William G. Johnsson

s delegates gather from around the world for the fifty-seventh session of the General Conference, Adventists stand poised on the cusp of change. Not just the scrolling up of the year 2000 suggests a moment pregnant with the future--the Seventh-day Adventist Church itself has reached a decisive point in its history.

One factor above all others will make a huge impact on us in the years just ahead--the exploding numbers. For many years membership has almost doubled every decade; now, at 11 million, we have reached a critical mass. At current rates of growth the sheer momentum of this movement will propel us to 37 million within 20 years, to 100 million or more within 40 years.

We are no longer a small church--in more and more countries Adventists will come to prominence in shaping society on a multitude of fronts, including the political.

What a reversal! For so long we struggled to make a dent, labored long and hard to establish a beachhead. The days right before us will flip the dynamic: in many parts of the world we will have to respond to the challenges brought by rapid growth.

How will the multitude of new believers be nurtured, built up in the faith?

Where will we find spiritual shepherds--professional clergy and lay leaders--to guide the flock?

How will we provide places of worship for a greatly enlarged church?

What opportunities for Christian education should we provide for the young people (and the majority of those flocking into the church are young)?

These amazing developments, these challenges of a vital church, present utterly new possibilities and utterly new threats.

Will we, by God's grace, demonstrate to men and to angels the vision of one fellowship drawn from "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people" (Rev. 14:6, 7), or will we fragment along national, ethnic, caste, or gender lines?

Will we share and distribute resources fairly and equitably, retaining the Adventist principle that the strong support the weak, or will we become self-protective and hoard resources as the exploding work strains the church's treasury to its limits?

Will the hope of the soon return of Jesus burn bright within our lives and our organization, or will we settle back into easy conformity with society around us?

Above all, will we continue to be a people who, with face to the wind, resist the pull of the crowd and follow the leading of the Spirit, or will we grow soft and comfortable in the recognition that our new strength will bring?

The times--these times of great change--demand leaders extraordinaire. Leaders of vision, of courage, of strength, of love.

And above all, of spirituality. Leaders who know their Lord and lean upon Him for wisdom and guidance, who spend much time on their knees and with the open Word. And so who are leaders "who will not be bought or sold . . . who in their inmost souls are true and honest . . . who do not fear to call sin by its right name . . . whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole . . . who will stand for the right though the heavens fall" (Education, p. 57).

On October 26, 1892, Ellen White, who was in Australia, sent a letter from my hometown of Adelaide. With a General Conference session approaching, she had a comforting message for President O. A. Olsen: "To him who is content to receive without deserving, who feels that he can never recompense such love, who lays all doubt and unbelief aside, and comes as a little child to the feet of Jesus, all the treasures of eternal love are a free, everlasting gift.

"Come up to the conference in calm, perfect trust. `Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.' He will work and who will let or hinder? There is nothing too hard for Him. His is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory and the majesty. Let us not limit the Holy One of Israel" (Letter 19e, 1892).