Fixing the Finances of the Adventist Church: Infrastructure

[spectrumbot]

It’s time for a change in Adventism. We all know it. We see the need for it every day. Yet, the problems seem so big that it’s difficult to know where to start. During the time that I worked in finance for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, including seven years as senior staff auditor at the General Conference Auditing Service (GCAS) and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, I reviewed financial statements from almost every conference and union in the North American Division. I found no shortage of good people who are strongly focused on the mission of the church. I also found one truth that was impossible to ignore: the Adventist love for infrastructure is greater than almost any other love that exists. 

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://spectrummagazine.org/views/2023/fixing-finances-adventist-church-infrastructure

[sokingcoo (Joselito Coo)]

@spectrumbot

It’s time for members to demand honest conversations with their church administrators and conference executive committees. It’s time that lay members call for constituency sessions that cross union boundaries and discuss the realignment and merging of administrative centers across the NAD. It’s time for the state and regional conference divide to turn into a union that repairs the inequality of the past and generates new forms of church power and resources.

The recently concluded Southeastern California Conference constituency meeting (Oct 1, 2023) returned all elective officials: president, treasurer, and executive secretary; plus three (3) regional vice-presidents. Well…

[JXLB75]

A much needed analysis of how church member generosity and inattention to how our funds should be used to sustain the church more efficiently, indicates an irrational administrative need to keep on doing what no longer makes sense. At the next GC session, no one should ascend to the presidency of this world body, who does not commit to making the changes and encouraging the changes that are needed. Pious platitudes about “mission” and preparing the world for Jesus’ return ring hollow now as we waste faithful dollars.

[juge (Linda Nottingham)]

No one can credibly argue with this analysis. The author’s explanations take Entropic Tendency to a whole new level. It is indeed ‘Time for Change’!

[NY_G_PA2 (Bruce Clements)]

@juge

It is indeed ‘Time for Change’!

No doubt.

But is it reasonable to expect an institution which is convinced that it is god’s gift to mankind that it should change, when it is entirely consumed with its efforts to change mankind?

[juge (Linda Nottingham)]

Probably not…but you know, ‘hope springs eternal’…

[NY_G_PA2 (Bruce Clements)]

I’ve also heard that the ancient Greeks believed that hope is a curse that fosters inertial tendencies.

Just sayin’……

[phil (Phillip Brantley)]

This is a brilliant essay that should be discussed in every Sabbath School class as we begin reading the Sabbath School Lessons on mission. There is no mention in the Sabbath School Lessons about the reality that our bloated and non-productive church bureaucracy suffocates and impedes mission. This nonmention is not a mere oversight but a persistent polemical defense of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s present decline.