A new three-week intensive program has been designed—with support from the worldwide Church—to better equip those who teach Ellen White and Adventist studies.
The first cohort of the Ellen G White and Adventist Studies Postgraduate Certificate—jointly sponsored by the Church History department of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University, the Ellen G White Estate and the General Conference—gathered at the Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies (AIIAS) in the Philippines on February 3, 2020.
Each world division of the Church has participated in jointly sponsoring the program, while providing guidance in student selection from their various colleges and universities, resources for travel, accommodation and book expenses.
The 27 attendees came from a spread of locations, from Japan in the north, Australia in the south, Fiji in the east and Myanmar in the west. This was the first of four cohorts to be held in four locations around the world.
The course featured deep and intensive study of Ellen White’s life, ministry and writings, and their place in the history, development and future of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Key focus points were the centrality of Jesus and the foundational role of Scripture in the ministry of both William Miller and Ellen White.
This program will continue as an intensive for three weeks in February over the next two years. It was the brainchild of Dr Merlin Burt, director for the Centre of Adventist Research and Ellen G White Estate branch office at Andrews University, where he is also professor of Church History at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary. He has felt a burden for some years that this kind of training was necessary for those teaching in the area of Adventist Studies in the Church’s institutions of higher learning around the world.
