The 2023 4th quarter Adult Sabbath School study guide is about mission. It’s an attempt to explain why Seventh-day Adventists are, or should be, committed to sharing the gospel with our neighbors, as well as strangers in distant places. This essay will consider the plausibility of these mission claims.
You live where? Why? - nevertheless, spot on.
Remind me not to hire the author in the marketing department of any company.
Ok…but.he probably doesn’t need to since he is a scholar. Not too many of them in marketing/advertising anyways. 
If we teamed with excited Christians in other denominations to share the good news of Christ’s love and soon return, would our devotion and love for the Sabbath be contagious? Or would we Adventists compromise on the Sabbath?
Yep.
Someone who’s gone to school, or whose taken Applied Logic 101, might see the ethical problems with Adventism’s usage of “bait and switch” sales techniques on people accustomed to speaking honestly and plainly and who have little or no training in critical thinking or reasonable skepticism!
What does that mean? Nowhere in the “gospel commission”, or anywhere else, are Christians told to add Sabbath keeping to the mission.
The advertising/marketing TRUTH is that SDA organization (and those other SDA affiliated “ministries”) use fear as a tool…it is an effective way to get people to take action. Occasionally they will use curiosity as bait: “Amazing Facts” is an example but there are many others.
I am NOT saying that their advertising or marketing is good or effective…but since it does not change much someone must be happy with it.
Good question- but I seriously doubt that Adventists with their emphasis on “exclusivity” would ever “team up” with any other denomination.
It seems there’s a problem with making the marketing/advertising too effective as the assumption is that many of those brought on board will eventually need to be “shaken” out of their Laodicean lethargy and/or back out of the church!
As long as their names are on the “book”… 
I am being pessimistic when I say that the Higher Ups may not much care. Ted Wilson has brought in and promulgated a theology (Last Generation Theology) that has greatly encourages this “Shaking”. IMO, he is one of the worst SDA presidents that has ever existed.
One has to take a “long view” on things… 
All that is going to happen is that NAD membership will continue to shrink and those other countries and divisions that buy into LGT and Headship theology/belief will grow. He already caters to this base for a long time. I don’t belief that Adventism is going to escape what has already happened in many other denominations.
I also see that TW has not lowered the axe on NAD because he needs their deep pockets. As with most things…follow the money.
Yes, same silly information packaged up as something significant.
Good point. Most scholars would not be qualified to even shine shoes. Perish the thought of what will happen to them once the birthrate dips lower and the population of impressionable minds shrinks.
The annual growth rate compounded annually over 160 years from 3500 members to 22 million is a little bit more than 5.6 percent. The growth rate over time has been in decline.
I don’t know what circles that you have traveled in Ted…but I have known quite a few scholars that are qualified to do quite a lot (including shining shoes) which includes my father and brother. Granted they are still just mortal human beings but the amount of work and IQ level that it takes to become a scholar cannot be easily dismissed.
Personally I am more concerned about the diminishing lack of college-educated in this country (though I know some that are not and have great minds).
I have a copy of the Southwestern Union Recorder that contains the obit of my great grandfather in 1925. Much of what was in it was very similar to what we can see today in church periodicals. I will let the individual decide for themselves if it is relevant to them or to their own lives.
The issue that I have is that I don’t really respect the same regurgitation of thoughts and ideas and truly wish to see at least some originality and creativity. I have gotten used to the fact that this is something that Adventism does not do well (if at all). You have to ask yourself…who are they marketing to…and this will give you the answers.
Thank-you for another fine article and for the inevitable distillation of it:
“At the core of our mission is a narcissistic tendency.”
If this isn’t addressed nothing can ever change…and the huge SDA ego remains intact.
You’re right, Kim.
Matthew has expressed Adventism in a nutshell.
I would only add that it is this essential egotistical narcissism which leads to the all their perpetual fear-mongering, gaslighting of humanity and the condescending tone taken in all SDA conversations with their fellow human beings.
For any organization to claim to be the only mouthpiece for the God of the Universe seems rather egotistical, (to put it mildly).
I’ve never had a theist explain to me why an omnipotent god can’t speak for him, her or itself.
The standard response seems to be “That’s not how it works.”
After which he or she goes on to describe how it supposedly does work which almost invariably is how their parents, preachers or prophets told them it works.
Which seems to me like one of those happy coincidences that’s just to good to be true.