Another Preparation Day Sabbath Brain Dump

The Sabbath is a celebration of God's perfect creation. Celebrating the perfect creation means that we are somebody, we are valued. But more than this we celebrate present liberation and sanctification. God told Israel to remember the Sabbath because of both the deliverance from Egypt as well as the creation. We are also told that it is a great sign of God's Sanctifying Power. Ultimately, the Sabbath is a celebration of the full restoration that will only come at the Second Advent of Jesus Christ.

Thus in addition to preaching the Sabbath as being the right day, we can preach the themes of Liberation, Sanctification, Creation, Covenant, Second Advent, even the Sanctuary as we weave in the present work of God.

So if someone says, "I am tired"...what is the Answer? The Sabbath of Rest!

Someone else may say, "I don't feel like I am worth anything."... what is the answer? The Sabbath's call to remember God's creation of a Very Good creation.

Someones else is saing, "I wonder if I have the strength to do what God calls me to do." The answer... The Sabbath reminds me of God's creative power which if it could create the whole world out of nothing can give me strength to overcome whatever is in my way.

Within this context the Sabbath can truly be the embodiment of our faith and worthy of the name "affirmation of our faith." Praise God for the Sabbath.

Sabbath and the Adventist Soul

The Spectrum Blog has a provocative post on how the Sabbath saved the Adventists from selling their soul to a political party. In light of the fact that white Adventists have voted similarly to evangelicalicals the question can be asked, "Why have they not joined the religious right totally?"

Could it be that our minority status among Christians makes us leary of the kinds of politics that the religious right uses? Alex over at the Spectrum blog seems to think so and I am inclined to agree. Perhaps someone should do more study of the political ramifications of being a Sabbath-keeping church.

Have We Lost the Health Message?

Over at the Adventist News Network there is an article that has implications for the connection between the health message and Adventist practice.

Churchgoers More Likely to Be Obese

According to Purdue University News they found that church goers are more likely to be obese. While the study had a sample of all church members and not just Adventist ones, no one has studied Adventist obesity specifically. Interestingly a typical Sabbath was described as sitting in a church most of the Sabbath and eating a dinner that may or may not be low on calories.

The article speaks of a trend towards obesity in the Adventist church. Jonathan Duffy, health ministries director in the South pacific, states that:

Health has long been a litmus test for our religiosity. You were a good Adventist because you didn't do this, now you are a mature Adventist because you are no longer tied to the old 'works' thing and you show it by doing what you didn't used to do. For example, Adventists didn't eat meat or drink alcohol. So how do we emphasize the theology of health, the relationship between my health and my spiritual well being? We have stopped talking about it and the church has stopped doing it and who is left to talk about it?

What about Exercize?

One aspect that should be brought out is that among some Adventists the health message consists of simply not eating pork or not eating meat depending on who you are. I personally know of people who will talk for days about what to eat and yet they are not exercizing one bit. It would seem that at best we have a truncated health message that looks past really poor health practices while congradulating itself on its lack of meat or lack of pork in the diet.

Is It Dead?

What think ye...Is the health message dead? Have we tied it to an old works based religion that we either hold to tightly or diregard as irrelevant? These are questions that we should begin to ask as our waistlines continue to get bigger and bigger.

Preaching With Power - G. Ralph Thompson

We have finally come to the final preacher in Dr. Clifford Jones' book Preaching with Power. In this post we will look at the chapter that contains the interview with G. Ralph Thompson. Pastor Thompson is the former secretary of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

Understanding of Preaching

Thompson believes that preaching is having the message of God permeate the preacher to the point where the preacher can embody the message. To put it in his words, Thompson says, preaching is "God's message by God's men or women to God's people." (page 148)

Method of Sermon Preparation

Pastor Thompson described his method as reading several translations and then read the commentaries. Then he finds a thesis for his sermon followed by the creation of an outline and then he puts meat on the outline.

Pastor Thompson says that he finds illustrations from biographies, autobiographies, and from daily life. He is quick to note that he makes use of the spiritual disciplines to keep the connection to heaven. Thompson also emphasizes that we connect the time of the Bible to the present time by paying attention to the connections. Thompson believes that if you pay attention you will see that we deal with the same issues that the Bible characters dealt with and that we can connect the two times (Bible and contemporary) easily when we recognize this.

Understanding of Black Preaching

Pastor Thompson, like many others in the book, believes that Black Preaching is more about content than style. He notes that Black Preaching comes out of the context of the Black Experience. He notes that he orginally had a problem with the very idea of Black Preaching, but has come to aknowledge its existence and even appreaciate it. Once again I like how these authors seek to find a theological foundation for Black Preaching rather than the stylistic components that some would seek to say is the basis of its uniqueness.

Understanding of Adventist Preaching

Pastor Thompson emphsizes that he is not a Baptist, Methodist, or Church of God preacher and thus his messages should not sound like theirs. He attempts to preach a unique Seventh-day Adventist message that he connects to the "Great Controversy" theme.

While he wants to emphasize that he is an Adventist preacher, Thompson also wants to be known as a preacher of Christ. Thompson keeps the unique Adventist thrust as well as the Christ-Centered thrust by looking for Christ in the doctrines. This is something that many have talked about, but needs to be fleshed out a little more. How can one preach both Christ and all of the doctrines of Adventism?

I have saught to answer some of this on my blog, but I also must mroe clearly articulate this especially since many are saying this is what to do. Perhaps some of the problem is the lack of Adventist homiletics texts. There are not that many books that teach Adventist preaching and thus few have attempted to attack this question head on. It is my hope that more such resources will become available as time goes on.

Preparation Day Brain Dump on the Sabbath.

In an earlier post I asked the question, "What Bind does Adventism Get You Out of?" In it I asked the question, "What bind does our doctrines really get us out of?" I think thinking about this question can help the preacher to relate the truth of our doctrines to real questions that people ask.

I wanted to begin some discussion about the Sabbath. We really hardly ever preach about the Sabbath, but when we do, it is usually in an apologetic mode. By that I mean that we spend all of our energies defending the truth of the doctrine or attacking Sunday as not being the true Sabbath. While such preaching does have a role in the Adventist preacher's toolbox, we also must spend some time thinking about what the Sabbath means and how it affects my living. So defend the Sabbath and show its preference to Sunday, but also look at the theological aspects of the Sabbath as revealed in the Bible.

So today I am going to do a brain dump on aspects of the Sabbath. This is not structured and should be seen as just a first step towards coming up with a homiletical theology for the Sabbath. I hope that you all will join in and help me in this endevor of attempting to discuss what we get from the Sabbath and why the Sabbath matters and what the Sabbath means for our living today.


First and foremost, the Sabbath matters because revelation reveals God cares about the Sabbath. We are told that God blessed, rested, and Sanctified the Sabbath (Gen 2:3). We are told that the Sabbath was made for humanity (Mark 2:27). We are told that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath (Matt 12:8). The Sabbath is important and it matters because God said it matters.

Sabbath Reminds us to not think too highly about ourselves

Also the Sabbbath can teach us not to think too highly of ourselves. In taking a day off once a week we remind ourselves that if we stop working the world will continue. We are not indispensible or irreplaceable. This can take a great burden off of many minds. If we don't complete this project, someone will, or perhaps it was not that important to begin with. But on another note

The Sabbath can teach us of our great importance. The Sabbath is a time to contemplate the creation which shows God's care for humanity. God invested in humanity a dignity and greatness that caused God to call the creation very good. So while the Sabbath reminds us that God can get what God needs done without us, it also reminds us that God does place great importance in humanity. Humanity was the last "thing" that God created before God created rest.

Sabbath attacks overconsumption

The Sabbath can teach us not to be overly concerned about consumption. All week long we have to think about and work towards buying and acquiring. We work really hard just to get more and more things, but the Sabbath is a day we take off from that weekly grind of acquiring. We simply be. It gives us a chance to just think about what is really important.

Related to what I have written earlier, the Sabbath reminds us to take off and take a break. It reminds us that rest itself is a necessary part of work. God finished creation by creating rest.

The Sabbath is a day when we are reminded that people are not to be judged by what they do or how much they acquire, but just by being created of God. The Sabbath is a day that we all do the same thing. The wall street executive is simply a "rest-er" just like the checkout counter cashier. It reminds us of the equality we should have in the church and will have in the coming Kingdom when it is fully realized at the Second Advent.

Sabbath is a Participation in the Incoming Kingdom

Related to this the Sabbath is a day to participate in the incoming Kingdom of God. We live for God unencumbered by our usual work responsibilities. We move into a time where God especially meets us. It is a foretaste of the coming Kingdom.

The Sabbath is a time to contemplate creation. To look at the greatness of Creation. And as we contemplate creation we see the power of God that is for our good. If God can make all that we see out of nothing then God can take us and re-create good out of us. Just as completely God created in the beginning God can just as completely work in re-creation. The Sabbath is a celebration of that.

We are told that the Sabbath is a day to remember that we are being sanctified. God said that the Sabbaths are a sign of the sanctification that is coming to us individually and as a people.

Structural Change and the Regional Conferences?

What will happen to the regional conferences? A little while ago I heard a rumor that the church was seeking to eliminate them. I don't know how true that rumor is, but it is certainly plausible when looking at these possibilities for structural flexibility and realignment.

Any structure that touches the local conference will presumably affect the regional conferences. It is possible that in any structural realignment that we would simply remove them by default rather than address why they came into being and allow all sides to tell why or why they do not desire their continuance.

It may be easier to simply do away with the conference layer and never address the regional conferences directly, but that would probably leave a wound that would fester. I would hope that any plan to do away with the regional conferences would directly address these issues and not sidestep them.

I am all in favor of some sort of structural realignment. We have a bloated structure that needs some trimming in my opinion. I also think that we need to come together and talk about why we created these conferences and come up with a plan for when we will know they are no longer needed.

I don't know if the regional conferences or any local conference is in jepardy today. But once again I thank the church for making all of these resources available on-line and I encourage all members to read and be informed. I could be wrong, but I think that some sort of structural flexibility will be more fully instituted very soon.