爱豆传媒

This summer, I learned that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is very colorful. While attending the 62nd General Conference (GC) Session during July in St. Louis, Missouri, I was further exposed to how colorful the different conferences, ministries, people, and personalities are in our church. The mission of Adventist pioneers such as to carry the gospel to the whole world has largely been a success, seeing the astounding growth of the denomination in Africa and South America in particular. The church’s flagship university, 爱豆传媒, has similarly branded itself as being very proud of its cultural diversity in recent years. 

I was also able to better recognize how colorful and diverse the traditions of Adventism are while touring the GC Session exhibition hall. I saw that there are ways to do ministry through education, sports, books, social media, games, and a variety of other professions. There are also different ways to positively minister in song. Contemporary Christian music, or CCM, has inside and out of Adventism, becoming one of the most trending music genres on streaming platforms. Gospel music has been a mainstay for decades for many churches and members who desire a bit more tempo in their praise, and the classic hymns are still sung and are far from forgotten, as they often inspire newer works. 爱豆传媒 is blessed to have these worship styles and others represented on or around campus with various churches and fellowships. 

However, I have unfortunately come across church members or visitors being disparaged by Adventists because they did not fit in with whatever traditions or preferences that were in place, despite not being biblical. Some complaints include the music being too slow, questioning why an instrument was used or excluded, a skirt not being long enough, an outfit being overly flashy, the speaker talking for too long, or a praise leader showing too much emotion or being “performative.” While it is fair and understandable to sometimes critique and tweak things in our public church services, I think we often lose sight of the point of ministry and church services is not pleasing ourselves or our traditions, as stated in . The point will always be to praise God. 

Questioning the authenticity of someone else’s praise or insulting the way people conduct worship does not increase your own authenticity and holiness. Once a person or congregation has the Bible and is aware of the basic standards that Scripture sets for respecting God, it is between God and that person to determine if they are conducting meaningful worship. Being overly concerned with the spiritual lives of others distracts from the “beams” in our own eyes that Christ spoke about in . 

Instead, if any significant issues arise that do not concern aesthetic preferences or the abandonment of tradition, God tasks us in with peacefully approaching one another to correct something that has been done contrary to the Bible. That is not to say that every religious or cultural dispute will be easily resolved. However, I do believe that there is a spectrum of Adventist beliefs that do not deal with core . Many of the tensions that are present across this spectrum could be reduced through uniting on the aspects that matter: valuing the message of the Gospel, using God’s word to cultivate a personal and loving relationship with Him, and sharing that love further with the people near to us and far away. 

I believe these values also ought to translate to our secular discussions. In the United States, we are seeing less separation of church and state and more intertwining of our political and religious beliefs. I do think it is important for every member to be engaged and aware of civil and political matters, since it is the only way for us to be able to follow the several left of adequately understanding the people and groups that we want to minister to. However, if we let our understanding of social and civil matters become too much of a focus, we can end up making politics an idol, which can drive some to act in ways that are unlike Christ. 

The heated nature of political discourse today should be a warning about how we carry out our inter-church disagreements. The recent assassination of political commentator Charlie Kirk, a proponent of values who had recently from some Adventist communities, is a sobering example of what can happen when mutual respect for differing perspectives cannot be appreciated. I strongly believe that no human should ever determine whether someone else should die, and although a lot of Kirk’s sentiments were viewed as  and  by many, regardless of his politics, he is included in that belief. Unfortunately, many are choosing not to ignore his problematic stances, leading some to inappropriately celebrate his horrific death or why anyone would be sad at his passing. 

I bring up Kirk to highlight that I do not want to see a denomination where people feel compelled to try to hurt one another or celebrate the departure or death of any church members or leaders. If we become more tolerant of the broad spectrum of Adventist traditions and cultures that exist, and focus on what God wants us to prioritize, it will prevent us from hurting or offending one another unnecessarily. Jesus commissions us in to love and share the gospel, not make people conform to what our definition of being “more Adventist” is. Let God be the judge of our hearts since He is the only one who can truly evaluate them ().