Why Our Prophecy Seminars Don't Work Anymore (Part 3)
Over the last two weeks we've covered a lot of ground.
We established that the western world has shifted from an essence-first container to an existence-first one — and that this shift changed not just how people see themselves but what they are anxious about.
The essence-first person asks what has been determined about them by a power beyond them (God, society, tradition etc.).
The existence-first person does not. Instead, life is about self-determination.
And this shift, however small it might seem, has a huge impact on how well prophecy seminars work.
In an essence first world, where who you are is predetermined, knowing the answers ahead of time via a prophecy seminar unsealing future events is a huge win.
But in an existence first world, where nothing is predetermined and there are no answers ahead of time, a prophecy seminar unsealing future events just sounds “meh.”
However, that doesn’t mean we abandon prophecy.
At its core, the prophetic imagination was never exclusively predictive. It was also a form of divine protest. The earliest Jewish apocalypses were, in part, resistance literature against empire. The minor prophets were social agitators. Adventist pioneers read Revelation 13 as a live critique of slavery and imperialism and called it present truth. Prophecy was always aimed at the present moment. And that makes it perfectly poised to wrestle with the concerns of an existence first world without having to twist scripture.
Which brings us to our next question:
If all of this is true, now what? What do we actually do with this?
The Honest Answer
There are a ton of different things I could say about what we actually do with this insight.
I could talk about how this impacts the way we do prophecy seminars, the way we preach Daniel and Revelation, the kind of books we write, the kind of podcasts we put out there. I could even talk about how this perspective calls us to reshape the way we do church, evangelism, discipleship and so much more.
But as useful as all of that is, 90% of you reading this blog can’t do anything about all that.
Because 90% of you aren’t pastors, administrators, or evangelists employed by the SDA church. Most of you are regular church members, with 9-5 jobs and busy schedules that makes most of those other conversations interesting but not really something you can do anything with.
So while all that stuff is important, and it matters, I don’t want to focus on that here. Instead, I want to look at what the every day church member can actually do about this stuff.
What can I actually do with this stuff?
In the first article in this series, an SDA elder said something in the comment that gets to the root of the issue. He wrote,
“The deepest burden of modern secular life is precisely that people have been told they must create their own identity, purpose, morality, and meaning. Many are exhausted by that responsibility. They are drowning in freedom.”
This is actually spot on. And even Jean Paul Sartre, the existentialist philosopher who codified “existence precedes essence” knew this would happen.
In the essence first world, your identity and place in the world was decided before you were born. And it was determined by whatever race, gender, and economic class you were born into. This was an oppressive system, yes. But it provided a template to operate within.
In an existence first world, that template doesn’t exist. Sartre argued that this meant humans were radically, terrifyingly free. And thats a scary thing to contemplate. That your life is entirely in your hands. That your essence is something you manufacture. That the future is something you build. And that there is no legitimate external power — be it God, society, or tradition — that can take any of that weight. It’s all yours. And that is liberating in one sense, but terrifying in another.
The seeker then, is not someone who is wholly committed to the existence first framework. It is someone who discerns, without having a language for it, that something is off. That the weight of existence is too much for a human being to bear. They long for someone to share the load. To help them carry the weight of their humanity and the burden of meaning. To help them answer the question, what am I supposed to do with the fact that I am here?
The amazing thing is that prophecy answers these questions if we engage it holistically rather than reductively.
Reductive prophecy happens when we reduce the prophetic identity to one thing: unsealing future events.
Holistic prophecy happens when we embrace everything the prophetic imagination has always held: foretelling the future is in there, yes. I don’t want to discount that. But prophecy is also about protesting the present. And this doesn’t mean we all have to turn into social justice warriors. The prophets themselves tell us what it means,
“He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” — Micah 6:8, NKJV
“Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.” — Isaiah 1:17 NLT
“No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help.” — Isaiah 58:6-7 NLT
“This is what the LORD says: Be fair-minded and just. Do what is right and good. Help those who have been robbed; rescue them from their oppressors. Quit your evil deeds! Do not mistreat foreigners, orphans, and widows.” — Jeremiah 22:3 NLT
“This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: Judge fairly, and show mercy and kindness to one another. Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor. And do not scheme against each other.” — Zechariah 7:9–10 NLT
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice.” — Proverbs 31:8–9 NLT
“Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress, and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” — James 1:27 NLT
Ellen white echoed the prophetic identity beautifully when she wrote,
“When the nations are gathered before Him, there will be but two classes, and their eternal destiny will be determined by what they have done or have neglected to do for Him in the person of the poor and the suffering.” — The Desire of Ages, p. 637
And here’s the best part. If the prophetic identity is about how we love our fellow man, and not just timelines, dates, and future events, then that’s something all of us can do.
Timelines and dates and predictions is something only some of us with the gift of teaching and preaching can do.
But building an alternative community that lives out the prophetic identity by actively caring for our world?
Thats something we can all do.
Because all that is needed is a heart that cares about the neighbor. A voice that advocates on behalf of the mistreated. And a community that welcomes all who long for a new world.
And if you want to go deeper — into what this actually looks like in practice, how to train yourself and your community to engage this way, and what it looks like to plant or lead a church built around this vision — that's what the Mission Collective is all about.
Come join us.
