June 24, 2010
We arrived in Atlanta Wednesday evening. Our hotel room was 31 floors above the city streets of Atlanta and faced West, toward the Georgia Dome, where the GC session meets every day.
In the morning, as we ate breakfast, we meet Dennis Austin and his family. Dennis is serving as a delegate from the Columbia Union Committee and the Pennsylvania Conference.
As you enter the Georgia World Conference Center adjacent to the Georgia Dome where the Atlanta Falcons football team plays, there were a long row of registration booths for the delegates from all across the world to sign in and receive their badges and materials.
The Georgia Dome has seating on the floor for all the delegates from across the world. Each Division of the World Field, sits in a section marked out for the delegates from that Division.
At lunch, Jeanne and I enjoy sitting down at a table with perfect strangers and getting acquainted. Thursday’s lunch, we met the Union President and his wife from the Northern region of the Republic of the Congo. Often you see delegates from foreign countries wearing colorful dress from their home country.
In the afternoon, all the Divisions of the World field went to separate meetings rooms to caucus and nominate delegates to serve on the General Conference Nominating Committee. The North American Division is able to select 24 members of the Nominating Committee and the General Conference another 4, with a total of 28 of the Nominating Committee members. Over 200 individuals serve on the General Conference Session Nominating Committee. Our Columbia Union members met during the NAD Caucus and selected 3 individuals to join the 24 from the NAD. Bill Oblity of the Indiana, Pennsylvania Church is in the top center.
Our official church membership is now over 16,000,000 with about 25,000.000 attending or connected to the Seventh-day Adventist Church when you include children and those not yet baptized.
3 comments:
Apparently, a twelve-million-dollar party can generate alot of excitement and supposedly dump eighty million dollars into the Greater Atlanta economy.
To Dennis,
Yes, Adventists are IN the world, not OF the world. Part of being in the world means that they are willing to share the expenses for the support services of their conference as welcome income to the surrounding citizens of any city where they hold their conference. They are not so insular as to believe that just because God blesses believers, that he doesn't want blessings for all His children. Jobs and feeding one's family are blessings for all of us, Atlantans included.
To Dennis,
Yes, Adventists are IN the world, not OF the world. Part of being in the world means that they are willing to share the expenses for the support services of their conference as welcome income to the surrounding citizens of any city where they hold their conference. They are not so insular as to believe that just because God blesses believers, that he doesn't want blessings for all His children. Jobs and feeding one's family are blessings for all of us, Atlantans included.
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