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Adventist Mission Explosion-1
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Nov. 2 - Adventist Mission Explosion-1

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Their I saw another angel flying high in the air, with an eternal message of Good News to announce to the peoples of the earth, to every race, tribe, language, and nation. Rev. 14:6, TEV.

It must be confessed that the Seventh-day Adventist Church did not begin as a  mission-oriented people. To the contrary, their earliest years found them as what we might call the antimission people.

Between 1844 and 1850, holding to the shut-door theology, they felt no burden to preach to any but those who had been in the Millerite movement of the 1840s.

Shortsighted! you might say. Yes, but an essential stage in the development of Adventism. This period of Adventist mission (1844-1850) freed up scarce resources from potential missions to build a doctrinal platform. In other words, first came a very distinct message, and only after that could they spread that message.

The second stage of Adventist mission (1850-1874) restricted itself to North America. That was also a necessary step in the progression of Adventist mission. Those years allowed for the development of a power base in North America that could eventually support a foreign missions project.

We might think of the third stage (1874-1889) as mission to the Christian nations. Thus Seventh-day Adventists sent their first official denominational missionary to Switzerland to call people out of Babylon. And even when they went to such places as Australia or South Africa, the Adventists always began their work among the Christians of those nations. Limited as it was, the third stage functioned to establish additional power bases among the various Christian populations scattered around the world. As a result, those nations were prepared to act as home bases for the sending of missionaries at the beginning of the fourth stage of Adventist missions, which began in 1890. We mightregard that stage as mission to the world--not just to Christian populations around the earth, but to all peoples.

Step by step, without anyone being conscious of what was taking place in the overall development of Adventist missions, God positioned the Seventh-day Adventist Church where it could take advantage of the Protestant mission explosion that detonated in the last years of the nineteenth century.

God leads even when we aren't aware of it.

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Our prayers are to be as earnest and persistent as was the petition of the needy friend who asked for the loaves at midnight. The more earnestly and steadfastly we ask, the closer will be our spiritual union with Christ. We shall receive increased blessings because we have increased faith(COL 146).
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