Why ‘Anti-Conservative’ Adventism Is Doomed to Fail
There’s a tension in Adventism right now.
On one side, you have the fundamentalist crowd—fixated on dress codes, food fights, and debates over whether clapping in church summons demons.
On the other side, you have the oppositional crowd—pushing back hard (and rightly so) against the toxic legalism that has hurt so many.
For a long time, I found myself firmly in that oppositional camp. And to be fair, it brings some important and necessary critiques to the table.
But here’s the hard truth I’ve come to realize: oppositional Adventism, for all the good it offers, has one glaring flaw—a tendency to shrink itself into a shallow, reactionary identity built around being “not like them.”
“Look how unlike those other Adventists we are! Don’t worry, we don’t talk about prophecy, judgment, or anything too ‘Adventisty’. We’re the opposite!"
I get it. I used to be there too.
But then I stepped out of the Adventist bubble and started doing discipleship work with secular, post-church people. I thought they would love me and welcome me with open arms because I wasn’t like “those other Adventists over there”.
But I discovered something that wrecked my assumptions.
None of them cared.
Being “not like them” might have been cool to other oppositional Adventists. But to secular, unchurched seekers who had never even met the “them” I was opposing, my contrarian posture was insipid, irrelevant, and banal.
The Problem with Oppostional Adventism
Oppositionalism feels good when you’re trying to dismantle something harmful.
When you’ve lived under the shadow of toxic theology, it’s cathartic to swing the pendulum in the other direction.
But the danger of defining yourself as the opposite of something is that it becomes the entire shape of your faith.
You’re not building something meaningful—you’re just reacting.
Missionally speaking, this is empty because if the thing you oppose doesn’t exist then your very existence is pointless. And since the things oppositional Adventism opposes do not exist in the secular consciousness, then our very existence is pointless in that missional space.
That’s when I learned something else.
Emerging secular generations aren’t looking for faith that’s built on an oppositional, anti-conservative Adventist identity.
Why? Because they have no idea what that identity is. They have never experienced it.
It might have value in reaching “dechurched” Adventists. But “unchurched” seekers? Nah.
This post-church, meta-modern generation is not asking, “How do we undo that legalistic past?” (which they have no idea even exists…)
They’re asking:
How do we find authentic meaning in an age of complexity and uncertainty?
What does it mean to belong in a globalized, yet fragmented, world?
How do we reconstruct a world of justice and inclusion while resisting the power hierarchies that seduce us?
While some in Adventism are busy enforcing dress codes and others are busy rejecting them, the world spirals onward, asking questions neither crowd seems equipped to address.
Conservatism is stuck in its own toxic echo chamber.
But oppositional Adventism? It’s just a mirror image—a faith still stuck in orbit around the thing it claims to oppose.
The Futility of Contrarian Clichés
Look, I get it. I’ve been there.
When you’ve grown up under the weight of legalism, it feels radical to say things like:
“Doctrine doesn’t matter.”
“Relationship, not religion.”
It feels freeing to reject the shame and start over.
But step outside the Adventist echo chamber and try those phrases on a secular crowd.
To people who’ve never heard of the little horn or last-day events, those slogans don’t land.
“It’s all about relationship, not religion.”
Cool. But what does that really look like on a hyper-connected, economically imbalanced, socially fragmented Monday?
Contrarian faith can’t answer the questions of real life because its entire purpose is to distance itself from the past—not to build something for the present.
What secular people—and all of us—are searching for isn’t a faith that’s obssessed with being the opposite of those “other” Christians over “there.”
But a faith that catapults us into an ocean of color and a sea of wonder we’ve never seen before.
So What’s the Answer?
Years ago, I baptized a lady who had never been to an Adventist church before. She attended an evangelistic series and fell in love with the gospel. The night before her baptism, we ran through a quick overview of our 28 fundamentals. And she wanted to know more about Ellen White.
I immediately broke into a long winded, reactionary lecture.
“Our beliefs aren’t based on her… and we believe in sola scriptura… and some people misuse her but at the end of the day… blah, blah, blah…”
My lecture would have kept going, but the young lady interrupted me. She turned to the elder beside me and said, “Oh… OK… but, what was she like?”
There I was, going on and on about stuff she had never experienced when all she really wanted to know was what how many kids Ellen had, where she lived, and what made her happy.
I learned a valuable lesson that night.
The world doesn’t need anti-conservative Adventism. It needs an imaginal Adventism. An Adventism so enamoured with the sublime mystery of Yahweh that reacting to legalists just sounds boring. A creative, relational, adventurous Adventism full of wonder, and playfulness, and enthusiasm.
An Adventism that mines the beauty nested within its raw material in order to rediscover the stories it has been given.
Stories about justice, liberation, wholeness, and hope.
Stories about earth, bodies, and redemption.
And yeah… stories about a little old lady who loved Jesus and lemon pie.
Of course, this rediscovery invites us to discard baggage we were never meant to carry.
To reframe ideas that have been misunderstood or weaponized.
And that can certainly mean being clear about what we do not support, endorse, or promote.
But what it never means is reducing our idenity to nothing more than the things we oppose.
A Faith for the Chaos
Here’s the thing:
Young people aren’t looking for a our “anti-ness”…
The only folk amused by this never ending contrarianism is… well… us.
Yes, there are certainly appropiate times to explore the failures of faith and contend honestly with them.
But what I have learned is seekers today are longing for a faith that can stand on it’s own beauty.
A faith that’s:
Authentic enough to admit the failures of the church without making the criticism of failure our “main thing”.
Resilient enough to confront injustice, trauma, and suffering without being reauthored by cynicism.
Intellectually grounded enough to wrestle with the deepest questions of modern thought while pointing us to something greater than the greatest human thought.
Prophetic enough to call out Christian nationalism, systemic oppression, and spiritual abuse without reducing our identity to what it opposes.
A faith centered on Jesus—not the sanitized, Pinterest-board version, but the table-flipping, justice-speaking Savior whose identity was not in revolution or even reformation, but in love.
So Where Do We Go From Here?
We stand at a crossroads.
We can:
Keep clinging to the past, hoping to preserve expressions of faith the world has outgrown.
Define ourselves by what we’re not, building a reactionary identity with no relevance to the world beyond ourselves.
Or cultivate something meaningful, full of wonder, mystery, and existential utility for all mankind.
Option 3 is what it means to ignite a faith for this moment.
A faith that belongs, not to us, but to humanity.
An Adventism. Redesigned.
Preaching Heaven, Sabbath, and Health in a Post-Religious World
Preaching today feels like stepping into a foreign land.
The language is still English, but the words don’t mean the same.
The culture is fragmented, splintered into micro-communities where no single narrative holds sway.
And the questions people are asking—if they’re asking at all—are nothing like the ones that fueled Adventist preaching for generations.
Take heaven, for example.
For decades, we preached heaven as the ultimate reward—a crown of life, streets of gold, an eternal home.
But today, heaven isn’t the question people are asking.
They’re not staying up at night wondering if they’ll make it.
They’re wondering if life here—right now—is even worth living—especially with a cost of living crisis, ecological threats, nuclear war on the horizon, and AI both promising and threatening to remake the world.
How do you preach heaven in way that speaks to their lived anxieties rather than the anxieties our parents had? Thats the key.
Then there’s Sabbath.
We’ve preached it as day seven, the seal of God, the counterpoint to the mark of the beast.
But the modern listener?
They don’t care if it’s day one, day seven, or day three.
Sabbath as we’ve framed it doesn’t resonate.
Yet, what if Sabbath isn’t about a day at all?
What if it’s about something deeper—something this restless, anxious, overworked world desperately needs but doesn’t even know how to name?
And the health message.
Once a shining example of Adventist relevance, it now feels overshadowed by the cultural backlash against far-left, secular vegan fanaticism.
People hear "plant-based," and they roll their eyes.
The conversation has been hijacked by non-religious extremes, leaving us with a challenge:
How do we preach health in a way that speaks to the deeper human desire for wholeness rather than rehashing the very points that create resistance? And how do we do this in a way that doesn’t feel like a cooking class for grandma’s?
This is the world we’re called to preach to—a fragmented, anxious world with different fears, different questions, and different priorities than the ones Adventism has wrestled with for over a century.
But here’s the thing:
The gospel has always been bigger than our frameworks.
The gospel can speak to every culture, every language, and every question—if we let it.
And nested within the Adventist message is all the raw material we need to nurture a movement of preachers that interact with the culture rather than lecture it.
But how? What are the steps? What does this look like in pen and paper?
Well, I can’t answer that in a blog.
So I did the next best thing. I’ve put together a 3-day workshop titled, “Preach to Reach” that is focused entirely on how to articulate the beauty of Adventism for our secular, post-religious world of today.
It runs from February 3-5, from 7-8:30pm EST over those 3 nights.
This 3-day workshop will give you the tools, the frameworks, and the practical exercises to meet people where they are in our modern age… and lead them to where God is calling them to be.
With only 4 spots left, this is your chance to be part of a conversation that could transform your preaching—and your ministry.
👉 REGISTER NOW.
If you’re ready to reimagine how to preach heaven, Sabbath, and health (plus more) in ways that truly connect with young and secular generations, join me for Preach to Reach!
Is Adventism Still Built for the Real World—Or Just Its Own Bubble?
Adventism was born in relevance.
When our movement emerged in the mid-1800s, it wasn’t just another religious echo chamber rehearsing safe spiritual platitudes. It was dangerous. Disruptive. It spoke to the deepest social tensions of the time—and it showed up.
Our pioneers didn’t just preach about justice; they lived it.
👉 Joseph Bates was a radical abolitionist who used his platform to challenge the horrors of slavery.
👉 John Byington, our first General Conference president, ran a literal stop on the Underground Railroad, risking everything to give enslaved people their shot at freedom.
👉 Sojourner Truth, a freed slave and activist, stood shoulder to shoulder with Adventists in calling for both spiritual and social liberation.
These were people who risked their lives because their faith demanded it.
Their message wasn’t just about personal piety—it was a call to disrupt oppression, heal the broken, and stand in the face of injustice.
Adventism was cutting-edge, bold, and culturally awake.
But Somewhere Along the Way... We Drifted.
Today? We’ve lost that pulse.
We’re still passionate—but about all the wrong things.
We debate over how to articulate doctrines instead of showing how those doctrines set people free.
We answer questions the world isn’t asking while ignoring the ones keeping people up at night.
We argue over music styles, jewelry, and whether clapping in church is “holy enough” while the world wrestles with injustice, existential fears, and geopolitical fragmentation.
And all the while? We call it “faithfulness.”
But it’s not faithfulness. It’s preservationism—the slow, quiet death of a movement that has forgotten its mission.
Our Pioneers Weren't Preservationists—They Were Innovators.
They didn’t sit around trying to “preserve” the 1800s. They pushed forward. They translated timeless truths into culturally relevant, cutting-edge ideas that spoke directly to their generation’s struggles.
We need to reclaim that spirit in 2025.
Because here’s the truth:
We will keep growing as a church. Numbers will keep rising. But if we’re growing because we’ve become attractive to those living in nostalgic time capsules—then all we’ll be left with is a shrinking circle of people whose driving force is preserving what was, rather than engineering what could be.
And guess what? That’s already happening in many circles.
The risk isn’t that the church will fail.
The risk is that it will succeed at things that don’t actually matter.
(Thanks, Francis Chan, for that gut punch.)
It’s Time to Turn Things Around.
The world doesn’t need a museum of Adventism. It needs a movement—one bold enough to speak into the raw realities of this generation.
A faith that engages the questions people are actually asking.
A faith that lives out Jesus' justice, compassion, and radical love.
A faith so grounded in truth it can stand in the tension of modern complexity without losing itself.
This is our heritage.
This is our calling.
Let’s stop preserving the past and start shaping the future.
What would it look like for your community to embrace this vision? Let’s talk below. 👇
From Petty Arguments to Powerful Mission: Redesigning Adventism in 2025
Adventism was never meant to be small. It was never meant to obsess over trivial debates like whether clapping in church is acceptable or if Christmas is too worldly. These conversations are distractions, pulling us away from the mission we’ve been called to fulfill.
While we debate wedding bands and the “right” style of worship, the world is unraveling. People are drowning in fear—fear of extinction, of AI spiraling out of control, of nuclear annihilation. Technocracy strips us of our humanity. Theocracy looms over liberty. Political systems are wobbling.
And yet, here we are, arguing over the color of carpet in the sanctuary.
This version of Adventism—hollow, shallow, and small—has nothing meaningful to offer a world on the edge. But that’s not the Adventism I dream of.
A Vision for Something Deeper
I long for an Adventism that moves beyond petty arguments and empty traditions. An Adventism that’s not distracted by the inessential but is laser-focused on the essential—Jesus.
Imagine an Adventism that shows the world a Jesus who isn’t boxed into rules and rituals. A Jesus who flips tables in the temple to confront injustice and kneels to wash feet in humble service. A Jesus who speaks directly to the aching soul, offering something real, something healing, something eternal.
This is the Adventism the world needs:
A church that rages against systems of oppression and injustice.
A church that stands as a beacon of light in the chaos of emerging theocracy and technocracy.
A church that speaks to the existential terror of a world teetering on the edge of disaster, bringing hope, healing, and peace.
This isn’t about abandoning our roots. It’s about rediscovering what those roots were meant to grow into—an Adventism that is vibrant, alive, and deeply connected to the humanity it serves. A tree that bears fruit.
An Adventism That Creates
Imagine a community of Adventists who dream, imagine, and create. A church that builds bridges of relationship and connection instead of walls of judgment. A church where humanity is at the heart of every decision and mission is not an event but a way of life.
This kind of Adventism isn’t focused on preserving the past—it’s focused on building the future. A new world. A new humanity. A new civilization.
We were never called to sit in pews and debate jewelry. We were called to build the kingdom. To show the world what it looks like when Jesus reigns in our hearts and communities.
3 Steps Toward Building This Vision in 2025
Refocus on Jesus: Everything starts with Jesus. Strip away the distractions and ask, “What would Jesus prioritize? What would He care about in this moment?” Centering our faith on Jesus clears the clutter and brings clarity to our mission.
Let Go of Petty Traditions: Identify the cultural practices and debates that serve as obstacles to connection. If it doesn’t point people to Jesus, it’s time to let it go. Free your church to embrace what truly matters.
Step Into the World’s Pain: Engage with the big questions people are asking. Don’t shy away from conversations about injustice, fear, or chaos. Be the presence of Christ in these spaces, offering hope and healing where it’s needed most.
The Adventism I dream of is bold. It’s creative. It’s deeply human. It’s an Adventism that belongs to today—a movement that doesn’t just exist, but thrives in this moment, building the kingdom of God in every corner of the world.
If this resonates with you, let’s dream together. What does this kind of Adventism look like to you? Let’s talk. 👇
3 Pitfalls to Avoid when Sharing Jesus this Christmas
Pitfall #1: Pushing the Gospel Like a Used Car Salesman
A common mistake believers make is pushing the Gospel onto others without first understanding where they're coming from. This is often done when we are either really excited to share Jesus or we are driven by feelings of guilt to reach out to others. In either case, take the time alone with God to center your heart in his love and rest in his finished work. Remember, in the work of the gospel we are not the hero. He is. We are simply there to be his hands and feet. And that’s a lot easier and less stressful than trying to save people.
With that in mind, instead of bombarding people with your beliefs, take the time to listen. Avoid dominating the conversation or dismissing their worldview. Show genuine interest in their perspectives, concerns, and questions. Remember, understanding precedes being understood. By actively listening, we build trust and create space for a respectful exchange of ideas.
Pitfall #2: The “Let Me School You” Trap
It's easy to fall into the trap of appearing judgmental or condescending when talking about faith because its already a touchy subject. Because of this, we have to be extra intentional about ensuring we cultivate a space where people feel supported and heard. The best way to do this is to avoid making friends or family feel inferior or inadequate because their worldview differs from yours. And the secret to doing this well is via a little thing called “curiosity”.
When we approach conversations with curiosity, we acknowledge the value of a person’s journey. This creates an environment where meaningful dialogue can take place without alienation.
Here’s the best curiosity mission-hack I can teach you. It’s a simple phrase and it only has 3 words: “Tell me more.”
The power of that phrase cannot be overemphasized. When discussing life and faith with others, if you ever feel like arguing, or you get that rush through your body when someone says something you disagree with, rather than biting back or going frowny-face do this instead. Embrace curiosity by replying with, “Tell me more.”
As they express more of their own story or worldview, you will get the bigger picture and you will build rapport and respect with the person. Will this always lead to a transformative gospel moment? Not a chance. Nothing ever does. But it will create a foundation that can nurture true relationship and meaningful connection for years to come.
Pitfall #3: The “Theopedia” Dump
Sometimes, in our enthusiasm to share the richness of our faith, we overload our secular friends with too much information. And information overload makes people feel overwhelmed. And overwhelmed people just want to get away from you. So here’s a rule to keep in mind: When it comes to secular seekers, just because a person expresses interest in faith doesn’t mean you can go trigger-happy on Bible stuff. You have to be chill and go easy.
Here’s how. Avoid overwhelming them with theological jargon, Bible verses, or complex doctrines right from the start. Keep it simple and relatable. Focus on sharing a personal story, experience, and a simple point on how Jesus made a difference. Don’t share too many stories or drench them in endless examples. Less is more. Aim to plant seeds rather than inundate them with a deluge of information that might confuse or distance them.
The best way to do this is to have a simple story of what Jesus means to you already internalized in your heart. This means you can share it without having to make something up on the spot. On the spot reactions are more likely to be chaotic and overwhelming. An internalized story you have prepared beforehand is more likely to be short, sweet, and simple.
As I said in the previous email, these tips enable us to do mission with more effectiveness and less stress. And that’s the key to a sustainable missional life.
So prioritize listening, avoid judgment, and opt for simplicity over overwhelming information. By doing so, we can build bridges of understanding and compassion, making the message of Jesus more accessible and appealing to those around us.
Merry Christmas!
Pastor M
Why Witchcraft, AI, and Aliens Are Outpacing the Church
According to a recent news report, “Modern-day witchcraft is on the rise in Australia as support for organised religion plummets…”*
For those who have been following the last 20-30 years of worldview shifts in western culture, this is no surprise.
There is an age of re-enchantment upon us - a kind of post-secularism in which younger generations tire of the materialistic, naturalistic, and consumerist world the post-religious west has built.
These new generations long for mystery, for transcendence, and to inhabit a world with room for the sacred and the mystical. Gone are the days of ridiculing the supernatural. Gone are the days of mocking belief in God. And gone are the days of assuming that everything that is real must, of necessity, be purely material.
The unexplainable, the uncontainable, and the immesurable are back in vogue.
Modernism has faded. Postmodernism has faded. Metamodernism is now opening new doors to faith and spirituality - including religion itself. And post-humanism (the belief that humanity must upgrade itself through technology in order to advance to its next evolutionary chapter) is redefining the nature of reality and the limits of scientific inquiry.
In some contexts, this results in a resurgence of Christianity. We see this reflected in high profile conversions like Russel Brand, Shia Le Beouf, Martin Shaw, Jordan Peterson and Rob Scheider - all of whom have converted to either Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy in recent years.
In others settings, this return to an enchanted cosmology results in the popularization of simulation theory (that we live in a simulated reality akin to a video game, with a simulator coding everything we see), in the re-emergence of ancient rituals (as in Ayahuasca retreats), in the mainstreaming of extra-terrestrial interest (UFOs/ UAPs taken seriously in congressional hearings and mainstream news agencies) and in a neo-ressurgence of mysticism and witchcraft.
In fact, as I type, Artifical Intelligence religions have already begun taking shape with its first church, “Way of the Future”, led by engineer Anthony Levandowski already attracting thousands.
The goal? To create a “spiritual connection between humans and AI.”**
UFO religions are also on the rise. A Boston Globe article published in March of this year (2024) put it this way:
“Jesus, the Buddha, and Yahweh have competition for the faithful: aliens.”***
And if that sentence makes you roll your eyes and laugh, allow me to challenge you for a moment. You most likely laugh because, the last time you checked, “belief in aliens” was reserved for 40 year old weirdos who had never kissed a girl posting on back-net forums from their mom’s basement. But as professor of psychology David Steno put it (in the same article referenced above),
“Belief in aliens is no longer fringe. Fifty-one percent of Americans think that unidentified flying objects are likely controlled by extraterrestrials — an increase of more than 20 percentage points since 1996. And one in three believe we’re likely to make formal contact with aliens in the next 50 years.”
Still laughing? The chuckles might just be a sign that you are painfully out of touch — stuck in the world of 1980 and in need of a 2024 massive system upgrade. But I digress. 😉
A brief look at these emerging shifts leaves us with a very obvious conclusion: we are headed into a new world at a speed previously unknown.
At the root of all of these shifts lies a rejection of organized religion and its abuse of power. Christian’s often decry these movements as a sign that the world is becoming more corrupt. But in doing so, we miss the real drive behind them. People want nothing to do with Christianity, not because they are becoming more corrupt, but because they have never actually seen true Christianity. For them, the church with its rapsheet of child abuse, its judgmental cultures and its harmful posture toward women and LGBT communities, added onto its already long history of war, bloodshed, displacement, colonization, and oppression has left an entire generation in the lurch. They envision a very biblical world of compassion and healing. And yet this is a world that the church has not merely “failed to deliver” — it is a world the church has shown itself to be actively against.
And evangelicalisms current engagement with the political right, amplified by Christian nationalist and supremacist agendas, means any moral ground the church might have regained in recent decades has been all but lost.
As these complex swirls unfold around us, AI continues to advance, Elon Musk’s plans for a city on Mars move foward not in steps, but in leaps, and Kim Kardashian hangs out with a Tesla Humanoid bot projecting what might well be a new social normal for emerging generations...
Let there be no doubt: The world of the next 10 years will be unrecognisable, the anxieties unprecedented, the cosmologies unknown.
Will we, as a church, continue to speak the language of 1950, 1980, or even 2010?
Will we continue to answer questions peple are no longer asking?
Will we insist on pushing a biblical framework that was relevant yesterday but that today says nothing to the lived anxieties, fears, and worries of new generations inhabiting a world our pioneers would never have imagined?
I have said it for years, and I will say it again. The changes we have seen to date are simply a taste-test. We have seen nothing yet. Everything is about to invert itself. A new era is coming. I can’t tell you what it will look like. The minds at silicon valley can’t tell you either. Shane Legg, founder of Google Deepmind, put it best when he asked,
“What does medicine look like in a post-AGI world? What does accounting look like in the post-AGI world? What does education look like in the post-AGI world? What does research look like in a post-AGI world? What does economics look like in a post-AGI world?”****
The answer? No one knows. Some are optimistic. Others are warning about the end of the human species. What everyone agrees on - the world will never be the same.
We may not like these changes. But the work of the missionary is not to like or dislike. The work of the missionary is to understand and then contextualize the method of mission in order to speak to the heart of her city and root the gospel in ways that are relevant, meaningful, and radically impactful.
I pray this will be the story of our church. But history has shown that most likely, we will go on sleeping, oblivious to our own unimportance, blind to our own banality. And there is perhaps little that believers like you and I can do about this. But there is one thing we can do. We can leave those enamoured with the nostalgia of a bygone era to their prison-like time-capsules as we move forward and onward, to new horizons, to new methods, to creativity and innovation, that like Paul, we might “become all things to all people so that by all possible means [we] might save some.” (1 Cor. 9:22 NIV)
Are you a mission-driven Adventist who’s ready to stop feeling isolated and start creating a church that connects with the next generation?
*https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/modernday-witchcraft-is-on-the-rise-in-australia-as-support-for-organised-religion-plummets/news-story/ccbc9bbcbc05ffd8acd8c5ab3f780f38
**https://www.wired.com/story/anthony-levandowski-artificial-intelligence-religion/
***https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/03/27/opinion/new-religion-americans-ufos-aliens/
****https://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/google/Its-time-to-think-about-generally-intelligent-ai/3974/
Why I Can't Walk Away from Adventism
Over the years I have written, blogged, and podcasted about Adventism. And a big part of what I have focused on is refuting and resisting the toxic ideas prevalent in our church.
Legalism
Eurocentrism
Perfectionism
Consumerism
Traditionalism
and more.
I've gone toe to toe with Last Generation Theology (a conservative SDA soteriological model which I consider heresy), modern SDA local church structures, and the many customs and traditions we adhere to like they are the 10 commandments even though they are just man made constructs that need to be upgraded or discarded.
As I wrestle with all these issues in our denomination, I see others in the same struggle who choose to simply leave. They unplug, check out, and move on.
Why don't I do the same?
Three simple reasons.
1. There is nowehere else to go. I am a theology nerd. I've studied all the theological systems. And when it comes to protestantism these are your options: A) Join a Calvinist denomination that believes God is a divine dictator, B) Join an Arminian denomination that doesn't have a cohesive theological system, or, C) Leave protestantism.
I don't want to leave protestantism. I don't want to join a denomination that doesn't have a cohesive theological system. And I don't believe God is a divine dictator. So Adventism, with its anti-divine tyranny perspective plus its cohesive systematic theology and its commitment to protesting "church empire" is kinda the only option for me.
2. We aren't the only toxic ones. Calvinist theology is inherently coercive. Arminianism is inherently inconsistent. Arminianism believes in free will and God's love, but it retains eternal torment and many of its local churches exhibit their own version of spiritualized toxicity (such as disaster warfare theology, prosperity gospel, charismania etc.)
Not to mention, many of these churches are first in line to support the unification of church and state and advocate for a Christian nationalist agenda.
Adventism, on the other hand, is built on seperation of church and state and while it has many toxic elements, swapping ours for someone else's just seems silly to me.
3. Our potential is unmatched. When I compared SDA theology to other theological systems out there, I found that despite our major flaws as a culture, our theology possesses a raw potential that no other theology has. Inherent in our potential is a theology of love that is coherent (ex. we don't believe God loves you but will burn you in hell forever if you don't love him back). This coherence invites deep nuance which, in turn, rejects creeds and established statements of truth, opting instead for a vision of truth as an unfolding phenomenon (present truth) where we are constantly discovering more and more of God.
But thats not all. Adventism also holds space for a theology of social protest, a theology of human wholeness, a theology of ecological harmony, a theology of cosmic rebalancing, and a theology that is diverse, inclusive, and contextual.
Perfect? No.
Often twisted into its own version of coercive conservatism? Yep.
Capable of becoming so much more while maintaining a cohesive biblical cosmology? Oh, yeah.
And its that last bit that keeps me here. Our potential. What our story is capable of. What we can be.
There will always be a toxic Adventism that obsesses over rules and control. Every denomination has a dimmension like this.
But the potential of a theology like ours to bring healing and beauty to the human experience? It's unmatched in my opinion. And I really, truly believe that.
I'm excited about that vision. I want to be a part of that message. And in my own small way, I want to participate in what this radical truth will bring to the world.
So I'm not going anywhere.
Here I stand. I can do no other.
How about you? Despite our movement's many issues, why are you still here? Share below!
Donald Trump Won… Now What?
Adventism has an addiction to conspiracies and cynical apocalypticism:
I heard it throughout my entire youth —
“Reagan will bring about the New World Order!”
“Clinton will unite church and state!”
“Bush will usher in the Sunday Law!”
“Obama is the final president!”
And of course, let’s not forget all the Catholic-Panic rhetoric:
“John Paul the 2nd just sneezed! It’s a sign of the end!”
“Benedict looks like Emperor Palpatine. It’s because he’s the final evil pope to bring about the end!”
Whelp… he retired…
“BUT… DID YOU HEAR? THE NEW GUY (FRANCIS) IS A JESUIT!”
Let’s just say, after nearly 40 years of hearing this same recycled nonsense, the temptation to throw it all in the bin and be done with anything remotely resembling end time events is very strong.
But 2 things keep me from doing so.
First, the knowledge that Jewish Apocalypticism (Daniel & Revelation) is a long tradition of protest to the imperial powers that colonize and marginalize…
And I sure do hope that my annoyance at emotionally unstable Adventists looking for a devil under every bush doesn’t deter me from continuing in this ancient tradition that gives a voice to the voiceless while speaking truth to power…
Second, the conviction that misuing something is not an excuse for throwing that thing away. Afterall, I don’t throw away my towels (made to dry me nicely after a warm shower) just because some teenage bozo in the locker room decided to go “tower snap” crazy on everyone…
(OK, I admit I was the bozo… but moving on…)
The prophetic voice of scripture is too beautiful, too rich, too drenched in social and civil resistance, too rooted in the soil of the oppressed for me to ever give it up.
And with that in mind, I turn my attention to current events… Donald Trump won… decisively… so now what?
To be frank, I am not a republican or a democrat. I don’t trust either party. I have no faith in the systems of men. Of course, I am not knocking anyone who identifies with either party. I’m just saying - I don’t trust empire. No matter how pretty its speech or how eloquent its promises, there is a reason why the Bible calls empire a “beast.”
Beasts are neither good nor evil. They simply exist with one instinct: self-preservation and perpetuation of their species.
That is the primal instinct of the lion, the tiger, and the leopard.
These beasts don’t care what your goals and dreams are. They have zero interest in all the good things you have done or what degree you got or how much you love your kids.
When they see you, they see food. Because their instinct is merely this: eat to survive.
Jewish apocalypticism refers to empires as “beasts” because this is precicely how they function. Despite all the good motives, brilliant ideals, and philosophical dreams they might have… in the end they have to eat to survive… and eat they will.
I don’t mean to oversimplify politics. It’s messy and complicated. But in the end, empire is empire. And empire likes to empire.
Donald Trump is now president. Where to from here?
There are too many opinions and estimations on this question.
But the one thing that is clear to me is that this administration has the backing and support of the religious right…
Christian nationalism is on the rise.
Emboldened by Trump, evangelicalism chases power in Washington like never before.
And if things materialize the way some of these evangelicals want - there are some beastly days ahead.
Ellen White warned of this when she wrote,
“the union of the church with the state… while it may appear to bring the world nearer to the church, does in reality but bring the church nearer to the world.”1
She goes on to say:
When Protestant churches shall unite with the secular power to sustain a false religion… when the state shall use its power to enforce the decrees and sustain the institutions of the church—then will Protestant America have formed an image to the papacy [a church-state union].”2
And while this may tick off some SDA Trumpers out there…
The above scenario is not something that a secular, post-modern left will enact. It is something that will come, and is already in motion (see Project 2025), through the political right.
I don’t meant to imply the left is innocent. I think the pull of the one fuels the tug of the other.
But in the end, a church-state alliance will not come from the post-religious left. It will come via the policies of a very, very religious right.
So, how shall we then live?
Here are 3 thoughts that cross my mind:
Don’t expect empire to be what the church alone has been called to be. Empire isn’t supposed to be welcoming, inclusive, vulnerable, relational, and safe. Don’t get me wrong - I wish it could be. But it simply can’t. As Machiavelli once said, stability is an empires chief goal and it must accomplish this via subterfuge, espionage, deception, and if need be… violence… But the church is Christ’s alternative community, his humanity 2.0, and it is up to us to live out the kingdom of love in the here and now.
Plant, plant, plant. Because of this, my encouragement to Adventists everywhere is to plant new churches that reflect the rhythms of the kingdom thus bringing its beauty into the center of our polarized and despondent communities. You don’t need a building or even a pastor to do this. You just need a passion for cultivating warm spaces of belonging for people to encounter God’s heart and you can plant a church.
Speak truth to power. I love Adventism’s prophetic heritage and focus. My encouragement though? We need to decolonize our apocalyptic preaching. We have made it too much about religio-centric and individualistic/ pietistic themes. We have lost the true vision of prophecy as a protest of systems of power that marginalize, oppress, and harm the voiceless and forgotten. In both word and action, our local communities must become centers of prophetic protest that advocate on behalf of the suffering.
Regardless of whether Trump and the right hold power or not…
Our mission remains the same.
To be the alternative community. The home of the other. The space of belonging. The voice in the wilderness. The center of healing that points to Jesus.
Not the appropriated Jesus with an American flag and a rifle…
The authentic Jesus who laid down his life for his enemies and friends.
Let’s be that church.
PS. Join the Mission Collective and learn the art of transforming your church, reaching your youth, connecting with the secular world, and planting new, creative & innovative churches designed for post-religious mission! TAP HERE
_____
1. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1911),p. 297.
2. Ellen G. White, Last Day Events (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1992), p. 134. (Italics supplied.)
My Top 3 Tips on Launching A Highly Successful Online Ministry
After 10 years of running an indie online ministry here is my best advice for young creatives wanting to do the same:
1. Don't wait until everything is perfect. Just start. When I look back at my early content it makes me cringe. The quality was bad. The approach was cheesy. And I totally annoyed people. But here's the thing: had I not started then, I wouldn't have a successful podcast, multiple self published books, and an online school with students around the world today. I'm glad I started when I did and learned a long the way. Because if I had waited till everything was perfect, I'd still be waiting.
2. Know your WHO. Knowing who you are serving with your online ministry is the only way to survive the trolls and critics. And trust me, if you didn't already know it, there are a ton of them. They will send you nasty emails. Leave you nasty comments. And if they find your contact info, they will even send you anonymous letters and texts with nasty words.
I've had plenty of them over the years. I've been called an arrogant child for the crime of daring to share my thoughts. I've been called a Jesuit for the crime of disagreeing with fundamentalist and ultra conservative nonsense. When I was an employee pastor, people complained behind my back to my conference leaders all the time (they never said it to my face of course) and caused all kinds of headaches.
It never deterred me and here's why. My online ministry wasn't for them. I knew my WHO and I served them with passion. And guess what? For every troll I've encountered in the last 10 years, I've met 10 thankful souls who absolutely love and support what I do. And their opinion is the only one that counts because they are my WHO.
3. Never, ever apologize for charging or selling content. The money mindset in Christianity is absolutely appalling. If you sell a book, an online course, or anything else you will have folk complaining that because it's ministry it should all be free.
Don't listen to them. First, they aren't your WHO anyways. Second, they are wrong.
Your creativity, time, and energy don't have to be free. If you produce good content that has good value people who appreciate it will pay. If they don't want to pay, it's because they don't value your offering.
Folk with a poor money mindset simply don't understand what it takes to run an online project because they either haven't done it, or they haven't done it in a modern, professional, elegant way. They don't get that it costs money to run a decent website, to host a podcast, to get good sound and video gear, fees to send email reminders, and high costs to advertise your products to reach more people. If you publish a book they don't get that the publisher takes a cut, the distributor takes a cut, you have to hire editors and designers that cost money and so on and so forth.
All they see is a price tag and immediately freak out. But their poor money mindset isn't your emergency. If you do good work, you deserve to be compensated, end of story.
So never apologize for monetizing content. Your ideal WHO won't complain anyway because they value you, your time, and your creativity.
Have any more questions about launching a successful online ministry? Ask below! I'll do my best to answer
New 4-Volume Book Set “Adventism+” Says its time to Upgrade Adventism…
Groundbreaking series explores all 28 Fundamental beliefs of our church with a missional lens from our metamodern present toward the next 10-30 years of AI, space migration, and rapid technological shifts…
Are we prepared to share our hope in this new, post-religious, and radically different world? Or will we keep saying and doing the same things that no longer make sense to emerging generations?
Kindle | Hardcover | Softcover
From the desk of Pastor Marcos Torres
September 30, 2024
To every missional, innovative, and creative Adventist who loves our message and longs to adapt how we share it with new, unchurched generations…
I have exciting news for you.
Volume 1 of the 4-Volume Adventism+ set is now available on Amazon!
But what exactly is this set about? And why should you read it?
This set is all about sharing the unique message of Adventism in the midst of the largest cultural revolution of our lifetime: the posthuman revolution.
Post-humanism is most commonly used to refer to the cultural revolution that Artificial Intelligence, robotics, gene-editing, and cyborg technology (etc.) are bringing to the human experience.
For example, tech giants like Elon Musk are pushing the idea that humans need to take over our own evolution in order to upgrade to the next stage or else risk extinction.
This next stage, they believe, we will arrive at by becoming more than human through blending our bodies with machines and AI. (This is why Elon has developed Neuralink for example.)
Because the goal is to become more than human… or a better, more “upgraded” kind of human… this cultural shift is generally referred to as either "Transhumanism" or "Post-Humanism."
Within the post-human landscape you have things like:
- Life extension (where aging is seen as a disease that can be cured through technology)
- Gene editing (where we can edit out the genes that cause illness and disability)
- Cyborg technology (where we blend man with machine in order to enhance our abilities)
- Multiplanetary migration (where we begin building cities on Mars, the moon, floating in space etc. in order to ensure our species survival in the event of an earth-catastrophe)
And more…
These things are not science fiction either.
They are happening already with clinical trials, billionaire investors, and government regulations being drafted.
And within the next 30 years this will introduce a revolution in human thinking and experience… like the digital, industrial, and agricultural revolutions that came before.
And as these shifts become more and more normative in the modern world, the anxieties that people experience will also change with them.
Which means if we keep sharing our message using the same language and angles that worked in 1920 and 1950 (even 1990 for that matter) we will increasingly speak in a way that makes absolutely no sense to anyone listening to us (…although chances are, they won’t be listening)
Thinking ahead is the key to articulating our message to speak clearly and meaningfully no matter how deeply our world changes.
Because here’s the sad truth: A lot of our churches are still stuck debating coffee and jewelry while the rest of society is moving toward an AI/ Cyborg revolution… 🤖
Even though we have THE most beautiful revelation of God’s heart for the world today,
We are so desperately out of touch,
…that when we share our message, we do so in ways that have little relevance or importance to anyone who isn’t already one of “us”…
But the good news is, we don't have to stay stuck like this..
A new generation of SDA believers is on the move,
…and the “Adventism+” four-volume set is going to map out a new vision for how we, as a movement, can anchor the beauty of our message in our current metamodern age with a lens toward the rapidly emerging, post-human revolution. 🚀
Here is a brief breakdown:
📕Volume 1: Explores fundamental beliefs 1-7 wrestling with questions like creation, the nature of God, and humanity in light of our current metamodern landscape as well as the emerging post-human revolution. (Available Now!)
📗Volume 2: Dissects fundamental beliefs 8-14 offering a metamodern and posthuman contextualization on the Great Controversy, the gospel, and the church that speaks directly to evolving anxieties. (Arrives in early 2025)
📘Volume 3: Unravels fundamental beliefs 15-21, exploring a reanimated vision of themes like law and Sabbath that reinvigorates our faith, moving it from irrelevant to socially impactful in a world of humanoids and space travel. (Arrives in late 2025)
📙Volume 4: Unpacks fundamental beliefs 22-28 through the unfolding vision of fast approaching multi-planetary migration and AI revolutions, with a message of sacred-protest for our species. (Arrives in 2026)
These in depth explorations matter because we have a message for this generation and for this time…
But this means we are responsible to communicate it in a way that resonates with the heart of the seeker,
And maybe that means, its time to “Upgrade”
So if you are a missional Adventist with a passion for emerging generations…
And you want to learn how to share the gospel in ways that make sense to our current tired-of-religion world…
And prepare yourself to share it in the fast approaching post-human, techno-wild era that is already upon us,
Then you DO NOT want to miss this 4-Volume set.
Volume 1 is already here!
Adventism+ Vol. 1: Origins
Kindle | Hardcover | Softcover
I Resigned from Ministry A Year Ago. Here’s What I Have Learned.
It has now been slightly over 1 year since I resigned from full time pastoral church employment.
Which means, its time for an update!
What on earth have I been up to? What has the journey post-employment been like? And what has been the biggest difference between being a fulltime pastor and a volunteer?
Here goes!
What on earth have I been up to?
A lot of people ask me what I have been doing since transitioning out of church employment. Afterall, I have a bachelors in theology and a minors in biblical languages. Not exactly the kind of papertrail that gets you hired at a well paying coorporation.
But the good news is, God has gifted me with the gift of writing and I have been using that skill to build my own marketing business where I work with other businesses to help improve their branding, sales, and engagement. And while the business is still growing, so far we are doing good!
Candice and I also launched 'The Hunger App' - a trauma-informed devotional app for survivors of church harm, religious trauma, and spiritual abuse. Its still in its early stages with lots of growth projected for the future but this project has also kept us pretty busy.
And of course, there is 'The Story Church Project'. I've teamed up with pastor Mario Alvarado to relaunch the podcast. I've also continued to run the online school and have a new book I've been preparing to publish (Volume 1 of the Adventism+ series).
What has the journey post-employment been like?
It would be disingenous of me to say any of this has been easy. To be honest, the last year has been the hardest year of our family life. If it wasnt for the love, support, and encouragement of our church family we wouldn't have survived. The body of Christ has kept us going and its only toward the end of the year that business began to pick up enough for us to stabalize again.
I share this because I want to encourage anyone reading who feels called by God to leave a comfort zone and do something radical. It's unlikely to be easy. Following God doesn't mean all the pieces of the puzzle will magically come together. It doesn't guarantee an easy journey or even a steady stream miracles. We have wrestled through months of silence, lack of clarity, unknowns, and doubts. We even wrestled with whether we misheard God. But through all our prayers and conversations, the conviction that God led us this way has only grown stronger.
I loved working for the denomination. I learned a ton. Met incredible people. Served with amazing believers. And had inspiring leaders who supported, encouraged and poured into me during the last 10 years. But we also knew that if we were going to fully immerse ourselves in the work of secular mission, we needed to humbly step out of the system. And while its been insanely hard and we have more obstacles to overcome, we wouldn't change the journey for anything in the world.
What has been the biggest difference between being a fulltime pastor and being a volunteer?
I always try and walk this line as carefully as possible because while I think its important to challenge the church, I never want to come across like one of those toxic independent ministries who are bitter, cynical, and divisive. Hopefully I walk that line well as I answer this very relevant question.
The honest truth is, the biggest insight I have gained since leaving church employment is how much innovation is valued outside the church versus within it.
Now I get there are legitimate reasons for that. I don't advocate for an innovation free-for-all. Healthy adaptation must involve a balance of modernization and risk management. And when the novelty wears off, not every innovation is positive or good.
However, while risk management is good the church often seems to confuse risk management with risk aversion. In the companies that I work with, risk management is a huge part of what they do. They want to ensure new innitiatives minimize risk while maximizing results.
But the difference between risk management and risk aversion is that risk management welcomes new ideas and explores them enthusiastically within an intelligent execution framework.
Risk aversion, on the other hand, simply rejects new ideas outright. There is no enthusiasm, openness, or interest. Instead, we lead with a posture of immeditate suspicion and rejection of anything that is new or different.
The easiest way to put it is that risk management leans into innovation and engages it enthusiastically while maintaining smart execution processes.
Risk aversion leans away from innovation and runs from it, views it with suspicion, and prefers to simply do the same "safe and familiar" thing over and over even if it doesn't work.
Now I can't speak about our church's upper administrative layers like conferences and unions because I never worked in those. But when it comes to the local church, I can confidently say a culture of risk aversion is what I have encountered most often.
In fact, I encountered it so often that in my first post-pastoral-employment meeting with a client I offered a new idea and immediately my body clenched with the expectation of resistance. Instead, the opposite happened! Client after client has responded to new, innovative ideas with so much enthusiasm that it took me a while to get used to it.
So that appreciation, curiosity, excitement and eagerness for new ideas has been the biggest difference for me. But I don't say this in a critical way because I believe the church can develop a more elastic approach to mission and culture. That vision is a huge part of why I started and continue to nurture this project.
So there you have it! My 1 year update. If you have any specific questions you'd like to ask, post them below! Comments and thoughts are also welcome.
Much love!
Pastor M
Prophetic Irrelevance: How Modern Adventism Forgot Its Social Justice Roots
Disclaimer: Not all Modern Adventism has forgotten its social justice roots. Many voices, particularly in (but not limited to) Black Adventism, have been calling these issues out for decades. Its time the rest of the church listened.
___
I was having a chat with a friend yesterday about the purpose of prophecy and what makes it meaningful vs irrelevant in our modern world.
Here are the 3 points we touched on.
1. Biblical prophecy is an ancient Hebraic phenomenon. It's not American. It's not European. It's not western. It is Hebraic-Jewish in its makeup. Any prophetic discourse that ignores this, ignores the very heart of Biblical prophecy.
2. The heart of Jewish prophecy is a protest against institutional, systemic, and imperial systems of oppression and corruption. Both the major and minor prophets were social justice warriors driven by a vision of a just society in harmony with YHWHs heart.
3. The early Adventists who fought against the slave trade, ran underground railroads, and advocated for religious freedom knew this. Sadly, modern fundamentalist Adventism has continued to preach prophecy, but divorced it from its social protest dimensions. We have turned it into an irrelevant set of super nerdy discourses that are religio-centric and have very little relevance to most people, especially in our secular world.
Perhaps this neutering is why our institution complied with Jim Crow in America, supported the 3rd Reich in Germany, and stood by apartheid in south Africa all the while continuing to preach "prophecy" seminars.
In 2025 the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists wants to run 3000 evangelistic programs.
Those who choose to participate here is my invitation --- remember who we are.
As a prophetic movement we have a responsibility to resist injustice, cultivate healing, and protest corruption. Today, this includes protesting the Christian Nationalism that is growing in influence via the conservative, evangelical right.
We need to step into our true identity. Adventism isn't meant to be another conservative fundamentalist church. The world has had plenty of sectarian, narcissists religion.
We are instead meant to be an alternative community that lives out the rhythms of the kingdom of heaven - a new kind of world rooted in servanthood and not domination, whose king washes feet and touches lepers. Not a warrior with muscle. Not an emperor with coercive power. But a lamb who calls us to love.
Why SDA Church Planters Feel Alone & What to Do About It
I want to share you with the biggest struggle my missional church planting students have...
Before I share it though, allow me to say this: I have done missional church plant training with 3 different organizations. And this problem that I am talking about is not something other denominations face. This seems to be an SDA problem. Perhaps not exclusively, but definitely more common...
And here is the problem: Loneliness
It sounds like this: "I don't have any good candidates to build a core team with."
"The Adventists in my local church are either,
A) “Toxic, unhealthy, and unsafe to build a secular mission core team with, or..."
B) "They get the vision and agree with it, but are otherwise too comfortable and disconnected to take the risk and plant a missional community..."
Which translates to: "I feel alone in this. I have no one to build with. I don't know what to do."
When I trained with other denominations, this was never an issue. Pentecostals, Baptists, Wesleyans — none of them had this problem. If they wanted to plant a church, even an innovative and creative one, they had a much easier time gathering a team of mission-hearted, relationship focused believers ready to do something radical for the kingdom.
SDA's? Not so much.
In my own personal church planting experience I have found that some SDA's are so conservative and fundamentalist that they do not make healthy candidates for missional church planting leadership — especially if your vision is to reach secular, post-church seekers.
And the ones that do agree with the overall vision lack the drive and determination to sacrifice comfort for mission. (They either prefer the comfort of a spectator model, are too scared to try something new, or have religious trauma and need to focus on healing.)
And it can leave the missionaries and church planters feeling like this is an impossible task. Like we will never be able to get anywhere because we just don't have the nucleus of believers to build a sustainable team with.
In some parts of the world you do have a good handful who are willing to go all in. This has been my unique experience in my city.
But in most parts, this basic pre-requisite doesn't exist.
I know because I run an online school with missional SDA's from all over the globe.
And this is the #1 frustration that I hear from all of them.
But here's the good news: Some of the members of this online school have been able to find each other and connect through our private chat group. These connections, I pray, will enable missional believers who live near each other without knowing to connect and launch new church plants that capture the relational vision our church desperately needs.
That aside, here are my top 3 tips for any missional Adventists out there who have no good candidates in your region who you can build a new, healthy community with.
Look elsewhere. Yep, I said it. If there are no healthy SDA candidates in your region who can be a part of bringing Kingdom to culture, build a team with non-SDA's. Find people who have a heart for Jesus and humanity, who are Kingdom minded rather than religion minded, and build something with them.
Start with discipleship, not denomination. If your goal in life is to make more SDA's then you might never get anywhere. If your goal in life is to make more disciples of Jesus, then you can get to work. As much as I love the SDA movement, we can't deny that our own faith-tribe is beyond sleepy and very difficult to mobilize. But the world still needs Jesus. Build (or join) a team of believers who want to share the hope of Jesus and make disciples and leave denominational brand loyalty aside.
Learn how to share Adventism in ways that build bridges not walls. This way you don't have to bury our message as you work with other believers. Instead, you can confidently share it because you know how to do it in ways that awaken curiosity and excitement as opposed to defensiveness.
Some SDA's will get angry at these tips and see it as an abandonment of our movement. But if I can be perfectly honest — I'm not the biggest fan of these tips either, not because I don't like other believers but because I wish, with all my heart, that our own faith tribe was filled with passionate, spiritual, relational, healthy, innovative, socially conscious, radically creative people who were ready to go hard for the kingdom. I wish I didn't have to "look elsewhere". My heart breaks at the condition of our movement and the lack of energy and vision.
So if these tips make you angry, don't come at me. Instead, use that anger to help cultivate a new generation of Adventists who are so on fire for Jesus, missional church planters will never feel alone again.
Of course, I still believe in this and TSCP is all about that task of awakening the dry bones in our own backyard.
But I get that in some regions, if you want to get somewhere, you have to go elsewhere.
Oh and one more thing… While I can’t guarantee anything you can always link up with other missional SDA believers around the world through my private online academy. This school isn't open to everyone. You have to apply to join. If your application is approved, you might be able to find some innovative SDA's who live close by.
And in that online school, I also show you how to do steps 1-3 in simple and sustainable ways.
You can apply here: nas.io/the-mission-collective
But if you can't join, no worries! Keep following this page for more tips and content on mission in our tired-of-religion age. And don't forget, our movement began as a smorgasboard of diverse denominations who were passionate about one thing: the coming of Jesus.
There's no reason we can't go back there.
Pastor M
Who’s ready to do something different?
A friend of mine was travelling last year and visited the SDA church near his hotel. He had never been to this town before. No one knew him.
He walked into the church on Sabbath morning and was there from Sabbath School all the way to main service.
The entire experiece was dry, monotonous, lacking in life and energy with songs sung half asleep and a sermon that had no intelligible point to it.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
Not one person spoke to him the entire morning.
No one said hello. Asked where he was from or invited him to eat.
He felt so crushed by the experiece that he decided to visit the local evangelical church the next Sunday.
As soon as he walked in he was warmly greeted, and not just by a greeters team but by every day church members.
They had never seen him before and wanted to meet him. It wasn't overwhelming or over the top. It was sincere and genuine interest.
They made sure he had a good seat. During the altar call another member came by and sat next to him and asked him if he would like to pray together.
They invited him to stay and eat and gave him a flyer with information about their mid week small groups so he could connect during the week and find a good support network.
After telling me this story, my friend (a committed SDA elder who has planted 3 churches himself) looked at me with despondency in his eyes and asked:
"What is wrong with us?"
We sat there in silence. Neither knowing what to say.
I don't know whats wrong. I honestly think its the wrong question - the kind that takes you down a pointless rabbit trail that ends nowhere.
My prefered question is this: Who’s ready to do something different for the kingdom?
Who’s ready to say 'no more'?
Who’s ready to move without permission, love without restriction, and serve without condition?
If you said "I am" to any of the above questions, then I want to encourage you. The future of our movement depends on a new generation of believers like you who value relationships over religion, people over programs, and togetherness over tradition.
Get moving! I'm in your corner rooting for you. And if you need help along the way, feel free to check out my website for training resources and content to empower you along the way.
Here's to an Adventism. Redesigned.
Pastor M
Pastor Marcos | Missional Church Planter
P.S. Are you ready to shatter the status quo and reach secular post-church generations in a way that truly resonates? The Mission Collective online school is the ultimate game-changer, offering a treasure trove of proven strategies, innovative approaches, and insider secrets to help you share the Gospel in a way that's both authentic and compelling. With 30+ workshops, relevant resource downloads, and weekly live sessions, you'll be equipped to break through the noise and connect with those who need it most. Join the movement and apply now to become part of a vibrant community of global believers who are passionate about mission and dedicated to making a real difference! Apply HERE.
Effective Missional Outreach Doesn't Work, Unless…
In the last 10 years of active ministry, I have noticed that we Adventists loooove a good old “model”.
A one-size-fits-all evangelism blueprint we can copy and paste without having to work too hard while still guaranteeing results.
I can already hear the advertisement:
"Discover the ultimate evangelism shortcut! Our New Model guarantees baptisms without requiring personal connections or time-consuming relationship-building. Simply follow our proven, step-by-step formula and watch your church grow - no friendships needed!"
Whoever designs this new model is guaranteed to get SDA rich! (Remember me when you make it big 😅)
Jokes asside, depending on what your particular task and context are, blueprints can be helpful.
But when it comes to mission in the secular, post-church age I need to be super clear:
There is no blueprint. No one-size-fits-all. No standardized model. No copy-paste system.
Yes, there are basic principles. (Which I share exclusively in my Monday Missional emails. Subscribe here to never miss out.)
But outside of those basic principles, there is no system you can mindlessly inject into your local context and expect wild results. And here is the main reason why:
Secularism is fragmented.
I know, I know — what on earth am I talking about with my fancy-schmancy words, right?
Let me put it this way: If you are a missionary in a Buddhist society, you will find there are a diversity of Buddhists.
However, you will also find a general “worldview” that unites all Buddhists. Same in Muslim countries, or really any religious society.
But in the secular post-modern west, there is no agreed upon worldview that people unite around. Everyone just kinds of makes up their own as they go along. So rather than a united perspective, secular countries have a fragmented one which means secular people are not the same from one house to the next, let alone one city to the next.
And without a united worldview to anchor in, we simply can’t develop a singular blueprint of mission to secular culture.
Unless…
When I was a soldier training to go to Iraq, a lot of the cadre used to say that whatever they taught us was likely to be outdated by the time we made it into the combat zone.
The reason was insurgents studied the tactics used by the Army and would develop counter-tactics specifically designed to frustrate our most well developed plans.
The only way to stay one step ahead of them was to develop a culture of “elasticity” where we anticipated their counter-tactics and counteracted them before they had a chance to implement them.
Sounds confusing, I know. But the bottom line is this: Our enemy was so smart, so ahead of the curve, so creative and innovative that unless we abandoned our love for strict military structure and embraced a flexible approach, we would lose lives.
So we switched tactics. Uniformity was out the window.
Strict plans were out the window.
Elasticity (flexible, adaptable tactics) was in.
And its the same in secular mission. While secular people differ from house to house and city to city there is at least one thing we can always count on being true no matter where we go and its this: they will be fragmented.
To put it in plain english:
“The only thing that makes secular people the same is that they are never the same”
And because of this, we can count on the fact that secular mission must look different everywhere we go. Once we embrace that simple paradigm shift, we can begin to develop new missional approaches that are flexible, adaptable, and contextual.
This, I believe, is one of the primordial keys to mission in our secular, post-church age: elasticity.
It’s time we threw away the unformity. The standardization of local church ministry. The blind allegiance to a manual. And the copy-paste model of evangelism.
In fact, its time we threw away our desire to find a blueprint altogether.
Instead, lets get back to kingdom basics: raw, on the ground relationships where we listen deeply, adapt accordingly, and connect contextually.
Pastor Marcos | Missional Church Planter
P.S. Are you ready to shatter the status quo and reach secular post-church generations in a way that truly resonates? The Mission Collective online school is the ultimate game-changer, offering a treasure trove of proven strategies, innovative approaches, and insider secrets to help you share the Gospel in a way that's both authentic and compelling. With 30+ workshops, relevant resource downloads, and weekly live sessions, you'll be equipped to break through the noise and connect with those who need it most. Join the movement and apply now to become part of a vibrant community of global believers who are passionate about mission and dedicated to making a real difference! Apply HERE.
The Top 3 Worst SDA Outreach Habits
The top 3 worst SDA outreach habits I have seen in my 10+ years of ministry:
1. Assuming What People Need: I once had a church member complain that they had tried giving a co-worker a book. The co-worker said they weren't interested and refused the book. The Adventist was upset that the co-worker didn't accept the book. After asking a few questions here is what I learned: The co-worker was a secular person who had no religious affiliations or background. The book the Adventist offered them was about the Waldensians. Now, I don't want to shame this dear member for giving outreach a go, but I think its obvious what went wrong in this whole scenario.
2. Explaining our Message in 19th Century Ways: I shared this story recently but heres a shorter version: I once sat in on a Bible study with an elder trying to explain to a secular seeker why the state of the dead was such an important topic. His reasoning? Because if we think people go to heaven when they die, Satan can deceive us by pretending to be our dead loved ones. The secular guy was lost, unamused, and unimpressed. This approach to the state of the dead might not be "wrong" but its outdated. And the truth is, we do this with almost all our doctrines. Sabbath vs Sunday? Dated. Investigative Judment as defending God's transparency? Dated. The Health Message as increasing longevity? Dated. We can preach the same message in modern ways that actually make sense to people in the 21st century, cause it ain't 1890 anymore.
3. Handing out Literature without Relationships: I get it, there isn't always time to build relationships and sometimes media is the best way to get the message out there. There is nothing wrong with that. But here's a quick story: A guy I knew was in rehab. Some local SDA ladies brought him a meal and with it, a bag with a whole stack of EGW books. He wasn't SDA so he called me to ask what that was all about. He said at first he felt really blessed by the food, but when he saw the bag with all the books he immediately felt like a project. Whats worse, the ladies never came back, never visited him again. It was as if, once they dumped the EGW library on him, their job was done. No relationship. No connection. Just drop and go evangelism. And it sucks.
The wild thing is each of these scenarios would have been 100% better if the Adventists did 1 thing differently. Not 10, not 5, just 1. No need for a degree, for special training, or for a unique set of skills. This 1 simple thing would have made all the difference and anyone can do it.
It's called listening. Thats all. Thats how you avoid being tone deaf. Thats how you avoid being disingenous. Thats how you avoid being agenda driven. You listen. And you listen with intention. To know, to learn, to understand, and to serve.
Had listening taken place in scenario 1, a book on the Waldensians would never have been offered to a secular co-worker. Instead, the Adventist would have gotten to know the person, built a relationship with them, and sought to serve them according to THEIR needs.
Had listening taken place in scenario 2, that secular seeker and elder would both have had a much more enjoyable, productive, and relevant Bible study rather than an attempted indoctrination session.
Had listening taken place in scenario 3, a lost soul in a rehab center would have encountered hope in genuine people rather than being repulsed by the phony kindness used as a guise to convert.
Listening. We're not very good at it as SDAs. We "have the truth" so we prefer to do all the talking. Well, we can keep talking all we want. Truth is, folk stopped listening a long time ago.
Its time we zipped our lips. Surrendered our pride. And learned to listen. This is the key to mission in our post-church age.
P.S. Adventists love a good conspiracy theory, so I decided to create my own secret society. 😅 Wanna join? Tap here.
Over 90,000 Baptisms? 😲
Have you heard the news? Over 90,000 people were recently baptised in Papua New Guniea during the PNG for Christ campaign.
THAT. IS. INCREDIBLE.
Since this took place, I have heard a few SDA’s ask — what will it take for that to happen here, in Australia?
And by extension, how can we see the same results in other secular western countries like Europe, Canada and America?
Here are my thoughts:
We must keep context in mind. Long before SDA’s showed up, 98% of PNG’s population already identified as Christian. To the contrary, Australia’s Christian population has dropped from 86% in 1971 to 44% in 2021. In the meantime, the number of people identifying as having “no religion” has grown from 7% in 1971 to 38% in 2021. In other western secular countries, the stats are much the same.
Context dictates method. PNG’s culture is deeply religious which means a traditional religious frame works in evangelizing its population. To the contrary, Australia has a deeply secular culture meaning a different frame must be used if we want to root the gospel here.
But what does this actually look like?
Here’s what it DOESN’T look like:
More church programs
More traditional prophecy or doctrinal seminars
More advertising campaigns
These approaches simply don’t work in secular, post-church environments for three reasons:
Secular people are by-and-large uninterested in religion no matter how its “packaged”
Millennials & Zed’s are the most “advertised to” generations of all time. They can smell a sales pitch from a mile away, especially a religious one.
Almost every outreach model our church fails to speak meaningfuly to the anxieties faced by emerging generations.
So, if what we are doing doesn’t work — whats it going to take?
I recorded a simple video to help answer that very question,
Pastor M
Night is Coming: Mission in an Age of Chaos
As a 90's kid, I find it super hard to explain to my kids what the pre-9/11 world was like.
I don't mean to over-romantisize it, but in my personal experience, the 90's were, well... simple. The air was different. The world was different. There was an innocence in the atmosphere. People trusted each other. The social imagination and civic ecosystem were more relaxed. Our collective anxiety and cultural tensions were less pronounced. And this is coming from a latino who grew up in Newark, NJ - surrounded by gangs and injustice, poverty and struggle.
Even then, I'm still nostalgic about those days of naïveté and sincerity - uncomplicated by the trauma of terror, the ravenous polarisation of the political landscape, and the hyper-connectedness of the social media era.
But it all changed. And it changed incredibly fast. One day I was falling asleep in Mr. Garutto’s math class, and the next day it was 9/11. And the world I had always known flipped upside down. And everything started to change. The innocence and simplicity faded. A new era was upon us.
While my kids will never taste the chill vibes of the 90’s, they still know what its like for things to suddenly change. Because one day they were playing tag in recess, and the next day there was a pandemic lock down. One day they were napping, and the next day Russia invaded Ukraine. In fact, just last Sabbath most of us were resting, others sleeping, and others raving at a music festival in Southern Israel. And just like that, over 2000 rockets shot into the sky.
In less than a few hours, thousands in Israel had died. The nation declared war. For so many, in the blink of an eye, everything changed.
But for many of us, especially in the west, these conflicts are still distant. Yet just like that, in the blink of an eye, we too can find our world change forever. What we once thought abnormal can suddenly become the new normal. And it may happen sooner than we think. As the conflict in Israel escalates, China also threatens war. North Korea builds its nuclear arsenal. The war between Russia and Ukraine goes on. And Artificial Intelligence, for all its enthusiastic promise, is already being weaponised in ways we can’t fully comprehend.*
I think it’s safe to say: Our geopolitical landscape is dancing on a knifes edge.
It reminds me of the words of Jesus in John 9:4,
“I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night is coming when no man can work.”
I'm not a fear monger. You all know I am allergic to conspiracy theories, apocalyptic obsession, and doom-gloom rhetoric. But as a student of culture and society I can’t deny the glaringly obvious: night is coming.
We got a glimpse of it with COVID lockdowns. And that glimpse was enough to knock our local churches out for a whole year. Mission stopped. Evangelism stopped. Discipleship stopped. The best we could do was translate our program template onto a digital screen so we could keep the same old, tired gears spinning.
The work God had called us to do in the day we had failed to do. Night came, and the tragedy of our irrelevance and missional impotence was exposed.
And yet, in the midst of all this the cry I heard most was not a cry for mission, for innovation, or for creative adaptation to the needs of the time. The loudest cry was a longing to return to the status quo, to get back to our usual programming, to reopen our buildings so we could get back to our banal traditions.
We had a golden opportunity to adapt for the needs of our generation. With the demands of weekly events on pause, we had a once-in-a-lifetime shot to redesign our churches for mission. And we let it pass us by.
It’s no secret: My greatest burden is for our movement to break free from the spell of consumer driven church programs and reclaim the primitive godliness of incarnational, love-centred, radical countercultural, relationally driven communities. Because night is coming. The signs are everywhere. You don't even have to be a Christian to see it. And when it comes, it will be dark. And the work we have failed to do in the day we will have to do in the night, and we will look back at the daylight and long we had done something different.
Ellen White put it this way:
"The work which the church has failed to do in a time of peace and prosperity, she will have to do in a terrible crisis, under most discouraging, forbidding circumstances." (Ev. 31.4)
So that's the bad news. The good news is, it isn't night yet. At least, not for all of us. We still have daylight. There is still time. We can still get to work. We can still be the change we wish to see. We can still lead a revolution in the world.
But how? Thats the big question most missional believers have. It’s one thing to desire change. Its another thing to know how to do it. What we need at this hour is not more talk of change. What we need are steps.
At The Story Church Project, my goal is to provide these steps. I don’t just want to talk about change. I want to empower change.
Which is why I have just put together the “Daylight Missional Toolkit”. This toolkit has all my best resources. Ebooks for group discussion. Video training on how to share the gospel in our secular world. Church planting training on how to start new missional communities with no degree, no money, and no influence, and more.
The time for talk is done. It's time to be part of the change. To lead with courage. To make a difference in the church and in the world. Because the clock nears midnight. The day is almost done.
The Daylight Missional Toolkit is jam packed with everything you need to get started. It challenges you to stop talking and start walking. And it gives you all the steps you need to walk with confidence. Here's a breakdown of what you get:
Ebooks for group discussion: Gather a small group of believers and begin exploring these ebooks together, digging deep into our mission and identity as Adventists and the calling God has given us to share the gospel with the world.
Video instruction on theology, mission, and sharing the gospel with unbelievers: Over 30 videos exploring modern culture and its resistance to the gospel, with practical insights and steps on how to share Jesus effectively.
Step-by-step church planting training: Learn a new model for the local SDA church that anyone can start with no degree, no money, and no influence. You don't have to be a paid pastor or conference employee. This training will give you the step-by-step process to launching an effective Missional church that reaches your city.
This entire mission school is unique in that it focuses on sharing Jesus with a secular, post-religious culture. You will learn the art of contextualisation, adaptation, innovation and gospel immersion while remaining radically faithful to the good news of Jesus.
This entire toolkit—ebooks, courses, PDFs and PPTs—could easily cost 300. But I’m only charging one super low price of $37 USD. The funds from this will enable me to create even more resources and develop new on-the-edge tools to empower mission in our age of chaos.
We still have daylight! Let's work the works of him who called us.
_____
* Kania, E. B. (2020). "AI weapons" in China's military innovation. Brookings Institution. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/articles/ai-weapons-in-chinas-military-innovation/
Why I Will Never Stop Teaching "Doctrine"
Jesus said, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)
This verse once spoke to and confused me. It spoke to me because I needed freedom. Freedom from my addictions. Freedom from the seemingly endless cycle of sin, feel bad, repent, feel fine, hit rewind and replay. And it confused me because, as far as I was concerned I knew the truth. But I still wasn’t free!
I had grown up an Adventist. I had been through Sabbath School, Pathfinders, and baptismal classes. I only listened to Christian music and went to church religiously every weekend. I would even go to the local Christian book store and get some extra stuff to read. Truth was something I had in abundance.
But I wasn’t free.
Turns out, I didn’t understand Jesus’ words in John 8:32 at all. Because when Jesus spoke about truth he was talking about something quite different from what I was thinking of. But before I tell you what that is, I want to back up a bit and introduce the rest of this blog with the following statement:
All of scripture is a revelation of God’s heart.
What does this have to do with John 8:32 and truth setting us free?
Let’s find out.
THE ESSENCE OF SCRIPTURE
The foundation and essence of the Biblical narrative is to unveil, step by step, a deeper and richer picture of who God is and what he is like. And this reality is expressed through all of scripture. Not just John or Galatians or the Psalms - all of scripture is an unfolding and uncovering of the mystery that is the love of God.
Another way to put it is like this: The entire Bible is gospel.
“The foundation and essence of the Biblical narrative is to unveil, step by step, a deeper and richer picture of who God is and what he is like. ”
Not just Matthew, Romans or Colossians. All of scripture is good news. Its there in Genesis, in Leviticus, in Isaiah and Ezra. The gospel doesn’t begin in the New Testament, and its not confined to the epistles. To the contrary, the gospel begins in Genesis and unravels itself through poetry, history and prophecy all the way through to Revelation.
What this means is that the entire narrative of scripture, from beginning to end, is about the love of God. His love is the essence, the theme, and the fullness of what the Bible is. And every doctrine that exists, does not exist independently of this love, but rather as a magnifier of it.
Picture it like this. Imagine the shape of a heart on a table surrounded by diverse magnifying glasses. As you approach the table, each magnifying glass enables you to zoom in on the heart in different ways. The main point of the whole experience is that heart. It is the hero of the story. But the magnifying glasses are there, not to take the attention to themselves, but to help you get a deeper look at the heart.
This is how the Bible is meant to be experienced. It’s not the love of God here and the doctrines there. Instead, the love of God is the centre of the entire experience and the doctrines are there to magnify that love in ways unimaginable to the human heart. If you think you have God’s love figured out, place it under the magnifying glass of the doctrine of baptism and you will walk away a totally new person, or the Sabbath, the Judgement, the Sanctuary etc. Each of these doctrines take us deep into God’s love and transform us.
DRY THEOLOGY
My biggest mistake when it came to this whole, “truth will set you free thing” is that I missed the essence of what truth was. Truth, in my mind, was a series of propositional ideas. I understood the Sabbath and could defend it. I understood the judgement as well. And the sanctuary. But what I missed was how each of these doctrines came together to tell one perfectly tethered story that both discloses the heart of God and immerses the reader in it’s intensity.
In short, I had a bunch of magnifying glasses with nothing to look at. As a result, none of my doctrinal knowledge really led me anywhere. They were facts, but they were not truth in the fullest sense of the word. Although I understood them, they did not lead me to the place of freedom.
Let’s look at Jesus’ words again. In John 8:32 he says, “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free”. But go down a few verses to verse 36. What does he say there? “Whom the son sets free will be free indeed.”
Jesus equates the truth that sets us free with himself. The truth that delivers us is not merely right theology or right doctrine. All that does it make you smarter. But if you want to be set free, then your doctrine has to lead you to Jesus. It has to lead you to God’s heart. Because true freedom is in the presence of God.
Unfortunately, what happens is some people focus on the doctrines as though they are the main point of everything. This is what I did. It’s not that God’s love was ignored but rather, I treated it as a separate doctrine. God’s love and gospel are here and his law and church and end time events are over there. In this view, what I ended up with was a table full of magnifying glasses with nothing to look at. So I became obsessed with the magnifying glasses themselves and then wondered, “Why am I not experiencing freedom if I know the truth? Why isn’t Jesus’ promise working for me?”
In time, God showed me that the magnifying glasses are not designed to be looked at, they are designed to be looked through. And that’s how doctrine functions in the Bible. Doctrine is not something we look at, its something we look through. But when you remove the love of God, there is nothing to look at through the doctrines, so the doctrines, not God’s love, become ends to themselves that lead you nowhere. This results in staring at the magnifying glasses rather than looking through them. There is no life in this.
CHEESY THEOLOGY
On the flip side, there are those who say, “Forget doctrine! Its not important. The only thing that matters is the love of God!” Usually, they are reacting to Dry Theology which is understandable. I too went through this experience where, in my desire to taste the love of God I abandoned doctrine and treated it as the unwanted step-child of the Bible. But the downside is I ended up with a Cheesy Theology that was just as powerless to set me free.
In fact, lots of churches do this. And its sad. Its sad because while you feel a sense of self-righteousness in not being like those “dry people over there obsessed with doctrine,” you unavoidably nurture a shallow, irrelevant theology.
In this model, doctrine is proudly ignored and we harp on about the love of God week after week. But the problem is we never dig into that love deep enough to discover what it has to say to the gut wrenching existential inquiries of humanity.
This theology may be comfortable and marketable, but it is powerless before the atheist, the political ideologue, and the sibylline like wanderer who wants to believe in God but can’t find a single Christian capable of answering his questions in any remotely compelling way.
The only way to avoid dry theology on one end, and cheesy theology on the other is to embrace the tension between doctrine and love. That tension doesn’t really exist, but I find it necessary to codify it and speak of it in these terms because most of us treat them as antithetical to one another. And yet, read properly, the Bible is a progressive unveiling of the heart of God that transforms the reader. And that unveiling takes place in the harmonious dance between the overarching theme of God’s love, and the intentional presence of doctrinal magnifying glasses that give us greater, more colourful and more relevant glimpses into the bottomless ocean of his heart.
And it’s when those two are in harmony - God’s love as the central theme and doctrine as its continual magnifier - that we discover the life changing and freedom spawning nature of the Bible. In this dance we can encounter and communicate a truly relevant and liberating theology.
Why Does this Matter?
Once I discovered this, I realised once and for all why I wasn’t experiencing the freedom Jesus spoke of. It’s because I wasn’t experiencing truth. Truth and Jesus are one and the same. The Bible offers eternal life only because it offers him (John 5:39). You can understand all the doctrine you want, but if doctrine is merely something you are looking at and not something you are looking through - a portal into the presence of God - then you will never experience freedom, plain and simple. But once doctrine claims its rightful place as a microscope into the depths of God’s heart and you spend each day exploring those depths, your heart will begin to change.
But why does any of this matter? There are two answers to that question. The first is that the battle between good and evil is fundamentally rooted in the the person-hood of God. Satan spreads lies about him while God reveals truth about himself. So, at the end of the day, this lie-versus-truth conflict is a conflict over who God is and what he is like. And the only way to get an accurate picture that breaks the spell of Satan’s anti-God propaganda is to discover the love of God through the Biblical narrative, complete with the doctrinal magnifying glasses it provides.
In short, read your Bible. But more. If Satan cannot keep you from the Bible he will warp the way you read it. The cheesy model is one way he warps our ability to grasp the beauty of God’s character. The dry model is the other (which Adventists, I’m so sorry, tend to be most fond of.) Therefore, read your Bible but do it with a simple twofold approach. The first, to discover the heart of God in everything you read. The second, to read everything.
The second reason why it matters is because we become like what or whom we worship. If the God we worship is strict, stoic and controlling we will become that kind of people. So Satan doesn’t really care if you go to church and read your Bible, so long as he can keep you chained to his lies about God’s character. And as you worship this god - this false god of approval, this false god who sits in heaven looking desperately for an excuse to keep you out, this false god who demands perfection of you on the threat of eternal damnation - then you progressively become like that god. Your character begins to reflect the insecurity, judgmentalism, criticism and stoicism that the god you worship exemplifies. In this sense, Satan’s lies about God have a double effect. First, they damage our picture of God’s character. And second, they damage our own character. As we behold this false deity, our characters are shaped into its false image.
I have seen this damage for decades as an Adventist member and pastor. Everywhere I go I meet Adventists who are stuck in the mire of legalism, unsure about their own salvation. The difficult God they worship, reflected in their own difficult characters. Our churches are dying - our monotonous worship merely a reflection of our mechanical God. Our youth are leaving. Our leaders are ageing. Our church is hardly known by anyone outside our walls.
I have seen broken people driven out of our churches, gossip and slander our primary weapons of choice as we dig our trenches in never-ending battle between liberals and conservatives. In our history, we have promulgated lies about God just as much as the very religious institutions we were raised to protest.
What this means is that our safety cannot rest in some label like, “Adventist”. Our only safety is in Jesus. The Bible must become to us a telescope into the character of God. Every doctrine, not a point of controversy to be debated, but a magnifying glass into his heart. And as we marvel at that beauty, we will be transformed into his image—the image of love that our world desperately needs.
_____
Icon made by Puppets from www.flaticon.com (Magnifying Glasses)
Icon made by Bogdan Rosu from www.flaticon.com (Heart)
The 1 Question Adventists Need to Answer
I’ve been a pastor for a decade. In that time, the most common question I hear church leaders and missional believers wrestle with is “why is our church struggling to share its message?”
We are hardly keeping our young people, let alone reaching new ones. And recent surveys have shown that to this day, very few people in the general public know who SDA’s are or what our message is. And of those who do know about us, most have a very poor and unfavorable picture of us. (You can read about that here.)
I don’t have the full answer obviously, but after 10 years of ministry, I have definitely picked up on something that is essential to this conversation. But before I say what it is, let me offer an illustration:
I want you to picture a bookcase. The case is stacked with books. Every book happens to be a story about the meaning of life. And every story is different. Some are thick, 800 page volumes. Others are short, 100 page novels. But again, they all answer the same question (the meaning of life) but tell entirely different stories with entirely different answers to that same question.
As you picture that bookcase, I want you to imagine people coming to the bookcase. Everyone who comes is searching for answers to the meaning of life. Some are old, some are young. Some rich, some poor. When they get to the bookcase they are confronted with hundreds of stories - all of them offering their own narrative - and they choose one, sometimes two or three and read the books hoping to find answers.
Now I want you to walk right up to the book case and begin reading the book titles. One book is titled “The Path of Buddhism”. Another book is titled “The Way of Islam”. Still another is titled, “In the Footsteps of Abraham,” and another, “The Wisdom of the Vedas.” As you scan the book titles you discover that all of them are religions, philosophies and ideologies. Every book on the book case is essentially a story attempting to answer the same question but all telling different stories with their own unique contribution to the search for meaning.
Next, you arrive at the Christian section but instead of finding one book, you find a whole ton of them. “The Puritan Path”, “The Baptist Confession”, “The Methodist Quest,” and on and on.
Each of these books represent different perspectives on the search for meaning - for God. They each tell a different story and offer different insights into that adventure.
Finally, you arrive at a book titled “The Narrative of Adventism.”
It’s there among all the others. But here is my question to you - is there anything in that book that merits it being there?
Does that book have anything to offer, anything remotely important to say that no other book is saying?
Does that one book deserve to be its own book? Does it have anything meaningful, compelling or beautiful that no other book on that bookshelf has?
If the answer is no, then why was the book even written? Why add to the confusion of those who already have to sort through so much by adding an unnecessary story to the shelf?
But if the answer is “yes, it does have something unique to say,” then my question is - what is it? What does it say that no one else is saying?
When it comes to the question of Adventism’s uniqueness - what it is we have to say that is so eccentric and needed in the world - very few Adventists seem to know.
On the one hand, I find people who think they know. They think its the law, or the mark of the beast, or prophecy, or warnings about judgment, Babylon, and the end of the world.
On the other hand, there are people who find the question itself offensive. They want Adventism to be like everyone else and the very suggestion that it may have something unique to say is interpreted as arrogant.
Both groups are wrong.
Now, before you get angry and dart off to the comments section hear me out. Our book isn’t on that shelf to tell the world scary stuff about God. Plenty of churches do that already. In fact, if your driving motivation is doom, gloom, and judgment I can think of denominations that are much better at it than Adventists have ever been. DM me if you want recommendations.
On the other hand, if we are saying the same thing everyone else is saying with a few slightly nuanced doctrines then that means we are nothing more than an unnecessary distraction for those on the search for meaning.
And after 10 years of ministry, I’m convinced the innability to answer this question in any meaningful or compelling way is at the root of our missional inneffectiveness.
Churches that answer it with the doomy-gloomy stuff are toxic, unhealthy, and off putting.
Churches that answer it by ignoring it or saying “we’re the same as everyone else” are missing out on the radical and relevant story we’ve been called to tell the world.
Somehow, we have to come up with a better answer. One that is neither arrogant nor banal. One that points to Jesus but does so in radically beautiful and unique ways that tell a story the world is longing to hear.
So what do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments!