Once again, the General Conference has met in session, an event that happens every five years and brings people from all around the globe together to vote on policy and church manual changes, elect new leaders and share stories of mission.
Session brings a beautiful sense of united purpose, among a diverse multitude of people. The stories of mission can inspire and renew excitement in those who attend or tune in.
I met a couple from Botswana on the plane, who were attending as visitors. When I saw them later in the week, it was like seeing old friends, with bonds of shared belief and a common experience bridging cultural differences.
While GC Session often brings change with it, during the next five years, change may be significant, with the election of a new president after 15 years of Ted Wilson in the role. Erton Köhler, the first Brazilian president, was the youngest Division president and seems to have a different leadership style to his predecessor.
It is a stretch to base everything on Köhler’s first presidential sermon (on the second Sabbath of Session), however, I believe the message was crafted to emphasise what his priorities are.
Rhetoric does not guarantee follow-up, however, I’m optimistic that the new president brings a new style of leadership that is more open to innovation and collaboration.
The message was the same: the mission of the church must go forward.
“We must be grounded in the Bible and focused on mission,” he emphasised several times.
The call to mission was as strong as it has ever been. “If you are not committed to mission, you are like a firefighter who runs into a burning building just to fix a painting on the wall,” he said.
But the method of delivery was very different.
“Our message is based on hope and security, not anxiety and fear,” he said. “The direction the world is taking is not in our hands and not dependent on us.” If I can paraphrase what that meant to me, I understand him as saying we should spend less time fixating on end-of-the-world scenarios and trust that God is in control, and Jesus has already won the victory.
I’ve heard the old metaphor that the church was meant to be a hospital, not a museum, but Köhler provided a new one on the second Sabbath of Session. “The church is not called to be a warehouse but a distribution centre.”
We can spend a lot of time as a people, stockpiling our blessings and enjoying the fruit that comes from living Jesus’ way. But we are called to distribute those blessings to the wider community. Köhler said we should be people the “Holy Spirit would like to use as channels of blessings.”
Köhler has a background in youth and media flourished under his leadership in South America and seems to be keen to mobilise resources in those spaces.
He sounded the call to be “distinct but not distant”; to communicate the message “to the accelerated minds of our days.”
In all, it felt like a rallying cry to unite around mission rather than a list of how mission should be done to be effective. It felt like permission was given to try new methods and innovate, if the message was “grounded in the Bible”. Leadership can set the tone for an organisation and the Seventh-day Adventist Church is no different. It is easy to be critical of our leaders and to read sinister motivations into their actions. Let’s pray for the leadership of the Church across the world, that they can be agile to respond to threats, proactive in innovation of mission and gracious in dealing with those who don’t agree. At your local church level, pray for your conference/mission leadership, for your local pastors and for your church elders. Look for ways to get involved and contribute to the mission. The GC Session offers somewhat of a reset. Let us take the opportunity to focus on what we can do to make a change in our own communities and to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit in reaching our community. We might just change the world.
