A Faith worth living

Passing the baton requires that those who are to carry on the race want to accept the baton. So far, that’s not happening. Young adults have been leaving the church for decades.

One reason: Adventists have gotten stuck in a series of arguments which are irrelevant to our mission. In fact, they are the oposite of the Present Truth, a subject I have discussed here, and here, and several other places, including some here.

Here’s just one example. A couple of years ago, Andrews University hosted an event celbrating the 50th anniversary of the book, Questions on Doctrine. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I understand the value of that meeting. But it says something interesting about us that we’re still arguing about that book, 50 years later.

Even more to the point, none of my congregation of 20-something young adults had any idea what the excitement was all about. And even after explaining it, they still were baffled. Why?

Because those disagreements hardly seem to matter today. However important they were at the time, they have little impact today; they are not present truth. Given the challenges they are facing today, those debates seemed hopelessly remote, arcane.

And so it is with many of our debates. Wedding rings? Didn’t the GC settle that issue?  Ordination of women? I’ll deal with that in a later post, but frankly, at it’s most important, it’s just a symptom of a deeper malady. Very few young adults would leave the church if that was the only issue.

Meanwhile, issues that Adventism might have spoken to with great positive effect, like homeschooling, and vegetarianism, and planet stewardship, have passed us by.  Our advocacy was tardy and narrow, and the opportunities lost.

Yet, I find repeatedly that when Adventism’s core principles are brought to bear on the issues facing contemporary people, young and old, people find them appealing and dynamic.

This  is a faith that young adults not only accept, but embrace.  And this blog will be a continuing discussion of how to make that effective in your ministry, in your congregation, in your home.