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Arriving At Maturity-1
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Dec. 17 - Arriving At Maturity-1

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Let us press on to maturity. Heb. 6:1, NASB.

Not only do individuals grow and develop, so do churches. We have spent 1 a year examining the birth of Adventism, its childhood as it searched out the Bible doctrines that came to define it as a people, and the adolescent flexing of its muscles as it began to spread around the world.

By the 1950s and 1960s it had reached a level of maturity that all the previous decades had been moving toward. One sign of it was a more genuine internationalization of the denomination than had been seen in the past. In part that has meant that "foreign missionaries" from the United States, Europe, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa no longer control the work in the newer fields of Adventist labor.

Rather, the church has developed indigenous leaders in nearly every area of its far-flung
mission program.

Today the administration of geographical sectors of Adventism up through the General Conference divisions is indigenous to the regions they lead. That means that Asians direct the church in Asia, Africans in Africa, and Latin Americans in South and Central America. The leader of each world division is also a vice president of the General Conference.

Beyond that, individuals from parts of the world that only a few years ago were still dependent on North American leadership now hold some of the most important positions of the General Conference's central administration.

That type of internationalization is a far ciy from the "missionary" mentality largely maintained into the 1950s and 1960s. In fact, the very concept of missionary has changed. Whereas a few years ago being a missionary meant going as a European or North American to some non-Christian or non-Protestant land that might be quite primitive, at the present time the term implies working in a place other than one's native land. And mission has become a two-way street with "missionaries" not only going from America to Africa but some coming from Africa to serve in the United States. "From everywhere to everywhere" reflects the current shape of Adventist mission more adequately than does "missionary." The church around the world is growing up.

And in its maturity our prayer must be that it does not forget where it is going.


 

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Let all who are afflicted or unjustly used, cry to God. Turn away from those whose hearts are as steel, and make your requests known to your Maker. Never is one repulsed who comes to Him with a contrite heart. Not one sincere prayer is lost. Amid the anthems of the celestial choir, God hears the cries of the weakest human being. We pour out our heart's desire in our closets, we breathe a prayer as we walk by the way, and our words reach the throne of the Monarch of the universe. They may be inaudible to any human ear, but they cannot die away into silence, nor can they be lost through the activities of business that are going on. Nothing can drown the soul's desire. It rises above the din of the street, above the confusion of the multitude, to the heavenly courts. It is God to whom we are speaking, and our prayer is heard(COL 174).
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