Annual Council 2001 - Opening Address

Annual Council 2001

Opening Address by Pastor Jan Paulsen,

President of the Seventh-dayAdventist Church worldwide

September 25, 2001, 7 p.m.

"The 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

As a prophetic movement, with a sense of mission and purpose, we cannot have come 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 will 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 which 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 24:6-8, 12, 14

Ellen 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 crowd 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."--3SM 113, 114

These words were recorded over a hundred years ago, but they put before us a reality which 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 fully comprehend, are surely a wake-up call for us individually and for us as leaders of a Church with plans for missions.

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, 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 that 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 all 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 that we are entitled to ask only of ourselves, for they have meaning only as a personal self-search.

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 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 conducted 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 going to 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 this 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 who 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 is their responsibility 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, but 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.

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 which 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: Why are we doing it and what are we doing? 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 an impoverished country of Africa, as mission as long as it is a center of healing where Christ is testified to--a place which 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 the children and youth of the towns and cities and communities in which the schools are placed in their multiple thousands. 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. Of course we want to heal people, we want to educate them about healthful habits which can halt the spread of this scourge; but what drives us in taking on this assignment is that we believe that is precisely what Christ would do. That makes it mission.

I was so pleased that we as a Church expressed our togetherness with the people of New York in the suffering which so brutally came to us all two weeks ago by a full-page solidarity-in-prayer statement published in yesterday's New York Times. It was an open, simple, and I hope very honest commitment. We asked for nothing, but we pledged to pray. And I want us to do that this evening before we close.

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? We 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 which is second to none. We have a strong development/aid program where we are mixing with the "big boys." So, the qualities of life which identify our Church are of the highest order. This is something we must feel good about and 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 coming of our Lord and we live daily in anticipation of that event. Peter said, reflecting on the second coming of Christ: Since you know these things, consider "what kind of people you ought 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. vs. 14, 17) We are Adventists because we have chosen to live our lives the way we do. We are, of course, placed in and alive to the present world, and we suffer with it; but we live for the world to come.

The diet which the news networks have served us these past two weeks has been of one kind. It is 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 Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen."--Jude 24, 25