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SDA APOSTASY |
GCSDA Corruption #42
BY
C. ELWYN PLATNER
On
Sunday morning, more than a dozen members of the Las Vegas Mountain View
Sventh-day Adventist Church in Nevada are busy mixing pancake batter, setting
out dishes and other tableware, preparing breakfast in a local public elementary
school auditorium. Outside, signs posted earlier on street corners and in the
parking lot point the way to the Higher Grounds Community Church, Mountain
View's experimental outreach project.
By 10 a.m. the smell of frying
pancakes greets the first visitors from the surrounding community as they
approach the school, many of them for the first time. They've come as a result
of a mass mailing of invitations to homes in a local postal zip code to attend
Sunday morning religious services.
As the crowd grows and enjoys pleasant
conversation around two dozen small tables scattered throughout the
auditorium, members of a music group follow Pastor Tim Dunfield to the platform
and begin taking their places. While the visitors finish their breakfast
Dunfield welcomes the growing crowd by for the first meeting in their new
location. Led by Brad Reed and Wally Hanson, the band provides accompaniment for
singing for the next 20 minutes.
It's a high-tech "seeker-style"
experimental service, not designed for Adventists, but for Anglo Boomers and Gen
Xers who may not be acquainted with the inside of any church, explains David
Gemmell, pastor of the nearby Las Vegas Mountain View church which is sponsoring
this creative evangelism project. "Most Adventists would not be comfortable in
this service with its contemporary band and laid-back style," he remarked. "But
this type of service has already proved highly successful with three other
rapidly growing (non-Adventist) churches in Las Vegas. Currently, nearly 80
persons are attending the meetings and only 20 are Adventists.
Sunday
morning evangelism may sound unconventional or even radical, Gemmel said. Yet
the concept has roots in solid theology. Jesus did not confine his ministry to
Sabbath services at the temple. Some of His greatest ministry opportunities
occurred in secular times and places with worldly people, Gemmel's project
proposal said. Also, Ellen White, a co-founder the Adventist Church encouraged
Sunday outreach meetings.
"The Sunday morning evangelistic project will
bring the gospel to unchurched people at a time when they are most receptive to
religious things. . . . This project will not be a worship service for the
believers, but instead will be an evangelistic meeting that believers can bring
their unchurched friends to." The seekers will be gradually drawn into a home
cell church where they can begin to grow in their walk with Christ and their
understanding of the fundamental beliefs of the Adventist faith.
Deeply
committed members of the 600-member Mountain View church launched their
experiment on Easter weekend last year at a school in the rapidly growing
Summerland area of the city. Their initial invitation went by mail to 30,000
homes and drew 150 people that Sunday.
As the plan unfolded, Dunfield was
recruited from Williams Lake, British Columbia, where he was a Bible teacher and
chaplain at Caraboo Adventist Academy. He had coordinated a similar program
titled Blue Rock while attending the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary
in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Each Sunday Dunfield presents a clearly Adventist
message but aimed at people who "don't know how to talk church, people whose
lives have fallen apart with divorce or terms in prison. "We want to be seen as
having something they will want," Dunfield said. " Each one is invited to
participate in a small group to build friendships with other new people who come
to the service."
Gemmell and Dunfield see a bright future for Higher
Grounds Community Church because Las Vegas is growing at the rate of 5,000 a
month. They hope that this model can be replicated in other cities across the
country.
As they donned their helmets after their first service at Higher
Grounds Community Church that Sunday morning, four members of the local
Christian Motorcycle Association, all dressed in their black leather jackets and
pants, commented, "We're really excited about what we saw and heard here this
morning. We're coming back next week and bring our kids."
C. Elwyn
Platner is Pacific Union Conference communication director. -Pacific Union Recorder.