GC Session Day 7, June 30, 2010

PRESIDENT’S BLOG GENERAL CONFERENCE SESSION DAY 7
June 30, 2010

Another historic day at the 59th General Conference Session today. For the opening of the morning business session, the Steering Committee and the new General Conference President, Ted NC Wilson, brought to the delegates on the floor the statement and document, “Response to an Affirmation of Creation” which had been voted by Annual Council in 2004. Several of us had been praying that some statement of this kind would come before the World Church and be not only considered, but in fact, voted upon. The basic core of this statement would be found in point 3 of the document. “We reaffirm the Seventh-day Adventist understanding of the historicity of Genesis 1-11: that the seven days of the Creation account were literal 24 hour days forming a week identical in time to what we now experience as a week, and that the Flood was global in nature.”
Basically, the delegates voted to take this in two measures. The first motion was to vote to approve this Affirmation of Creation. The second motion was to request the General Conference Officers to begin the process of incorporating this affirmation of Creation into our current Fundamental Belief # 6. Both motions passed. The reason it is vital to strengthen Fundamental Belief # 6, is as Dr. John Baldwin presented at our Pennsylvania Camp Meeting Pastor’s meeting this year, certain Adventist scholars sought to intentionally frame Belief # 6 in the beginning, in order that a wide range of interpretation could be applied to Belief # 6. Even during this session, the need for strengthening Fundamental Belief # 6 was clearly shown by a written statement, posted June 25, 2010 on the Spectrum blog by the Chairman of the board of Adventist Forums, Charles Scriven, President of Kettering College of Medical Arts. “…the statement on creation in the Twenty-eight Fundamentals document was meant, by the still-living authors, to keep the door open for both literal and metaphorical readings of Genesis…” I am happy to report that both motions received over-whelming support from across the World field.

After the morning session, Jeanne and I spent some time in the Prayer room, praying and reading from Psalms for our own personal worship time. I am glad that the General Conference session has established this prayer room, for in all the meetings, rising early and getting back late to the hotel, trying to catch the shuttle buses back and forth, and with all the hordes of people always around, it is a quiet, welcome oasis for personal worship and quiet prayer.


From 1 p.m. to 3:40 p.m. I attended the Standing Committee on the Church Manual as they considered comments on items that had been referred back to Committee. I have a great respect for the individuals who serve on this Committee and especially Elder Home Trecartin, who is the principal director for the Committees work. There were several items that were enthusiastically discussed in this meeting in order to bring back to the delegates possible re-wording of proposed motions. One of the items that received a lot of time and attention, was the section under Deaconesses. Since the delegates earlier voted that when a church was organized, Elders, Deacons and Deaconesses were to be ordained, the Committee was then attempting to bring a later section of the Manual that more fully deals with Deaconesses into alignment with the voted statement from the section saying Deaconess should be ordained when organizing a new church. Some of those attending this Committee meeting where concerned about whether or not the delegates when they voted for Deaconesses to b e ordained at an earlier GC session meeting a few days ago, really understood what they were voting. Some felt that certain African delegates would not have really voted that if they had fully understood. So the suggestion was to bring back the original section and offer it up for re-consideration. Others said, the original section was voted. Everyone should have understood what they were voting on, when they were voting. If you bring it back for re-consideration, how many other things will you bring back for re-consideration at any time someone says they didn’t fully understand what they were voting for when they voted. Another suggestion/comment was that in the section dealing with the office of Deaconesses, we not put a statement there calling for Deaconesses to be ordained. Just leave the earlier statement, but do not bring this section into alignment. In other words, leave some ambiguity so various parts of the world church could practice ordaining or not ordaining Deaconesses, depending on which page of the Church Manual they were reading from. This was offered with the spirit of trying to be sensitive to those Divisions of the world field where the local culture would not be at all comfortable with ordaining Deaconesses. I suggested that perhaps the Church Manual could at this point include the statement from the Adventist Review where Ellen White calls for ladies to be set aside for the type of work of a Deaconess, with the laying on of hands. The Committee felt like they did not want to “load” the Manual up with Ellen White quotes, although there are already quite a few Ellen White quotes all through the Manual. In fact the sections dealing with Elders and Deacons have Ellen White quotes, while the section dealing with Deaconesses has no Ellen White quotes! In the end, the Standing Committee on the Church Manual decided to bring to the floor a revised statement on ordaining Deaconesses for the section dealing with Deaconesses, that would be in alignment with the earlier vote of a couple of days ago.


At the four o’clock session, Fred Kinsey, North American Division Communications Director introduced Martin Doblmeier, the writer and director of a new documentary about the Seventh-day Adventist Church, entitled, The Adventists. After interviewing Mr. Doblmeier for several minutes, Fred Kinsey shared with the session delegates that The Adventists was the best selling documentary on Amazon.com.


After the afternoon session, I met Mike Cauley, past president of the Pennsylvania Conference in the hallway of building C.

This evening, Dick Spotts and I spent 1 ½ hours discussing ways to seek additional industry potentials for Blue Mountain Academy. I really appreciate Dick’s dedication and willingness to work on behalf of BMA.

As the day ended, it was time to get on the bus and return to my hotel. As the sun set over the Western view of Atlanta and the Georgia Dome where the GC session meets, we take our rest and pray for God’s Holy Spirit to lead our World Church in the work of organizing the Church for service and mission across the world field.