we require that anyone who applies for OCI membership not be accepting tithe from any 7th day Adventist church member hello friends the spring meetings are being held by the general conference leading to general conference in session 62 well day one happened yesterday day two is going on as we speak today so there's a lot of discussion and these are 5 hours meeting by the way i'm not sure how much time do you have to go through that but there's a lot of stuff in there some things I totally agree with there are some things that are I cannot agree with if you look on the chapters of this one here if you go to 4 hours and 06 minutes there is what is called the difference between supporting ministries and independent ministries i think you need to take a listen to this because I want to hear what is said here i'm going to share it with you i'm clipping that short video it's about 14 minutes long i'm staying quiet listen to the argument being presented here listen to how they're talking about this matter and we will share some thought in the end all right friends take a listen all right uh we're going to have uh the a special emphasis now i'm going to be asking Mark Finley and Mike Ryan to share with us the marvelous emphasis on what benefits can come with our supporting ministries working closely with the world church and I want to thank divisions for embracing our Adventist layman's services and industries uh ASI and OCI outpost centers international and other entities that are co-laborers with us but separate legally and we have to be careful about the uh legal aspects of this as well because uh we are two different entities let's say working together with a common mission but there are organizations that are called independent ministries and you can find a great variety of them all over the world people who simply have their own ideas they want to push a an agenda and they don't really want to work closely with the church they think they are either are more purified than the church or they don't need the church or whatever it is i don't know what their reasons are and then you find many organizations that are supporting ministries they work closely again let me underscore the need to make sure that we have good distinctions legally between different organizations and the church itself but we cooperate well with these wonderful uh groups of people and I'm going to ask uh Mark and Mike to share with us they have some others who will be joining us for this presentation and at the end of this presentation and this is not anything we're going to be discussing or voting on but it is an in informative presentation uh Andy I'm going to ask at the end of this that you have your prayer we do have one item after that which is a special recognition and then after the special recognition we're going to go into our dedicated prayer time which Ramon Canals will be conducting so uh Mark it's wonderful to see you thank you for being here with us uh you're working as hard as ever but your appearance makes us feel that God is adding years of life to you and we praise God for that you know somebody said to me this last weekend while I was preaching at Pioneer we had great meetings with Pentecost 25 they looked at me and they said "I think you're aging backwards." And I said "Did you check with your optometrist recently?" Supporting ministries have their roots in scripture you go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and the Apostle Paul talks about the body of Christ some being eyes and ears and feet and hands but the basic thrust of 1 Corinthians chapter 12 is the unity of the body of Christ with each member working together in a common mission in a common commitment to a common message we also see in Acts 18:3 the Apostle Paul working as a selfsupporting missionary paul did not require from the corporate church finances but he was committed to message and mission and he made tents there with Aquilla and Priscilla so we have the very basis the very foundation for supporting ministries there in scripture in the 7th Day Adventist Church the ASI organization supporting ministries find their roots back in 1904 when Madison College was established madison College was established by Percy Mcan and Ed Sutherland it was a training school to train self-supporting lay missionaries as that school developed there were health institutions small sanitariums there were educational institutions health food restaurants and by 1947 that network had so expanded that the general conference in North America division particularly in 1947 started what was called ASI and ASI the advent of self-supporting institutions at that time there were four basic purposes that I want to outline for you first was they looked at institutions organizations that were committed to Christ and the Adventist message they had very clear criteria for becoming part of ASI and they looked at commitment to the message i call these the four C's of ASI second those that would cooperate with mission those that don't did not think they were a corrective to their perceived view of the uh follyies of the church or the fallings of the church or the apostasy of the church so they were ASI were members that were committed to the message they would cooperate with the mission they would communicate with Adventist leadership about their plans and they would collaborate at times in projects so these lay organizations are committed to our message they are cooperating in our mission they have a passion to support the church they are not critical of the church as opposed to some independent ministries who think their major mission is to correct the church that's not ASI that's not OCI that is not supporting ministries they communicate clearly and they also collaborate at times in projects we've invited Andy Huninger and M and um Steve Dickman Norbert Restrepo all who represent these ministries to share with us so Mike come on and share the testimony of these ministries thank you very much you know it's interesting we come together at spring meeting and annual council and uh I look in your faces and I've seen them for some of you many years Ramon but not not too many but you know uh it's interesting that if you had with you those that you really represent the worker category in this room would be a vast majority because we represent millions of lay people and at a general conference session you can see that expressed in the audience and uh of course when you look in the wider group you can have 70,000 people there and if it's possible why you know you would have all 20 plus million members there we are a church whose most important resource are lay people that's just the way it is who here in this group does not like lay people raise your hand you know Mark it's important in evangelism when you identify where you have to do work and uh it looks like we have a good thing you know we all know the importance of this and Steve please come and join me u some of you know that Steve Dickman he is the president of OCI uh Steve tell me how many ministries do you have in OCI thank you uh we have about 380 390 ministries now scattered in a over 80 countries that represent groups of lay people who are working on behalf of the church okay how many here I want this is the leadership of the world church how many here have seen and experienced and cooperated with an OCI ministry in your ministry raise your hand okay oh you can see praise God all right and uh there's there's many that are there now I I guess you know the the question is I I have a couple here uh number one why are these ministries important to the Seventh Day Adventist Church well it seems to me that if we can get help on mission from our membership we're in good shape and with 23 almost 23 million members now we need to activate them and not all of them need to send a bill to the church and so they're very important components in actually doing the work i really appreciated the devotional this morning and where are the lay people of the 7th Day Adventist Church on the boardwalk there you know that's who's going to be there we're not going to probably send ministers or church administrators down to the boardwalk but volunteer lay people who could go and be representing the Seventh Day Adventist Church in environments like that so lay people are the essence of the church they are the church yeah really we're all lay people to a degree we may hold a position we may work for the church but in essence we are the leoty of the church just one other question and very quickly uh Elder Wilson made comment that uh there's a difference kind of between the supporting ministries and what we might refer to as independent ministries i have read the o OCI material and you have a criteria that you look at when you accept a ministry into OCI what is the difference between an independent ministry and a supporting ministry first of all as OCI accepts people into membership we have these criteria that we look at their governance structure must be separate from the governance structure of the church and their governance structure must contain and be managed by members of the seventh day adventist church who are in good standing or regular standing we would call it so the governance is a foundational issue like has been mentioned there are legal challenges sometimes when we have lay people uh working on behalf of the church and and people can get confused about that secondly besides the governance structure we require that anyone who applies for OCI membership not be accepting tithe from any 7th Day Adventist Church member so that's a requirement of being a member of OCI thirdly these ministries have to covenant to work in support of the doctrines as well as the mission of the Seventh Day Adventist Church we don't want anyone speaking adverse doctrinally to the work of the 7th day Adventist church and be a member of OCI so we want that cooperation as well as just the fundamental thing let's work together let's be a part of the same team on the other hand a ministry that and I prefer the term supporting ministry just to be clear about that i think supporting ministry is the right term absolutely and when I hear the term independent ministry it just kind of makes me feel a little bit like these people are not with us they're not doing the same thing we are they're independent in nature and when I see that I see characteristics of people or ministries who are critical of the church who may have even accepted into their governance structure people who are not Seventh Day Adventist and maybe they're even accepting tithe and so those things would be adverse to the work of working together and so for those ministries if we can identify them and they we find them within the membership of OCI we have some counseling sessions with them and we try to help them get on track or if they're not members we won't accept them but uh I told a group recently I said if you're not fulfilling the requirements of the membership of OCI we can start divorce proceedings so we want our membership of OCI to be a good representation of what it means to work well with the church to be in support of the mission of the church and to be properly governed following best practices for ministry okay so there's a lot here to work with there's a lot here to work with uh the general conference is putting a clear difference between supporting ministries and independent ministries give us some example of what supporting ministries all like and how they're supposed to behave what independent ministries do they refer to them as being critical receiving ties and so on i have a lot of perspective on this uh and I'm not going to so much make an argument against all of that is being presented here some of it I totally agree with there are some things also that I find to be extremely concerning all right so now let's talk about this matter right the difference between supporting ministries and independent ministries now okay there's a lot here to work with let's try to understand what's happening first of all let me say I agree with a proper understanding of these ministries what I disagree with is the qualification and some of the some of the ways to determine who is on our side and who is not let me share this quotation with you very quickly okay this is Dale Carnegie okay I may not agree with everything that he believes but nevertheless this quotation is spot on once I did bad and that I heard ever twice I did good but that I heard never you know often times some ministries independent ministries in particular some of them they speak nothing good of the church and I think that's wrong right they speak nothing good of the general conference of the organization of our church that is not okay all right let me share some examples of what I mean by that okay so at the GCXCOM spring meeting Ted Wilson had what is known as the human sexuality task force there it is right there it was an effort to somewhat help the leaders of our church and some of our institutions and schools to know what to do about the sexual issues that was happening among our youth and many things that were going on okay so it was impacting the church in a negative way this was an effort to fix it and go back to biblical human sexuality and again uh I highlighted that on my videos i've spoken about that and I think one of the attitude that we often find in 2 Chronicles 18:7 could be a good depiction of that the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat and this is King Ahab after you know Jehoshaphat made a league with Ahab to go to war against their enemy now listen now there is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord but I hate him for he never prophesy good unto me but always evil so some some some truly never have nothing good to say and this is not really the case in this biblical story you know the prophet Micah just wanted to hold the kings to account and make sure that they were doing what was right so they prophesied that which God has put in their mouth to prophesy but nevertheless the issue that he's being presented here you never have nothing good to say about me right and I think it's only fair to say sometime we have to take a moment to say there are some good things to acknowledge in our church when some of our leaders are doing good we need to say they doing good and if they're not doing good we need to say that we're not doing good for example we also have the biblical strategy for disciplem evangelism and this this was actually a very interesting one because there they had the books and everything most people probably didn't even know this was a thing i knew about this and some of our churches had promoted that and we there's a lot of substance here to work with great controversy 2.0 project even after the great hope failure the church did try to uh uh the leaders of our church actually tried Ted Wilson in particular pushed forward the great controversy he's been criticized for that but nevertheless you can still get a free download and make a purchase and it's fairly cheap this is not a bad move so the church has been trying uh the general conference has been trying to be more exact right Pentecost 25 initiative voted by North American division executive committee so who can disagree with that well a lot of people did independent ministries some independent ministries all they did is criticize this whole idea what about PNG for Christ another amazing meaning there was a lot being happening there uh so many souls over half a million give their lives to Jesus now whether they're a Christian or not we don't necessarily know we just praise the Lord for this effort this was led by the general conference of our church we have to say this was a great thing there were many baptism praise the Lord who can disagree with that i cannot and also we have to give credit to Elliot Wilson for mission focus he has been mission focused like no other president we've ever had before so how could you disagree with some of these factors and I think there are many good things to highlight in our church and a failure to acknowledge these things is is is not right so in part I disagree with these critical ministries as they make reference to all the independent ministries i don't believe all independent ministries or critical ministries some of them are but not all of them are but they are real concern that independent ministries are addressing that supporting ministries will not dare to touch and that many churches in our general conference will not dare to address either so that's why I think some independent ministries are doing a good work now let me say this this is a concern when you begin to look a little bit into now there's nothing wrong with meeting world leaders and to try to figure out a way we can work with them and influence them in a positive way for Christ no of course not but what if there are policies in place that goes against the word of God and the people of God in the same process of these meetings this is when we have a problem so Rome has changed said the man but is that really the case that's not true that's anti-biblical that is not that goes directly against the spirit of prophecy and you have pictures like this and there goes your man once again yours truly Paul there he is and again I know the picture is blurry but he is there there you go so people are saying "What's wrong with that he's just meeting the pope no big deal." Well well there's ecumenical dialogue going on but do you know what the whole idea behind ecumenism is about it's about promoting Roman Catholicism and bringing back the Protestant churches the daughters of Roman Catholicism back to their modern church let's leave that matter alone with the big picture of Buddha behind that so that's another concern for many 7th day adventists right what Ganoon Dub has been doing is concerning for many of us how could we not be if we love the church but hey let's move on we know what happened again in another situation here in 2015 this was published again by A&N delegates votes no on the issue of woman ordination this has happened on three separate occasion and the church says no to woman ordination and then the NAD published this the leadership of the NAD is saddened by this vote but respects the decision of the world of the world body in session and we are committed to continue cooperation and fellowship with the world's church while today's vote does not allow for each individual of the church to ordain women to gospel ministry listen next now we will continue to follow general conference policy by commissioning women pastors and ordaining women elders and deaconesses what does that even mean listen we're going to work together but we're going to do our own thing man we going to do our own thing we don't care what the general conference in session voted we are going to ordain women and friends they have been they have been doing their own thing and again I love women my wife is a woman my mother is a woman i'm not talking about that but if you can find from the Bible biblical verse that shows you women or ordained as pastors and bishop in the word of God please let me know i'm waiting for you let's move on so I I saw this picture on Facebook and I had to smile a little bit because of what it means so when the church join itself to the state what happens we start sinking and that's what's happening here in GC61 we saw there was an effort to speak to the church and allow a vote on the issue of the reaffirmation statement it was struck down by Elder Ted Wilson this has created a serious division and rith and schism in our church and it is concerning and we are told again on paper that we supposedly now have peer review science peerre science to make these decisions it's supposed to be the Bible and the spirit of prophecy peer review is not meant to be part of our doctrinal belief so this has been a concern and again official statements are being are being stated by our church when you open this up talking about the official statements you cannot use religious liberty to oppose government mandate when it comes to vaccination well that was also concerning by many ministries okay a lot of independent ministries begin to speak against that so let's move on to something else okay so now let's move on to the climate change discussion for example why why is that a concern well Lato C237 had this to say right on Sunday our participation of the Eucharist has special importance sunday like the Jewish Sabbath is meant to be a day which heals our relationship with God with ourselves and with the world this is not biblical this is not biblical but nevertheless so according to the pope the seventh day Sabbath is transferred to Sunday and is pretty much taking that which God has given on the seventh day is applying it to Sunday so we know they're making a connection to that of resting resting the planet and so it's not fair to to push forward climate change and having Sunday as one of the solution to the climate issues that the world is supposed to be facing but you go to one of our official statements again the danger of climate change this is coming from our church people okay and the church says this science warns that the gradual warning of the atmosphere as a result of human activity will have serious environmental consequences the climate will change resulting in more storms more floods and more droughts to keep climate change within variable limits the emissions of greenhouse gases especially carbon dioxide CO2 need to be significantly reduced industrialized countries are the main source of these emissions when the first victims are the small island states and low living coastal countries friends that is crazy that that that is not biblical in nature not biblical in nature and again what are the solutions that the church is implementing in concession to the climate change by fulfilling the agreement reached in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 convention on climate change to stabilize carbon dioxide emission by the year 2020 at 1990 levels by establishing plan for future reduction in carbon dioxide emission after the year 2020 by initiating more peaceful public debate on the risk of climate change this is UN agenda in the church this is not something we stand for this is why Adventists are concerned this is why a lot of ministries are concerned now let's go a little bit deeper now we are told that Bible prophecy tells us and also also reformers Protestant reformers of the past have also warned us that the Roman Catholic Church system is the of Babylon there's no doubt about this right and even Ellen White who has a fundamental belief in our church we are told this compromisation between paganism and Christianity result in development of the men of sin foretold in the prophecy as opposing exalting himself above all that is called God that gigantic system of false religion is some masterpiece of Satan's power a manument of his effort to seat himself upon the throne of God to rule according to his will this is what Ellen White says well the former president of our church had this to say although it is true that there was a period in the life of the seventh avenist church when the nomination took a distic entitlement Catholic viewpoint that attitude on the church part was nothing more than a manifestation of widespread anti- poperry among conservative Protestant denomination in the early part of this century and the latter part of the last and which has now been consign consigned to the historical trash heap as far as 7 church is concerned really when when did that change preaching Bible prophecy is now anti-atholics and it's been cosign to the historical trashy we no longer believe that well you may say "Well that's just one man." Wait a minute when was this voted 1997 how Seven Day Adventists view Roman Catholicism what did they say to blame past violation of Christian principles on one specific denomination is not an accurate representation of either history and concern of Bible prophecy we recognize that at time Protestants including 7th day Adventists have manifested prejudice even bigotry if in expounding on what Bible teaches 7day adventists fail to express love to those addressed we do not exhibit authentic Christianity so to throw seven divists in the same pile as what Roman Catholicism has done in history is it it's apple and oranges now you can say some leaders of the of our church have made similar mistake but to say that we seven adventists are no different in Roman conflicts in the light of persecutions of the past is ridiculous now anyway let let me move on let me come down adventists seek to be fair in dealing with others thus while remaining aware of the historical record and continue to hold our views regarding end times events do you really hold these views we recognize some positive changes in recent Catholicism like what what do you mean and stress the conviction that many Roman Catholics are brothers and sisters i don't have an issue with believing that many Roman Catholics are brothers and sisters but the idea that the church of Rome has changed where did you get idea from if you are a student of Bible prophecy this is not the case this is why independent ministries are speaking out this is why the people are speaking out all right let's begin with Juan Carlos de Jesus Juan Carlos de Jesus has this to say he said "The leadership refuse the correction and reproof therefore they reject the call for reformation and by their actions they are not converted they should be removed from leadership at once." History is repeating itself pride and kingly power is deadly we see no change from Wilson Dop Finley they the call for revival reformation to cry and spare not in Isaiah 58:1 can only come powerfully from individuals from paid by conference not a part of ASI those who are under the jurisdiction will be fired banned reproved by calling sins by his right name it's time for people God is calling for individual to stand up who will not be bought or sold spot on debbie Dickinson Cox have this to say we know know that Jesus epthized love was he critical of the money changers and the Pharisees h and Jenny had this to say as if the church any church should be immune from criticism the spirit of popery clearly ruling the GC today hope prophecy had this to say understanding the gospel and tearing the church down but they are saying that they should be absolutely no calling out the sins of the church jaime Whitaker added "The commentator in this video is confusing if they are actually supporting ministries of the church then individuals sending tithes to them are in fact supporting the church." Those ministries are part of the church nor independent competitors as the cooperate leadership I guess opinions or pines the beauty of tithe as of offerings is that it comes from the heart when the Holy Spirit initiated conviction and expression of gratitude and repentance and indebtedness to the Lord through the agency of that the Lord used to bring the individual closer to Jesus those who are doing the work should support should receive support from those whom they have blessed let me read that again those who are doing the work should receive support from those whom they have blessed and given unto the Lord whom the blessing actually came a ministry is not taken away from the church just because they aren't originated and governed and sponsored by the corporate leadership of the church via votes and appointments and committees and employment contracts if they are doing the ministry to wish the SDA church is called and hold true to its beliefs and bring others to the same then why treat them as rivals and not as legitimate why fight over God's money has he not the sole power and authority over it so when this is happening in our church you saying we should be quiet about this matter when can what vine raised his protest on pestilence 19 and said we need to recognize retract reprint reassure restore replace reconcile does that mean you being critical of the church or is there a call to repentance and reconciliation here let me end with this uh with this analogy here are we in a wrong for taking notice that the emperor has no clothes information i want to know who are you and the only answer I could give at that time is look I'm just a little boy i'm just a little boy i'm a nobody and I'm pointing at the emperor and I'm not noting with great concern that the emperor has no clothes in that fable that I'm referring to of the emperor has no clothes to the credit of those simple people back then when the little boy pointed at the emperor and said he has no clothes to their credit those simple people looked for themselves and said "Well the boy is right the boy is right the emperor has no clothes." Today I think if a little boy were to point at the emperor today and say he has no clothes what would happen to that little boy i actually have a great concern for that little boy's safety why because everyone will turn on that little boy and say "Be quiet you are embarrassing the general conference admin." Mhm be quiet you are embarrassing the church be quiet don't look at the church just evangelize don't look at the naked emperor just just evangelize be quiet or we'll cancel you mercy be quiet the wheat and the tears you know this uh wheat and the tears business was brought up the other day by a prominent speaker in the church and to his discredit I think his method was not sound because if we go to Christ object lessons chapter 4 which this speaker was referring to Mhm i think there were crucial sentences that he did not read the first thing is Jesus himself when relating the parable of the wheat and the tears he says that the field is not the church he says the field is the world that is a very important point it is very clear that we as Adventists cannot go around and you know um stoning or executing people who don't believe as we do believe people who are tears in the world you can't do that for the world yes the Lord allows the tears to grow with the wheat in the world however this person did not read what Ellen White wrote here she said the field Christ said is the world that is what the Bible said that is what Christ said in the Gospels when relating this parable but now Ellen White elevates the standard whatever Christ was teaching for the world she's now going to elevate the standard and going to make it relevant to the church she then says but we must understand that this is signifying the church of Christ in the world m so okay is Ellen White saying that we should just allow the tears to grow with the wheat in the church no because there's one other sentence here where she says Christ has plainly taught that those who persist in open sin must be separated from the church so very clear that Ellen White is saying don't tolerate open sin in the church correct now is an unholy alliance with the United Nations is it open sin yes or no correct is a compromise on the health message publicly stated is that open sin yes or no yes yes open sin must not be tolerated but when someone when you suspect a church member is a sinner but he is not sinning openly then the wheat and the tears applies then Ellen White says in the church we must not act on our suspicion we must allow the wheat and the tears to grow in the church but when there's open sin then there's no question it's a tear and the tear must go exactly you know and this is crucial it's so clear it's different you see how the mission statement changed from Christ and the three angels message and proclaiming um the second coming of Jesus Christ to now we're openly stating we want to reflect the UN goals i mean that's a clear that's a clear deliation from what God has called us to do that's a clear degradation that's clear I don't know what the word is I'm trying to say but you understand it's a departure departure a clear departure from it's a it's a mission drift but now but now all those who are saying who are misapplying what Ellen White wrote about the wheat and the tears all those who are saying just allow the wheat and the tears when when the tears are in the general conference administration just allow it just allow it those not a single one of those people will come and say oh well if Ron Kelly is a tear just leave him no Ron Kelly needs to go Conrad Vine is a tear he has to go so those who say just allow the tears to grow who misapply what Ellen White wrote they don't apply the same standard when it comes to Ron Kelly and Conrad White yeah they call them heretics point what a key point that is so balanced [Music]