After a long trek I finally made it this past Thursday, at 1:30 am, to land in Arusha, Tanzania. It was a trip well worth making! The new sights, smells, and the opportunity to learn about new cultures was tantalizing. I was so happy to finally be there here after 15,000 miles of flying.
I arrived in Africa as part of a group of professors, both from abroad and from Africa, for a Bible Conference sponsored by the Adventist Theological Society at our Seventh-day Adventist tertiary institution, the University of Arusha. It is a school with its primary focus to train pastors and teachers in northern Tanzania at the base of Mount Meru. The location is breathtaking.
I had to land on the ground with my feet running, so to speak, because after three hours of sleep I gave three presentations on my first day, and yesterday (Friday) I gave two more. I am doing a series on how to understand Ellen White in light of issues that the church faces in Africa. Not surprisingly, many of the people faces similar issues that I have seen and experienced back in North America.
As I have listened so far I am discovering several very interesting things:
(1) The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Africa by the year 2030 will make up 60% of the membership of the worldwide church. It is absolutely imperative that we do as much as possible to invest in training our leaders, and especially pastors, so that they have the resources they need to nurture and educate our members.
(2) There has been so much church growth that leaders tell me it is actually unhealthy. We see where the only difference between our church members and the general population is that they attend church on Saturday. Many members are shocked to discover that we as a church believe in Ellen G. White as a prophet, or, in the sanctuary doctrine.
(3) We have created a significant challenge for the Adventist Church in Africa by doing so many short term mission trips, and especially, evangelistic meetings. We baptize them but don’t really change their lives. As a result, in some parts of Africa female mutilation is encouraged by Adventists and the governments go to our church leaders and ask them what our church is going to do to stop such practices? This is part of the problem with the Rwandan genocide because tribal allegiances were greater than their commitment to the church, and some Adventist pastors led out in the atrocities. This is most unfortunate.
(4) I have a whole new perspective on women’s ordination. With cultures that degrade the status of women it is difficult to allow for women to take leadership positions in church–forget the ordination of women as pastors, the whole idea of ordaining women as local church elders is rejected. One local pastor invited a woman to speak in church. His elders were so upset that they beat the pastor in front of the church to get their point across. In light of this I better understand why it is that we need to be very cautious with proceeding forward in North America with women’s ordination so that we do not hurt the work of the church in areas of the world where women are unfortunately repressed.
(5) Adventists here have all of the same problems with Ellen White that they do in North America, more or less at least. Those who are familiar with Ellen White were taught well by missionaries who passed on faulty hermeneutics, at least in some cases. So, there is a strong “herbalist” movement here in eastern Africa where people reject modern medicine, supposedly on the basis of a cursory reading of Ellen White when nothing could be farther from the truth as we see Ellen White as someone who rejected harmful medications in the 1860s, but by the end of her life fought for our church to organize a medical school of the highest order at Loma Linda and embraced modern practices including vaccinations and had X-Rays taken after an accident.
(6) Some times the things that we think help others in different cultures don’t actually accomplish the good we think. As an example, pastors here have shared with me that they think meat substitutes are not good for our members here in eastern Africa. Most members are already vegetarian by default–they can’t afford meat! When they start eating things that resemble meat, they shared with me it leads to meat eating. So it would just be better to let them eat their rice and vegetables (and concentrate on making sure everyone here had enough to eat!).
I am struck with the fact that we have a much greater work to help our brothers and sisters here in Africa here in the future than we have had in the past. What we have begun through short-term mission trips needs to be followed up with spiritual nurturing and training. Perhaps our greatest work lies ahead of us as we do our best to spread the gospel as we await the second coming of Christ.
Traveling here as made me proud to be a Seventh-day Adventist for two reasons:
(1) I’m staying at the nearby ADRA compound and I see the humanitarian work that our church is doing to impact the lives of people. Several pastors have shared with me how difficult it is to share the gospel with people who don’t have enough food to eat, and who show up at church as a place of refuge. What they want more than anything else is a safe place so they sleep. It is hard to preach the gospel to people who are sleeping. So, the work of ADRA makes me proud to be a Seventh-day Adventist!
(2) I’m impressed by the commitment of our church to invest in pastors now. The new seminary in Nairobi (the University of Africa) is going to have an absolutely critical role in the future of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I am proud of the fact that our church, realizing the need to equip our pastors, has invested in training them through this Seminary. And I think that whatever our church does that such an investment is of paramount of importance for the future of our church’s work until Jesus comes.
