cities. However, as we follow her advice through the years we see that she quickly became concerned that all was not well.

The very next year, 1892, she warned that she had been shown that in our labor for the enlightenment of the people in the large cities the work had not been as well organized or the methods of labor as efficient as in other churches that did not have the great light we regard as so essential. In essence she was saying that the church had begun to work in cities but that it needed to learn from others who had worked more successfully, others that did not have all the light that the church had.

She then asked what these early city missionaries had been doing that the church hadn't, and answered her own question by identifying many of the church's laborers as those who loved to preach. And a large share of their labor had been put forth in preaching. She saw that the methods—preaching, primarily—that had apparently worked so well elsewhere were not working well in the cities, at least in some of the cities.

Now, I can only imagine that this must have been a shocking, devastating statement for her to make. As a church we were outstanding preachers. Our preaching had served us well. The church had been founded and had grown on solid preaching. It must have felt like heresy for her to make this comment, but we were faced with a new and a different type of mission field: one that our rural roots had not completely prepared us for.

No doubt this was primarily because already secularism had made inroads in the cities, which meant that we were trying to win many people who didn't have a Christian background. Ellen White pleaded with the church again and again: Find new methods that would be successful in cities. And in 1915, the year of her death, she went so far as to say that in large cities there were certain classes that could not be reached by public meetings, and we have to remember that when she wrote these words she was talking about New York and Philadelphia and London—cities of the still primarily Christian world. She saw that changes needed to be made. The people in these cities needed to be reached. They needed to be searched out as the Shepherd searches for His lost sheep, and she told the church that diligent personal effort needed to be put forth in their behalf. The church in the 1890s and early 1900s was really beginning to understand its missionary task to take the three angels' messages to the whole world.

We took our commission seriously, and the church begun expanding into Europe and Australia initially. Then South Africa, South America, Central America, Asia, India, the South Sea Islands, Africa. We began sending out missionaries in great numbers, and they began establishing the church in these places. In fact, during the past few years many places in the world have been celebrating 100 years of Adventist Church presence, because during those years we had a powerful missionary movement.

It's interesting, with this background, to read the words were penned in 1892 when Ellen White called for missionaries to be sent to the cities. More attention was to be given to training and educating missionaries, with a special reference to work in the cities. It was ever to be kept before them that they were missionaries in the highest sense of the term. I believe she makes three extremely important points in this quotation.

First, people sent to work in the cities are just as surely missionaries as are those sent to islands or jungles or deserts, or in lands far away from our homeland. Second, these missionaries being sent into the cities need specialized training. They need to learn new methods and new ways of working. Third, since they must be considered to be as verily missionaries as anyone else, they should be selected and screened and trained and supported as real missionaries in every way.

Unfortunately, we were slow to heed her advice. Cities continued to be virtually untouched. And throughout this whole period of about 30 years, in which she spoke frequently, her heart was burdened. In 1909 she stated that when she thought of the many cities (remember, at that time were 12 cities of 1 million population) yet unwarned, she could not rest. Today it's distressing to think that they have been neglected for so long.

I wonder, my friends, what would she say today. As a church who struggled then and still struggles now, at least in many parts of the world, we struggle to do well in cities. We have rural roots. Our traditional methods have always worked best in rural areas. Many of us feel uncomfortable in cities. We may be afraid of the cities, and these attitudes and feelings have at times frequently paralyzed us from responding to the incredible need of the challenges that these cities offer.

Today we have looked at Ellen White's counsel. I am reminded of the words in Zechariah 8:20, which says that people shall come, “the inhabitants of many cities.” We rejoice when we find texts about the islands of the sea. The people in the cities will also come. Are we ready to reach these cities? If Mrs. White were with us today, what would she say? If the Lord Himself were here, what would He say?

As we think of these nearly 400 cities of more than 1 million population, I'd like us to think about three strategic questions that I will ask you to contribute to. The first: What strategic changes in planning and prioritizing must members, churches, conferences, missions, unions, divisions make that would facilitate reaching the cities? There are a few places where this is begun. What would it take in our planning and our prioritizing? The second question: What new—and this is the one I really hope we will focus on primarily—and “out of the box” methods have been tried successfully in cities? There are those who have done things. Now, there are a few methods that we are aware of, and I ask us not to say the same thing over and over. We know that sometimes outpost evangelism is working, and that's one method that we can accept.

We know that vegetarian restaurants have worked; small groups have worked. There are several things, but today I want us to push the boundaries. Some of you may have lived in places where something very unusual and unique has been tried successfully in the city. Share it with us this afternoon. And beyond that, we are often encouraged to use sanctified imagination. What are some ways, if we were to brainstorm together, that we can meet this challenge? How can we reach the secular cities, remembering that the majority of the cities of today are non-Christian or totally secularized, and that the people we're reaching do not share with us a Christian foundation?

Third: If, in fact, cities are mission fields, if reaching the secular is a mission, how does that change the way we allocate personnel and finances?

As we share this together, as Mike Ryan and Mark Finley come up and summarize, we will go to the floor to share our ideas of how we can do this task that has been given to us.

[Applause.]

MARK FINLEY: The cities today present a formidable challenge to Seventh-day Adventists. They are growing rapidly. People are moving into the cities by the tens of thousands and millions every single month and every single year. As Pat has so eloquently presented, unless the Seventh-day Adventist Church has the courage to make changes in our location of finances and personnel and focus on the cities, our work will continue to grow in the rural areas, but the work in the cities may grow very, very slowly. Ellen White said this: “God presented the cities before me as a living reality. I could not sleep because I was so burdened with the cities.” May God's burden for the cities be our burden for the cities.

MICHAEL L. RYAN: Thank you. If you study church history, you will discover that there were some very serious challenges to some of the administrators of the Adventist Church, and they did not take up the burden of cities as Ellen White thought they should have. A lot of people who are represented in this room are administrators of one type or another—departments, various conferences, unions, missions, divisions. I wonder what Ellen White might say today.

Have you ever, in the city of Bombay, watched as humanity poured by—thousands and thousands of people? Have you ever gotten off the subway in Tokyo? Have you ever watched the traffic in Cairo? There's a great deal of responsibility that rests in this room. And together I hope that we can ask in a sincere way, “God, what is Your plan? What do You want us to do?”

People are flocking to the cities; they are getting bigger, and as you look at the geography and demographics of the cities, and as you look at Adventist statistics, you realize that we do not have a lot of churches in cities. Where does the responsibility rest? And where else can we take up this agenda? If we can't discuss it here as a family, then where can we discuss it? And so I hope that as we open this conversation period we can hear some comments and ideas put forward. What changes need to be made? I welcome the conversation this afternoon, and pray that God's Spirit will be among us as we share this concern together.

GERRY D. KARST: Thank you to the presenters. They have laid before us a tremendous challenge that we as a church face. We want some conversation from you today. It's going to be a shorter period of conversation, so that we can get on with some other things.

RAY HARTWELL: Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you so much for this conversation that we are having. I think it is long overdue. I think it is very appropriate, and I think we need to be challenged and stimulated, not just into thinking but into action. It's a lot easier to think and talk than it is to act.

One thing that we have realized in Pennsylvania is that we have to treat our own conference as a mission field. In order to do that, we have had to call for some of these world churches to be willing to have the resources put into their pastor placed into a mission pastor in a city. That is a major hurdle to overcome, but I want to compliment our churches that are willing to do that. Because we have had churches willing to be lay-pastor-led, we have been able to take a salary and put it into a community ministry-type base mission in Pittsburgh. We have been able to meet people at the point of need.

People that have not been responsive in the past to our traditional and to our prophetic approaches are highly receptive when we come in and meet them with our Community Services center, which is staffed there and meeting actual physical needs. Local churches, not Adventist churches, are starting to support this. The people in a tight-knit community are responding and are becoming much more open, so one approach that we are using is to reallocate resources, and then have a community ministry-based approach, and then people start responding, over time, to the spiritual things that we want to share with them.

JOSE A. VEGA SILVA: I thank the Lord because of the answer of the Spirit of Prophecy concerning this topic for this time. We should use new methods. The church has today, as never before, radio stations and TV programs. This is a powerful means to reach the people in the cities. But sometimes in these means we don't have the strategy in order to reach the people.

We need to find a way in order to coordinate between the efforts of the Personal Ministries Department and the media.

In the South American Division we have been using a plan in order to put together the efforts of the church and the media. We have worked through a coordinator who is getting the information of all who have been reached through the media, and have a follow-up with the church. We would like to see a worldwide initiative in order to put together these efforts and go ahead.

ELIZABETH OSTRING: I would just like to point out that I spent 15 years in one of those big cities. I think that there are a few basic needs that we as a church can look at. The first, which we are very good at, is our health work. The second may be a little difficult, and that is housing, but it may be something that we could look at. The third is something that Adventist businesspeople could be encouraged to do, and that is to offer work for people in cities. Many people in those large cities have a subsistence existence, and if we could offer work by courtesy of these Adventist laypeople, I think we could start witnessing in a very effective way.

Something that we may be able to start as a church immediately is to offer recreation. We as a church know many many good things about helping people have healthy recreation. In Australia and New Zealand we have had triathlons for children, and this could be an example of one of the recreational things we could do. We could also have recreational centers. I know that we had some of these in our work in Hong Kong. I think that these are practical things that we could start working on immediately, and I hope someone can perhaps put this into practice. Thank you.

KEVIN GEELAN: I pastured two inner-city churches, and we ran a soup kitchen every night of the week, seven days a week, right in the heart of the city. That opened up tremendous possibilities for reaching people who could not be reached in any other way, and as a result, that gave us an excellent entry into those homes and into those families for evangelism.

Now I am involved in the literature evangelism ministry, and in Australia our literature evangelists are working the cities very systematically.

One of the challenges we face is to find laypeople, particularly retired couples, who are missionary-minded and willing to locate in the cities, where they could link with our literature evangelists, who are opening up hundreds of homes, If people with missionary-mindedness would settle in these cities, open their homes so that people could visit them and they could visit people, I believe we would see this whole paradigm shift, and it would result in many souls for God's kingdom.

LILY KIDENDA: In response to the second question, I would like to share something that has worked for us in one of the churches that I have been attending.

We came up with an idea of having house or home churches. We would go to the localities where we live within the cities, and a group of people would come together once a week. They would conduct a Bible study that would start with powerful singing, and our neighbors would listen, and after a while they would come.

We also accepted the responsibility that when the meeting was at our house, we would invite a nonchurch member family. I have seen a number of people join the church. When even one day passed without a meeting, they would come to check and ask what had happened. This is a small group who study the Bible and focus on the message of salvation through Christ, and the emphasis of the power that is available to us through the Holy Spirit. It has worked, and I am sure it could be helpful in some other places, too.

BENJAMIN CLAUSEN: The issue this afternoon is cities and secularism. I would like to suggest that a major influence in these areas is science. Often in reaching out to the secular community we forget this minority group that are important to think of. I will give a couple of brief personal examples, and then from that I would like to make some suggestions that as a church we might be able to broaden out on.

I have wondered about the scientific community for many years, what the church has to offer this group, and whether they would be welcome in my church. As a physics student at secular universities, I had fellow students ask about my church, and I invited several to attend. One attended for a number of months. More recently my wife made friends with a couple; the wife had grown up in Hungary, attended Communist schools, and gotten a degree in chemistry.

From our friendship and that of other Adventists, the couple were baptized, and are now our next-door neighbors. That continues on, and her mother and brother are still in Hungary, and we are hoping that they too will become Seventh-day Adventists.

From these and many other experiences, here are several suggestions that have worked for me personally, and perhaps could work on a wider range.

First, friendship. This should be obvious, but our attitude and actions toward scientists are often ones that antagonize and alienate. Scientists are not enemies, but fellow travelers in a search for truth.

Second, personal needs. A geologist I have worked with for the past three years disagrees with the Adventist view on geology, but has appreciated very much the care that his wife received at the Loma Linda Medical Center.

Third, honesty. Truth can afford to be fair and look at all the data.

Fourth, integrity. Sensational claims that go far beyond the evidence cause loss of respect for our whole endeavor.

Fifth, humility. Most scientists are well aware that they don't have all the answers. We shouldn't come across that we know everything.

Sixth, design. Several scientists have brought this up independently. I would encourage us as a church to look at ways of reaching out to the scientific community and the scientific mind-set as a group that has a great influence in our secular society today.

GERRY D. KARST: Thank you very much. I think we are going to have to stop the conversation here. There are still many names, and as we have done previously, please write down your suggestions, your comments, and turn them in to the panel that has been making the presentation, but since this is our last session in the challenge to mission, I want to provide opportunity for Dr. Gustin to summarize, and then Elder Finley is going to come and indicate to us where we go from here with all of this information. Thank you for those who have been at the microphone; we regret that the time has run out.

PATRICIA GUSTIN: I'm pleased at the things I've been hearing. Our church has creative imaginations, sanctified imaginations, and I truly believe that if we join forces we can meet this challenge. I heard some incredible ideas. For starters, we have to think of these cities, these areas, as mission fields, and work accordingly. I love the idea of putting a mission pastor who actually coordinates the mission in a city; and for an unreached area, reallocating funds to make this a focus; and there were some wonderful suggestions on community-based ministries, health, housing, offering employment, creating recreation centers. I like the soup kitchen—that meets more than once a week. That sounds like a long-term commitment. And then, of course, laypeople moving into the cities to become the salt and the light so desperately needed. And this last one is a specialty group that we don't reach, and we would have to have people from within that group to tell us how. But there are dozens and dozens of specialty groups that we need to have a mission for. We will reach the cities with the power of the Holy Spirit as we look for the new methods. But if we make it a priority, we will say to ourselves, Jesus loves those people in the cities. Those 46 cities in China, 47 cities in North America, 46 cities in Euro-Africa, and all through the list—they are His children. He wants to come pick them up along with us to take us to heaven. Let's join hands to reach them.

GERRY D. KARST: Elder Finley, we've been here now for five days. Where do we go from here, and what will we do with all of this tremendous information and the challenge that is before us?

MARK FINLEY: Pastor Karst, that is the question: Where do we go from here? Do we say, “That was a nice discussion that we had at the fifty-eighth session of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in St. Louis—we had a wonderful time discussing with ourselves, but the material is gone”? We've had five core issues that we've discussed this week: the challenge of a deeper spirituality for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the increase of devotional life, prayer life, Bible study, and family worship among membership. And we looked at the fact that only 57 percent of our membership attends corporate worship. We faced that challenge.

We looked at the challenge of the church in society and the tendency of too many to isolate themselves. We talked about apostasy and missing members and the large numbers that come in. We pointed out the staggering statistics that although we baptized more than 5 million in the past five years, more than 1 one million have left the Seventh-day Adventist Church. We talked about that. We discussed the church and secularism in cities with Dr. Gustin today. Where will we go from here?

The Strategic Planning Commission at the General Conference, under Mike Ryan and our department at the Center of Global Evangelism, is putting together a booklet with all of these presentations in it. Every division in the world will get a booklet with these five core issues and the disk with the graphics. In addition to that, our secretaries have recorded your comments, and we'll synthesize those and boil them down and put them under headings in our divisions, and subsequently our unions will receive these.

Through our Council on Evangelism and Witness, at Annual Council time, we'll invite divisions and unions to wrestle with these issues, which have to do with deeper spiritual life: the issue of cities, the issue of apostasy, the issue of secularism. And we will develop strategic plans that can find their way through the divisions to unions and conferences. We'll challenge churches to look at the issue of deeper spiritual life and to look at the issue of missing members.

What if every Seventh-day Adventist church had a passion for mission? What if every Adventist church saw itself as the body of Christ and each member as a member of that body, reaching out into the community, using the gifts that God has given them and the various abilities to reach a variety of people? What if Seventh-day Adventist churches were loving communities of witness and mission? What if millions of Adventists were involved in mission? What if through prayer ministry, through small groups, through outreach ministry, we were filling auditoriums like this for short reaping meetings? I am convinced that God wants to do something special for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. And that Revelation 18:1 will be fulfilled—that the earth will be filled with the glory of God and that the light of truth will shine from every city to every village around the globe and that soon Jesus will come. May it be in our lifetime.

GERRY D. KARST: So it is that we must be about our Father's business. That we must face the challenges to complete the commission that He has given to us. I want to say a special thank-you to all of you who have stayed by and have shared with us in this time, and now the session continues with the remaining agenda items on the Church Manual.

EUGENE HSU: Welcome to the last meeting of business of this session. You are indeed the remnant of the remnant church. I understand that we have one item that was left from the discussion this morning, so I would like to invite Elder Parmenter, the secretary of the Church Manual Committee, to lead us in our discussion.

VERNON B. PARMENTER: Mr. Chairman, the item is 421, on page 72, concerning expired credentials, and if I recall, the last speaker was asking the question regarding the need for including the word “session” on line 14. While the model constitution in policy does suggest that the executive committee is probably the more desirable body to handle licenses and credentials, it is true also that in some of the constitutions it requires or provides the possibility of licenses and credentials being handled at a session or a constituency meeting. So, Mr. Chairman, I think it's important that the word “session” remain on line 14.

EUGENE HSU: Thank you for that clarification.

DANIEL DUFFIS: Mr. Chairman, I was the person who raised the question this morning. In some places we have some strange situations. In one conference the conference committee voted to recommend to the union committee the ordination of a pastor. When the time came for the ordination during the session of the conference, the committee on credentials and licenses did not feel that the pastor should be ordained. And so they opposed the pastor's ordination within the session. And they asked to vote down his ordination because they were not willing to give him ministerial credentials or renew his ministerial license. Because of this and many situations, we thought it proper—and we discussed it back there with Elder Leito, who was president back then—that we remove this from the session itself so that the committee, and not the session, handles all that has to with credentials and licenses. And maybe that's the reason it has come to the Church Manual Committee.

EUGENE HSU: Thank you for your comments. Do we have another response?

VERNON B. PARMENTER: Mr. Chairman, we simply cannot remove it from this part of the text simply because the constitutions of some conferences require that the licenses and credentials be handled at a session. If we do that, we then have a conflict with those same constitutions. I believe, Mr. Chairman, we need to allow either alternative.

EUGENE HSU: Any other questions or comments?

JOHN L. WANI: I appreciate the revision of the Church Manual part on credentials and licenses. The provision has always been that after the session has approved the credentials and licenses, the committee handles anything between sessions.

EUGENE HSU: We're now ready to vote. [Item 421 was voted.]

VERNON B. PARMENTER: We are now go to item 424, page 78, on gospel finance. Here we want to delete lines 15 through 17 and replace them with a new sentence. You'll notice that the old wording is a bit patronizing, probably a little bit arrogant, because it suggests that there are certain levels of individuals observed in God's church. And this is how we suggest it should read: “God's people have united in generously supporting the cause by giving offerings in proportion to their incomes.” I move it, Mr. Chairman. [The motion was seconded and voted.]

The next item is 425, page 79, and this has to do with the offerings or at least the sample budget that is listed here for a local church. And it's amazing to me, Mr. Chairman, that in having a sample budget we don't have a line item that has anything to do with evangelism or outreach except for church planting. And so on line 37 we are simply recommending here that we add the word “evangelism.” And I would move it. [The motion was seconded and voted.]

The next item, 427, on pages 81 and 82, concerns reasons for which members shall be disciplined. There are two amendments here to recommend, and this was brought to us by one of the divisions for amendment. It appears that in many areas churches are making up their own rules for disciplining church members, and if you read line 11, it suggests that it is the prerogative of a church to make up those particular reasons for disciplining a church member.

We would like to tighten that up a little bit, and we recommend to you that on line 12 the wording should read “Reasons for which members shall be subject to discipline are as follows”—therefore by limiting the reasons to the ones that are listed here. Then on line 32 we wish to change just the last word there: “Disorderly conduct which brings reproach upon the church;” And on the next page, again on line 9, replacing the word “cause” with “church”; and on line 12, replacing the word “fold” with “church.” I would move these changes, Mr. Chairman. [Seconded.]

EUGENE HSU: Any discussion?

KEN STANTON: The reason put forward for making this amendment is to make sure that other reasons for discipline can't be made up at lower church levels. I'm concerned that this amendment doesn't give effect to that purpose. To say that these are reasons for which members shall be subject to discipline doesn't exclude other reasons for which they may be subject to church discipline. If it is intended to mean that these are the only reasons, then the word “only” should be inserted.

EUGENE HSU: Thank you for your comment, but you are not making a motion to amend it, are you?

KEN STANTON: No, I am not making that motion. It is really a matter for the committee who brought it here to decide whether or not that is the intent and whether they want to give effect to it.

EUGENE HSU: Yes, the intent is to limit to the following reasons.

GEORGE BAXEN: On page 81, line 30, we have fraud or willful misrepresentation in business. General Conference policy also allows or mentions embezzlement, and I wonder if the Church Manual Committee couldn't include the word “embezzlement” in that line, please.

EUGENE HSU: I believe we have a response to that question.

VERNON B. PARMENTER: Mr. Chairman, I cannot determine how the committee would respond to that, but I would probably support it. The only problem that I have is that this is not the part that we are bringing for consideration here this afternoon.

EUGENE HSU: I would like to suggest that you consult with your division or union officers. Certainly it sounds like a good suggestion, but you can follow the procedure so that it will be discussed at our committee. Thank you.

MELVIN PAUL: I just have two comments on these provisions that we amended. There are here 12 reasons for a member to be disciplined. But it is not specified for which of these reasons the discipline will be censure and for which of these reasons the discipline will be removal from church membership. So in one church a violation may be disciplined by censure, and in another church the same violation may be disciplined by removal from church membership.

Another is on page 82. Lines 8-12 speak of removal from church membership, and also it mentions rebaptism thereafter, but does not specify a time period that a person who has been removed from church membership must satisfy before being rebaptized. In the operation of discipline of church members there are some cases in which a person is removed from church membership and he is rebaptized a week or so or just a few days thereafter. But then there are those who were censured for one year and cannot participate in some church activities for a year.

In other words, sometimes censure is harder on the individual.

EUGENE HSU: Thank you for your comments. Again, the issues that have been raised are not the items that are subject to discussion right now, so if you have concerns, please follow the regular procedure to present that to the Church Manual Committee. [Item 427 was voted.]

VERNON B. PARMENTER: The next item, Mr. Chairman, is the last item 423, pages 75-77, concerning the nominating committee. There are a number of changes here, Mr. Chairman. Some of it is new; some of it is just repositioning so that the steps and the procedures follow a little bit more smoothly. So while it looks like there are a lot of changes, there are really just a few, but let me point them out. Let me commence here on page 75, at line 32, the section on how the nominating committee is appointed. The first few changes refer back to the definition that we agreed on at the very first item that we considered, so instead of the minister, the pastor or district leader (or in the absence of the pastor or district leader, the elder) should bring the matter to the attention of the church. And then line 35 says “this special committee”—that's the committee that chooses the nominating committee—“may be chosen in one of two ways.” You will notice under point 1, that it is by “nominations, verbal or written, from the floor.” Line 41 says, “Every effort should be made to ensure fair representation in the composition of this special committee. Everything of a political nature should be avoided. The pastor or district leader shall serve as chair of this special committee. In the event that a pastor or district leader has not yet been appointed to serve as the leader of the church, the chair of the special committee shall be appointed by the church board from among the members of the special committee. The size of the special committee shall usually be equal to the size of the church board with an additional five to seven people.” So that is all new material there, Mr. Chairman. The second method for choosing the nominating committee, number 2 on line 5: “By the church's authorizing the church board, together with five to seven additional persons chosen by the church.” Then line 7: “If this method is adopted, the chair of the church board shall normally serve as chair of this special committee.” As you know, the chair, according to the Church Manual, is usually the pastor or district leader, but the pastor chooses whether he or an elder will chair. Then you find, beginning on line 10, the sequential steps that we should follow in a local church for appointing the nominating committee. On point a, line 12, the church appoints by vote a special committee by either one of the methods we have just referred to. Then line 15: “The special committee recommends to the church names for the nominating committee, with suggestions for a secretary.” Notice that we have deleted “chairperson,” because the church pastor normally serves in that role. “Every effort should be made to ensure fair representation in the composition of the nominating committee.” Line 19: “The church appoints by vote the nominating committee, naming the secretary,” not “chairperson and secretary.” Line 22 is not new. This is really taken from line 37 and down, and we have just moved it up so that it follows better in the sequential order, but I will read it. “The pastor or district leader is an ex officio member and serves as chairperson of the nominating committee. Should the pastor or district leader choose not to serve as chairperson, or if a pastor or district leader has not been appointed to the church, the special committee shall recommend the name of a local member to serve as chair of the nominating committee.” Going to the next page; line 1 and 2 read, “Work of the Nominating Committee”—As soon as possible after its election, the nominating committee should be called together by the chairperson.” We have deleted the word “chosen” because if the pastor is ex officio, he is not chosen. Then coming down to line 21: “When the nominating committee is ready to render its report, the chairperson of the nominating committee shall be given opportunity to make appropriate remarks to the church.” Mr. Chairman, I would move that we approve these changes. [Seconded.]

EUGENE HSU: Discussion?

ANDREW MC DONALD: I rise to address line 15 on page 76. The policy is not that the pastor must serve or should serve as chairman of the nominating committee. When you have a small church with very limited leadership, I would support that he serve. However, the church that we have at this time should not be limited to the pastor being the chairman of the nominating committee. I see light in the pastor being chair of this special committee. But the church belongs to the people, and I think it should be the privilege of the church to decide who should be the chair of the nominating committee, and we really should give preference to the people. They know the membership more than any pastor would, and we have intelligent leadership now in our churches. Second, I think it is inherently a conflict of interest for the pastor to assume the role of chairman of the nominating committee and at the same time being counselor to the nominating committee in the selections that are made for officers to serve.

Third, pastors come and pastors go as they serve us, and I have yet to see a pastor taking a church with him when he leaves. The church remains with the people, and sometimes decisions are made and we are saddled with inappropriate decisions, and as a consequence we have to live with them when the pastor goes.

We must endeavor to enhance and promote leadership in the church, and one of the positions of leadership promotion in the church is the role and function of the nominating committee. I got my training in the church by serving on church boards and nominating committees, and I think we should give the church back to the membership rather than to any other leadership.

EUGENE HSU: Brother Parmenter, would you please respond?

VERNON B. PARMENTER: I would just remind the delegates that on line 37 and through to 42 on the same page, we are not introducing a new idea here; this is the way it has been in the Church Manual. But we do bring it here, and we will abide by whatever the will of the delegation is, so we are just trying to clarify the way things are read here. There have been a few contradictions in the past, and, we could make it a little clearer, but if the will of the body is to change it to a layperson being the chair, then this body will have to decide that.

DICKIE GONGOB: I observe that this is good only in cases of one pastor per church. But in our place where a pastor is handling more than 20 churches in the district, how can he chair in every meeting of the church during the selection of the officers of the church? Especially when election can be made at the same time.

EUGENE HSU: Thank you for your question. I believe the answer lies right at lines 23 and 24, because it is not mandatory that the pastor must serve. He can choose not to serve, and then they can elect their own nominating committee chairman.

ALAN CLARK: I'd like to speak to line 33 on page 75. My understanding is that most churches would have more than one elder, and therefore for clarity I'd like to suggest that the word “senior” be placed where the deleted word “church” is.

VERNON B. PARMENTER: The common term used in the Church Manual is first elder, but our committee did look at that and discussed it for some time and decided that it may be easier to leave it open. But if the body would like to change it, that's OK with me.

EUGENE HSU: Are you prepared to make a motion to amend the word?

ALAN CLARK: So moved.

EUGENE HSU: Do I hear a second? It's been seconded. Any further questions or comments on the amendment that is to change the word “elder” to “first elder” or “head elder”?

HUDSON KIBUUKA: I am speaking against the amendment. If that amendment is made, we'd have to make a provision in the case where the pastor and the first elder are not able to chair the committee.

JOHN L. WANI: I speak against the amendment. If you amend the motion to say “first elder” it will be very, very restrictive. We should leave it as “elder” so that it is flexible for whoever is available within the place. Thank you.

KENAPOE KENAOPE: I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that we leave the wording as it appears, because it's neutral. In places where you plant a church and you have only one elder and then you would have it as senior elder, it becomes redundant, so once it is left open it gives leeway for churches in which you have 10 elders. So I should think it will sound much more inclusive as it appears.

EUGENE HSU: We will now vote on whether to close discussion. [Discussion was closed.]

We will now vote on the motion to amend. [The motion to amend was clearly lost.]

WILLIAM NILES: I stand in support of the comments made earlier by Mr. McDonald pertaining to the pastor of the church serving as chairman of the committee. It is also my belief that if the pastor is going to be counsel to this committee and is going to be objective, then it would not be fair to ask him to serve as the chair. And therefore I would like to move to amend section d on page 76. The last statement in that sentence would read only: “The special committee shall recommend a member of the nominating committee to serve as chair of this committee.”

We would ask the Church Manual Committee to make all the other changes.

EUGENE HSU: Would you please have it in writing and bring it up here so that we can see it more clearly? In the meantime, we can entertain other comments and observations.

WILLIAM NILES: That was a motion, Mr. Chairman.

EUGENE HSU: Yes, but we can vote on that a little later, after we see what you have proposed in writing.

WILLIAM NILES: Thank you.

VERNON B. PARMENTER: Mr. Chairman, could I just ask if the mover of the motion intended also to include the chairperson of the special committee, not just the nominating committee? The special committee on the bottom of page 75 indicates that the chairperson of the special committee should also be the pastor or district leader.

WILLIAM NILES: My motion does not affect that. I am just referring to the nominating committee.

EUGENE HSU: Thank you, and we will vote on your motion to amend later on when we have it in writing.

SAMUEL KORANTENG-PIPIM: Mr. Chairman, I think the previous speaker did make a motion. If not, I will. I think a valid point has been made in suggesting that the pastor should not be the chairperson of the nominating committee. There are reasons that this should be so and that a motion to that effect is in order. It has been suggested that there are pastors who are in charge of many churches. It is almost impossible for them to be chairperson at all churches. Second, there have been instances in which pastors have imposed their personal agenda on local churches while serving as chairpersons of such committees. And so I will make a motion that the church pastor should not be chairperson of the nominating committee, and therefore the section dealing with such should necessarily be corrected. I don't know how to put it in a better way.

EUGENE HSU: Thank you for your comments, but we are waiting for the amendment to come forward, and then we can discuss on that. But in the meantime, in order to save time, we are opening discussion to other sections of this document. Later when we receive the written amendment, we will focus on that.

KEN STANTON: Point of order, Mr. Chairman. I would like a ruling from the chair regarding whether the amendment is hostile to the original motion, because it seems to change the intent of the original motion.

EUGENE HSU: Even though it is not exactly a friendly amendment, we can still consider it. So I have the wording for this amendment: “The special committee shall recommend the chair of the nominating committee from among its members.” This is the motion. I see it is seconded, so let us now focus our discussion on this particular amendment.

WARREN S. SIMATELE: I do not see any problem with the proposal that is before us, and therefore I would like to speak against the amendment. I see no problem for the district pastor to remain the chair for the nominating committee. I think it is a tradition in the Seventh-day Adventist Church that the next-higher organization supervises the elections of the lower organization, and usually the chairman of the next-higher organization assumes the chairmanship of the nominating committee, and this tends to promote harmony. If the elders whose positions are decided in that nominating committee or in the election process begin to chair the nominating committee, we are likely to have a lot of finger-pointing.

If the church pastor is an appointee of the conference or field office, he stands in a better position. I would be happy, Mr. Chairman, if we said the pastor or his designee, because there are many instances in the Church Manual where the pastor is the chairman either of the church board or business meeting, but because we know how much work he is carrying, many times he designates someone to do so. So even in this case when we say the pastor, we know that there are instances when he may designate someone. I am in a division where we have one pastor overseeing many churches, but we make it because they schedule their program and they are able to go around.

ROBERVAL M. MARINHO: I am against the amendment. This matter has been discussed previously in the last session. This procedure has worked well, and there have been no problems in the past five years. We should not be looking at making changes to this procedure now.

KEN STANTON: I seek to appeal to your ruling that the amendment is not hostile, and I do so on this basis. Test it this way: if the motion were not amended, I would vote in favor of the unamended motion because it allows the pastor to be on the committee and to chair it, but he has discretion not to be. With the amendment that is proposed I would vote against it, because the pastor does not have the right to be on the committee, and therefore, I respectfully submit that the amendment reverses the intent of the motion, and it is hostile to the motion, and I appeal the ruling that it is not hostile.

EUGENE HSU: Let us now vote on the seeds of discussion on the amendment. All those who are in favor that we close the debate on the amendment (discussion between chairman and secretary)—I think it is best that we vote to close the debate on the amendment first. Then after that we will discuss, and take another vote to close the debate on the amended motion itself. All those who are in favor that we close the debate on the amendment, please raise your voting card. Thank you. Opposed, the same sign. OK. So now the debate is closed, and let us vote on the amendment right away.

WILLIAM NILES: Point of order. I wanted to clarify part of the motion that was made, the amendment. This does not exclude the pastor from being the chair; what it says is that the special committee chooses the chair from its members, so the pastor may still be chosen, but the committee may also choose another member; it's not exclusive.

EUGENE HSU: Let us now vote on the amendment. [The motion to amend was lost.]

Now let us vote on the main motion.

[The motion to accept the Church Manual amendment regarding the nominating committee was voted.]

EUGENE HSU: Thank you. Let us all rise for the benediction. [Benediction was given.]

Thank you for standing by to the very end. Victory is yours. Have a great and happy Sabbath.

Adjourned

GERRY D. KARST, Chair
EUGENE HSU, Chair
VERNON B. PARMENTER, Secretary
BILL BOTHE, ATHAL TOLHURST, FRED THOMAS, and CLAUDE SABOT, Proceedings Editors

Fifteenth Business Meeting Actions
July 8, 2005, 2:00 p.m.

EXPIRED CREDENTIALS—CHURCH MANUAL AMENDMENT
VOTED, To amend the Church Manual, Chapter 10, Ministers and Workers in Relation to the Church, page 140, Expired Credentials, to read as follows:

Expired Credentials

Credentials are granted for the duration of the term as provided for by the constitution and bylaws or operating policy of the conference/mission/field. The credentials are renewed by a vote of the conference/mission in session or by the executive committee. If for any reason it is deemed inadvisable to renew credentials to any minister, he ceases to function as a worker in the conference/mission/field. The possession of out of date or expired credentials does not authorize him to function in any of the offices of a minister. In such a case he has no more authority or standing than any other laymember in the church.

GOSPEL FINANCE—CHURCH MANUAL AMENDMENT
VOTED, To amend the Church Manual, Chapter 12, Gospel Finance, page 155, Offerings, to read as follows:

Offerings

In addition to the tithe, the Scriptures emphasize our obligation to bring offerings to the Lord. The withholding of offerings is classed with the withholding of tithe and is called robbery (Mal. 3:8). The Seventh-day Adventist Church has from its early days followed the practice of giving liberal offerings to the cause of God. Great prosperity and blessing have attended the work as a result. God's people have united in generously supporting the cause by giving offerings in proportion to their incomes.

OFFERINGS—CHURCH MANUAL AMENDMENT
VOTED, To amend the Church Manual, Chapter 12, Gospel Finance, pages 156 and 157, Offerings, Sample Budget, to read as follows:

Sample Annual Budget—The following budget will serve as an example. It can be adapted to meet the needs of a church of any size.