BY JAN PAULSEN
The following was the opening address to the 2001 Annual Council of the
General Conference on September 25, 2001, delivered in the wake of the terrorist
tragedy in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.—Editors.
HE LORD FOILS THE PLANS OF THE nations; he thwarts the purposes of the
peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart
through all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his
inheritance. From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind; from his
dwelling place he watches all who live on earth—he who forms the hearts
of all, who considers everything they do. No king is saved by the size of his
army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are
on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver
them from death and keep them alive in famine. We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his
holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you" (Ps. 33:10-22, NIV).*
As a prophetic movement, with a sense of mission and purpose, we cannot have; ome to this point in time and history without reflecting on what this all says
to us. Most of us are probably uneasy; wary about what we'll meet tomorrow. Do we go back to
yesterday, or do we face another day of terror—or the Lord's
return? We believe that while nations make plans, God will unmake them and
replace them with His own. God is the one who owns the future and who decides
finally how it shall look. God will end it all, at His chosen hour; but
until then we must attend to our personal readiness, and we must attend to the
mission we have been given to accomplish by Him.
As we look around us at this unsettled and unsettling moment, we are reminded
of words of inspiration that powerfully come alive: "You
will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed.
Such things must happen. . . . Nation will rise against nation. . . . All these
are the beginning of birth pains. . . . Because of the increase of wickedness,
the love of most will grow cold. . . . This gospel of the kingdom will be preached
in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come"
(Matt. 24:6-14).
Ellen G. White tells of the following experience in writing The Great Controversy:
"I was moved by the Spirit
of the Lord to write that book, and while working upon it, I felt a great burden
upon my soul. I knew that time was short, that the scenes which are soon to; rowd upon us would at the last come very suddenly and swiftly, as represented
in the words of Scripture: 'The
day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night'
(1 Thess. 5:2).
"The Lord has set before me
matters which are of urgent importance for the present time, and which reach
into the future. The words have been spoken in a charge to me, 'Write
in a book the things which thou hast seen and heard, and let it go to all people;
for the time is at hand when past history will be repeated.' I have been aroused at one,
two, or three o'clock in the morning, with
some point forcibly impressed upon my mind, as if spoken by the voice of God.
I was shown that many of our own people were asleep in their sins, and although
they claimed to be Christians, they would perish unless they were converted.
"The solemn impressions made
upon my mind as the truth was laid out in clear lines before me, I tried to
bring before others, that each might feel the necessity of having a religious
experience for himself, of having a knowledge of the Saviour for himself, of
seeking repentance, faith, love, hope, and holiness for himself."1
These words were recorded more than 100 years ago, but they put before us a
reality that has never been more true than today. We are acquainted with the
statements about the big cities: the skyscrapers collapsing; catastrophe-proof
buildings being reduced to dust and ashes—big cities in which we have
still so much to do as a church.
The events that happened two weeks ago, whose consequences we are yet to comprehend
fully, are surely a wake-up call for us individually and for us as leaders of
a church with plans for missions.
As I Wake Up Each Morning
For us as individuals, it must tell us that whatever we create and surround
ourselves with and call "safe"
and "secure"-whether
it be buildings or stocks on the market, or, unfortunately, also provisions
for retirement—is so
fragile. The less clear we are about that, the greater will be the trauma we
experience when we face the loss of these things. As I wake up every morning,
I must be clear about what I can walk away from without my life collapsing.
As I lie down to sleep every evening, I must be able to know for myself, personally,
that when all is said and done, when the "lid is closed and the ribbon
is tied" on all my earthly possessions,
to know Christ is quite enough. Yes, I will be responsible about my material
goods; I will be a responsible steward. But I can do without the goods I have collected. I cannot do without Christ.
That is how I would like to face the end-time.
Also, for us individually as leaders, people who are constantly drawn on to
minister to others, such a traumatic marker of the passing of time as we had
two weeks ago must lead us to reflect on how we are doing at looking after ourselves.
We who are ever so busy doing the Lord's work, how good are we at
looking after our own personal spiritual needs? How much time do we take in
our busy daily routines to feed on the Word? How much time do we spend in prayer?
These are the sort of probing questions we are entitled to ask only of ourselves, for they have meaning only as a personal
self-search.
A Question of Motive
For us as a church community, it must be clearer than ever that everything
we do and plan, all of our priorities and values, all of the decisions and long-term
plans we arrive at in council must be defined and driven by mission. And I don't
say this simplistically, nor do I define mission narrowly, for I see
mission as being very broad and comprehensive. It is less a matter of what we
do than it is a matter of why—for
what purpose do we do it? There are some who would have us think that we can
best measure our success in mission by the number of evangelistic campaigns; onducted and persons baptized. We may think that if we baptize 1,000 people
the success is obviously greater than if we baptize five. Hence, if you take
a team and go overseas, you prefer a place that will assure large numbers. We
assume that God measures and counts as we do.
Clearly it is important that we reach the masses, that they hear the gospel
preached, that they meet Jesus Christ, and that they accept Him and the life
that He invites us to live. Clearly this is mission. But that is just the beginning—the
birth. To be born means primarily to be given an opportunity to live. A full
life lies ahead, and it is mission to prepare and equip an individual
for that life. The new believers must be nurtured and cultured in the new environment
of faith, or they will surely fall by the wayside. It is, in my view, very important
that in the rapidly growing areas of the developing world those who bring in
5,000 new members in a concentrated series of evangelistic activities must also
provide the new members with a physical home—a church building in which
to worship, in which their lives of faith can be sustained and begin to develop.
And I say this to the many supporting ministries whose services are invaluable
to our mission; I say this to private individuals who are putting together a
team for overseas mission; I say this to conferences and unions that adopt an
overseas territory as partners in mission: Do not assume that it is the responsibility
of the established church in whose country you go to preach to build new churches
for the new believers. They cannot do it. The resources are not there.
It's the responsibility
of local leaders to provide the new believers with spiritual leadership; but
without a "home"
in which the new members can meet regularly, they are as a flock of disorientated
sheep walking the hills, vulnerable to all kinds of prey. To give a new life
of lasting value to the new believers, you must help them with a home in which
to worship; and where possible, a school to which they can send their children.
Is It Mission? That's the Question
I said that I define mission broadly. I see training for discipleship
as mission. And that covers the whole range of services for which we have established
several departments. I say to my colleagues, of which we have many in this house:
When you have brought to the people the wonderful array of ideas, programs,
and services that you and your colleagues have developed,
How did these stimulate the
members to share their faith?
How did these contribute
to the bonding of the one family around the world?
How did these define the
best qualities of life that we should go for?
In all that occupies us as a church we need to ask: What are we doing, and
why are we doing it? The service defines itself by the deliberate focus it chooses.
If it is of Christ and brings Him to the people, it is mission.
I see operating a hospital, whether in affluent America or in some impoverished; ountry, as mission, as long as it is a center of healing where Christ
is testified to—a place that discharges the
"aroma of Christ . . . the fragrance of life"
(2 Cor. 2:15, 16). These institutions make Christ "smell good."
When that happens, they become beacons of hope for a better future.
I see our vast array of schools as mission—to our own children first
(of whom, sadly, a diminishing number actually attend), but also to multiple
thousands of children and youth of the towns and cities and communities in which
the schools are placed. It is mission if Christ is there, if what He
has taught is also taught there; it is mission if His values of morality
and ethics are profiled, and if leading a child to Christ is a deliberate objective
of the school. Then it is mission. Otherwise these busy activities may
be development, they may be humanitarian, they may be community-building, but
are they mission?
What I am saying is that I want all of our institutions, especially in health-care and education, to be symbols of Christ's victory over evil—over illness, illiteracy,
ignorance, deprivation, and destruction. That is mission. We will be
bringing to this council a recommendation about a new initiative to align the; church with those who battle against HIV/AIDS, especially in Africa.2 Of course
we want to heal people; we want to educate them about healthful habits that; an halt the spread of this scourge; but what drives us in taking on this assignment
is our belief that that is precisely what Christ would do. That makes it mission.
Our Public Image
I was so pleased that we as a church expressed our togetherness with the people
of New York in the suffering that so brutally came to us all two weeks ago,
by a full-page solidarity-in- prayer statement published in yesterday's
New York Times.3 It was an open, simple, and, I hope, very honest commitment.
We asked for nothing, but we pledged to pray.
I want the public to see us for what we are. We are part of the community,
the city, the world. I want them to know us. I want the public to see us as
a community with them. I want this church to be very visible. Why seek
obscurity? What is so attractive about that? W e represent everything that is
good for the community, for the family, for our children. We offer the best
education. We have a health message and ministry that is second to none. We
have a strong development/aid program where we are mixing with the "big
boys."
So, the qualities of life that identify our church are of the highest order.
This is something we must feel good about, and we must lift our heads high.
We should seek to expose what we have and what we are—for
the sake of Christ! Let us surprise some people. I would like to hear from some:
"I didn't
know you as a church were like that!"
We have, since our beginning, been known to champion religious
liberty. I commend my colleagues in that special ministry for the fact that
they are increasingly seeking public exposure and using it to good effect, both
in lobbying and in seeking potential partners. The same religious liberty we
seek and promote for ourselves is God's
gift to all humanity. Days will come when we will understand better than we
do today why we are promoting this one of life's
valuable qualities.
The quality of life in the Seventh-day Adventist communities must by definition
be constantly disciplined by the fact that this people believe in the second; oming of our Lord, and live daily in anticipation of that event. Said Peter,
reflecting on the second coming of Christ: Since you know these things, consider
"what kind of people
ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward
to the day of God and speed its coming" (2 Peter 3:11, 12; cf. verses 14, 17). We are Adventists because we have chosen
to live our lives the way we do. We are, of course, placed in, and are alive
to, the present world, and we suffer with it. But we live for the world to come.
The diet the news networks have served us these past two weeks has been of
one kind. It's almost
hypnotizing to watch. What we have seen is very painful and very unsettling.
Fear and questions about what will come next are constantly pressing in on us
and our communities. That is the way the world is, and we are part of the suffering
world. But we are also Adventists, and we long for Him to come back and close
this chapter on human suffering. And to that end we live our lives, and make
our choices, and engage in His mission.
"To him who is able to keep
you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault
and with great joy—to
the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus; hrist our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen" (Jude 24, 25).
*All Scriptures cited in this article are from the New International Version.
1 Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book 3, pp. 113, 114.
2 For a report on this initiative see Adventist Review, Oct. 25, 2001.
3 See the New York Times, Sept. 24, 2001, p. A13.
_________________________
Jan Paulsen is the president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, with headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.