Editorials

The other night, while searching the online Visitor archives, I got caught up reading the carefully chronicled history of our Columbia Union people. From the headlines, articles, photos and captions, it appears that our predecessors were some of the most Bible-knowing, Ellen White-quoting, ministry-supporting, missionary-loving, church-planting, potluck-hosting, camp meeting-going, organizing and evangelizing people you’ll ever meet.

If you invest your resources just as a farmer sows seed, God promises that you will always be blessed with a harvest. Beyond material things, what greater blessing could there be than seeing lives transformed by the gospel? 

I remember the day I walked into my first classroom as a teacher. Within a few hours, I thought I had been afflicted with temporary insanity. By the end of the day, I decided that as soon as “something better” came my way, I would be off to pursue a more lucrative and less stressful career. 

We are inviting and encouraging every conference entity—every church, school, officer, department leader and church member—to embrace this great movement that Jesus Himself began.

Hope is an interesting word. We hope for a lot of different things. We hope it won’t rain on the day we’ve planned a picnic. We hope there are no traffic jams on our commute to work. We hope to be able to find our favorite socks. We hope our teacher doesn’t give us a pop quiz.

This year marks 500 years since Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany (Oct. 31, 1517), challenging the established religious beliefs and practices of his denomination, and launching the Protestant Reformation. Conscientiously, he could not reconcile church practices with biblical teachings as he understood them. 

The Advent celebration is synonymous with lights. They decorate our neighborhoods, malls, trees and homes. When we look in the gospel accounts of the first advent of Jesus, we find the angels appearing to the shepherds with a brilliant light. Their presence or message could not be missed—Christ had come.