everlasting-gospels.gif

Retrospect On Organization-2
letter-text.gif
line.gif
guide_img.gif

June 2  Retrospect On Organization-2

 guide_img.gif

 

line.gif

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Acts 20:28.

The impelling force behind the drive for organization was an integrated complex of interrelated ideas. One of the most important was a growing biblically based understanding of the church's mission. By 1861 some denominational leaders had concluded that they had a world to win, andby 1863 the newly formed General Conference executive committee began to discuss sending a missionary overseas. A broader vision of mission led to a more extensive recognition of the necessity of developing an adequate organization to support that mission. In short, Jaems White and others gradually came to realize that no significant mission outreach could exist without a rational and effective support system.

A second reality that helped James and his fellow believers broaden their concept of church structure was the need to maintain doctrinal unity. In 1864 he contrasted the goo d fruits of Seventh-day Adventist organization with the "miserably confused condition of those who reject organization."

G. I. Butler develped that line of thought a bit further in 1873 when he wrote that "we are a thoroughly organized people, and our organization is not based on mere appearances, but upon a solid foundation. Having struggled against all kinds of influences, within and without, and being now a unit, speaking the same thing from ocean to ocean, it is not a very easy thing to shake us to pieces."

The doctrinal issue, of course, had close ties to mission to the far corners of the United States and eventually to the rest of the world.

In the end it was the missionj of the church that demanded an adequate church sturcture. As James White reapeatedly noted, "it was not ambition to build up a denomination that suggested organization, but the sheer necessiteis of the case."

While for James in 1871 the stamp of an adequate system was that "the machinery works well," the early Adventists also sought to base their organizational sturctures on a foundation that was in harmony with the Bible's teaching on the principles that should undergird the nature and mission of the church. In the long run, organization was a by-product of a scriptual understanding of the church and its end-time role of warning the world before the Second Advent.

         line.gif
guide_img_bottom.gif guide_img_bottom.gif

Bloom where you are planted!
line.gif
이 게시물을...