Mark Howard

2nd Quarter 2020: How to Interpret Scripture

Kameron DeVasher

Vicki Griffin

Wes Peppers

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

02- The Origin and Nature of the Bible

Welcome to Sabbath School for April 11, 2020.

We have another exciting lesson study for you about how to interpret the scripture.

A lot of good information to get into there, but as our usual custom, before we get into the deep Bible study element of prayer and study of God's Word, we want to first begin with that laser-like focus on mission.

And today we have a special guest with us, Elder Wes Peppers is here from the Michigan Conference Evangelism Department.

And you've got a lot of things going on right now.

And in fact, why don't we talk first about Global Mission?

This is an interesting time to talk about global work when we're all kind of locked down.

But recently you had a pretty awesome experience.

We took a group of about 36 people from Michigan down to Cuba, and we actually got to witness the entire cycle of evangelism taking place in just a short time, about 10 days.

And so it was very exciting to see the people get excited about doing personal work, about sharing the gospel, and we're going to talk a little bit about that.

Okay, now tell me about this whole cycle of evangelism you got to see in a short order.

Sure, we had medical clinics, of course the 5 components being preparing the soil, planting the seed, cultivating, harvesting, and preserving.

And we did medical clinics there at several different churches in the area, 1 in each day of the week.

And we served over 2, 200 people with eye care and medical services that totaled almost a half a million dollars.

And so people could get eyeglasses, they could get their blood pressure checked, their glucose checked, a number of other things.

And it was just very exciting to see the people having their needs met.

We were working side by side with the church members and others there locally.

So it wasn't just us coming in to do a thing.

We were really assisting the local church in their work.

So you brought specialists with you in these fields, but you didn't just come in and do it in front of the local people.

You actually brought in their participation as well.

Yes, they were laboring right there beside us and they were making the connections with the people.

We gave out over 2000 pieces of literature that week.

And so people, every person that came to the clinic left with a book or a Bible or some kind of a spiritual component.

We were having prayer with them and we had on the form offering them Bible studies.

Now some people may not even believe this, but out of the 2, 200 plus people that we served, 989 people actually requested Bible studies.

Yes, it was very awesome, and the local people there are following up on those already, and the pastor and the members were just so excited.

1 thing I loved is that I would, the first day I handed the pastor the stack of requests and he said, uh-uh, hand them to the elders.

So I handed them to the elders and the elders began distributing them to the members and The members are the ones that follow up on those leads.

So you were meeting people's physical needs with the health and those kinds of ministries.

People were taking those Bible studies and following up with them, lay people doing that.

So what about the other, were there public evangelism involved or was that at a later time?

Each night We would have a public evangelistic series so we were inviting the people from the clinics to come to those and also the members beforehand had gone out inviting people and So we had you know, depending on the site, you know upwards of a hundred hundred 20 visitors per site Wow, And in some of the children's programs, we would have 150, upwards of 200 kids.

And maybe 10 or 15 of those would be Adventists.

The rest of them were non-Adventists from the village.

And, you know, people were making decisions all week.

And at the end of the week, we had 39 baptisms.

And we had 113 more decisions for baptism.

I mean, there may be hundreds of baptisms from those Bible study requests, and I'm just excited about how enthusiastic the members are in engaging in the work.

And of course, those members are now, you know, the baptisms.

They're going to get to see some of the results that you won't be there for.

They're continuing to train them and have those people then share with their friends.

Well, let's transition back here to Michigan a little bit because you had this opportunity to take a well it's only 90 miles off of Key West so it's foreign technically and it's a different language and whatnot but it's close to home relatively.

But then if I understand the timeline correctly as things were coming to a close at your work there, this whole pandemic scare was kind of washing over the world and hitting the United States, and it kind of led to some interesting exit from Cuba for you.

Yes, we actually had to leave just a few days early.

And so, but the window of time was perfect.

We came back to a totally different country.

And it was funny because our national president, our U.S.

President was calling people to come home and the Cuban government was saying everybody needs to get out.

So we were kind of in limbo there, 1 telling us to come, 1 telling us to go.

But nonetheless, you know, the Lord just had perfect timing there.

And we just saw hundreds of lives changed and transformed.

Then when we get back, this crisis is taking place in America.

And you know, as a conference, we don't want to just sit on our hands.

Our churches, they don't want to sit on their hands.

We want to be active and involved no matter what the situation in the world is.

And you know, at the general conference, there was supposed to be evangelistic meetings with It Is Written taking place all across Indianapolis.

Well, because there was the general conference session coming up this summer in Indianapolis and they wanted to have this big evangelistic push ahead of it.

But, you know, with the crisis and the COVID-19 and all that, those ended up getting canceled.

And we were deciding what we would do, but It Is Written went forward in faith and said, we're going to host an online evangelistic series.

And so they are going to broadcast this all across the United States, and they're inviting local churches to be involved.

Now, somebody might say, well, this sounds like 1 of the old Net series where they just flip on a switch and turn on 3ABN or whatever, and everybody just kind of sits and watches.

But this one's a little bit different in the sense that the local church is involved from the start to the finish.

The local churches that are involved have the opportunity to recruit Bible workers from their members, And the reality is that every member should be a Bible worker already.

And so we're going to put those to use in the virtual field on the Internet.

01- The Uniqueness of the Bible

Welcome to Sabbath School for April 4, 2020.

I'm Pastor Cameron DeBasior with the Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Sabbath School and Personal Ministries Department.

Well, this is the very first Sabbath of the new quarter and we have an exciting lesson study today all about the scripture, how to interpret it, how do we read and understand, and most importantly apply the Bible.

We have a very rich Bible study coming up, but before we dive into a study of God's Word, we want to remember that though the foundation of Sabbath school is Bible study and prayer, our focus should always be on mission.

We don't want to just receive God's Word, we want to give it to the world and this generation.

And the Seventh-day Adventist Church is a global denomination.

We have a mission through the whole globe.

And for our global mission focus, instead of turning to a pre-recorded mission spotlight, which are wonderful resources and you can find on our webpage at michiganssbm.org.

But today we have a special guest with us who knows something about global mission work, having been a missionary himself, and is now an administrator in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, so I wanna welcome Pastor Ted Wilson.

Thank you for being with us, Elder Wilson.

And we have a global mission specialist with us today.

And could you just tell us a little bit about your history with global missionary work and how you got there and how the Lord led in that.

And what a privilege it is to be able to connect with the Michigan Conference and all those who are studying God's word in these very, very unusual times when a lot of the people around the world are being affected so dramatically with this pandemic.

But what an opportunity to witness in appropriate ways to God's great, wonderful blessings on each of us.

And Michigan Conference is the first conference, predates even the General Conference.

So what an exciting thing in 1861, I think it was when Michigan Conference started.

From there, people went all over the world.

I mean, looking at Mark 16 and verse 15, Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

So from this humble beginning in Michigan Conference, And then in 1863, the General Conference, people have gone out.

Of course, 1874 was the first real missionary sent.

And many of us have followed in the Savior's wonderful footprints.

Personally, I had the privilege of growing up in the country of Egypt.

I love the people of the Middle East Still has a deep Resonating part in my heart and I've had the privilege of working in West and Central Africa Indian Ocean area that general area and then also in the Euro Asia division Which which covers essentially the former Soviet Union.

God has blessed us enormously as we've spent time in other cultures helping people to know the 3 angels' messages and Christ's soon coming and how church members can be involved personally in thinking globally but working locally.

Now, you bring up that interesting point because the Seventh-day Adventist church history is so rich with a missionary fervor, you know, and so many examples and wonderful stories are told.

But now we're kind of moving into a time, we've got a presence around the world, and praise the Lord for all the places he's planted us, but now we have this unique situation where people are told not to go out, not to do work.

And I think there's maybe some people saying, well, if we can't meet in church buildings, if we can't have large congregational programs, is the church just kind of on pause right now?

Or what's happening in mission work in these days?

God is blessing enormously, even in this very restrictive time during this coronavirus COVID-19 situation.

And I have to tell you, We need to pray earnestly for the people who have contracted it and also those who have lost loved ones.

And this is not the final crisis, but I'll tell you, it is a precursor to what is coming.

I believe that Jesus is coming very soon.

The signs in Matthew 24 and elsewhere are really showing us we're living just before Jesus coming.

So people need to use every method possible, using social media, even during this time, telephone calls, waving at people from a distance, sharing with them literature in some way that, you know, isn't going to transmit any germs or virus.

They need to think of innovative ways to do things.

In fact, it's interesting, we've just had some discussions through Zoom, which is a very good interactive conference calling, and we've had discussions about our strategic plan for 2020 to 2025, and we want to launch it this year because it was supposed to be launched at GC session, which is now postponed.

And so we were talking about this thing of, I will go.

That's the theme that's really going to be hitting hard.

No, we want people to go, but they're going to have to go in unique ways.

And I think that the Holy Spirit's going to help church members to know exactly how they can do that in a local setting, using telephones, using social media, increasing their connection with people in appropriate public health ways.

But God's going to open up all kinds of avenues.

And so this is a great opportunity to just check up on people.

I mean, as a local church elder in my local church, I've been given about 8 names of church members I need to call, just check on how they're doing.

I mean, you know, you can use it now for not just chatting about, you know, your personal things.

We also have telephone evangelism through what Adventist World Radio is doing, where you can actually use your telephone to then share Bible studies with people.

And I think it would be marvelous to check up on Adventist World Radio and telephone evangelism.

So what I hear you saying in a nutshell is that even from the general conference perspective, you're not looking at things and saying, now, oh, we won't go.

Now we're still urging people to go, but looking for ways to do it creatively, pray to the Lord, last the Holy Spirit to lead and use some of these technological tools that we have, whether it's radio or internet or telephone or text messaging, but there are still ways to give this precious message in these troublesome times.

I'm really proud of Michigan Conference and how you innovatively do things that are very creative to attract attention all across your territory, the state of Michigan.

I've been impressed in the past and I know God's going to bless you enormously.

And I want to thank you for being with us today.

It's so good to see that global perspective.

A lot of times people, especially now, they might be in their homes and thinking they're separate or isolated from their, but the body of Christ is still alive and well and active in this day in earth's history.

So thank you, Elder Wilson, for being with us today.

And we want to remind everyone that global mission work continues.

Please continue to pray for those missionaries on the front line.

Please continue to return tithes and offerings that can go to forward those works around the world and to be a personal missionary right where we are every day.

Thank you so much Elder Wilson for being with us.

Now as exciting and awesome as it is to hear about all the work that's going on around the world at this time, we still have a work to do right here in our territory of Michigan.

And for that we're so thankful that we have Shelly Ringstaff here with us, who is the Director of Adventist Community Services in the Michigan Conference.

Now, Shelly, community services is dormant right now or is it active and working even during this crisis?

We do have to be careful with the virus going around and being safe 6 feet apart.

Most of our community service centers are closed.

They if they have a clothing, but they usually have a number on the door.

So if people are in need of clothing, there's still a way to get that.

And there's an emergency number on the door.

Working together with the pastors and the deacon and deaconesses and checking on church members, we're still working hard.

But the biggest 1 that we're doing is the food pantries.

So to get this straight, clothing is still happening, but they're making some adjustments and in a lot of places either they're not doing it all or if they are doing it, there's like a you have to call ahead and certain, you know, things.

But food, what's happening with food right now?

People are being laid off, as you know, and they're making a decision, am I going to pay my rent or am I going to get food?

And if you've been to the stores, there's not a lot of food on the shelves at some times.

And so our community service centers are fully running.

We have around 20-ish centers all the time and about more than a dozen are still running and they are taking precautions having call-ins and then they a box of food and they put it outside the door or outside a parking lot and people are driving through and picking up their food.

So while the center itself might be closed you can't browse through things like you'd have that close contact it's nice to have but you can't have it now but the work still goes on.

So they're making these measures, like you said, putting boxes out or having pickup with the cars driving by.

Yeah, and they're also the center, the volunteers, of course, are staying that 6 feet apart, wearing masks at times and also gloves and sanitizing all the items that are going out to the community.

So the people are clean and the items are clean everything is doing everything up to the up to snuff for these regulations right now.

Michigan Camp Meeting 2019: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

Emmanuel Institute - Ignite Your Church

Jim Howard

Ignite Your Church - Part 16: Questions and Answers

Father in heaven, we are grateful for a beautiful day today, and we ask that we would be especially attuned to the Spirit of God.

We pray specifically for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that we would be converted anew, that our hearts would be transformed, that our minds would be brought into the very atmosphere of heaven, and that we would know that we're in your presence just now, Lord.

So please, as we seek to tackle tough questions, we pray that you would give us wisdom, discernment, and hearing hearts to be able to hear what you have to say to each 1 of us.

All right, so at this point, let's go ahead and see what you might have in terms of questions from this week and we have 1 already in the back.

I guess my question goes, how do you approach your pastor?

You're an invasion, is the answer to that.

No, I think you should pretend that your pastor is a person.

But I mean, we kind of view pastors as this distant, like, special category of individuality.

The only difference is they're getting paid for it but everyone this is 1 of the little pet peeves I have about the whole well you're working with volunteers you can only get with you're volunteering for service that means that you're volunteering to do things right not volunteering so I can quit whenever I want or I only do part of the job, right?

You're volunteering to do the whole job and the pastor has a whole job to do too, he's just getting paid for it, that's his, that's the only real difference, right?

So, theoretically, he went into the ministry because he wants to see the church run well, He wants to see the gospel go to the world and all these different things.

And you say, look, I've come from camp meeting and we're talking about these things.

No, but I don't know that the right approach is like, I'm not assuming you did that either, but just talk to him on a personal, like sharing what was a blessing for me at camp meeting or what I've been reading or studying and I wanted to see if I was maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong how my off here a little bit but maybe to get a little more member involvement and 1 of the areas might be the interest coordinator I know you've got a lot to do I know you have you know you might have 2 churches or 3 churches, I don't know.

You got parent names and board names, business names, worship services.

I think of you being the Bible worker, interest coordinator and the Bible school board.

Well, in addition to that, are you in Michigan?

Everything we're sharing is coming from, I mean, did you not share that part of the work of the board is to consider conference initiatives?

This, all we're talking about is a conference initiative.

So your pastor ought to be very open to what is being discussed here.

So, and just to clarify for you, yes, those of you who either were or weren't here, I don't remember, I shared this yesterday, but michigansspm.org is their website.

Click on files and in there you'll find file folders.

So I'm going to have 1 that's going to say Sabbath School, whatever his seminar was at Sabbath School, so anybody who wants any of that, boom, can get in.

And then the White House series is another folder.

You go to that Ignite folder, everything we've used handout-wise is there, so you can share all that with your pastor whether you get these you say hey this is some of the stuff we went over because you're here in Michigan like I said if you just mentioned that you learned this in camp meeting you want to discuss it and you'd be eager to get some of it started, you should find some more receptiveness to it.

I have 1 comment on that just before we do.

I understand what your pastor is saying, but your pastor is not the interest coordinator.

In the Church of Maine, an interest coordinator is a position held by a church member who sits on the church board.

So he may be doing the job of an interest coordinator, but he is not the interest coordinator.

And that's why sometimes, you know, you can just emphasize that there was just a strong emphasis in the Emmanuel session, that we have an interest coordinator who can help not only with the coordination of interest, but following up, making sure interests are getting followed up and all those types of things.

And they specifically mentioned that it was a church member position in the church manual.

Also adding to that even further not only does it say it needs to be a church member but the last item on the interest coordinator job description is when an interest is sufficiently developed it should be shared with the pastor.

The implication, in fact I would say the explicit expectation, is that this is a lay member who's and it also says also to find other qualified lay members for follow-up service, right?

The idea that all of this is being taken care of by lay people and then, yes, there's a role for the pastor to play.

It's in clearing, in preparation for baptism, in introducing and doing the whole baptism process and church business meeting part of it when you vote them in there's a lot for the pastor to do for new members but it's not to do every Bible study not seek every interest not categorize and keep up with them that needs to be the order of the day I tell you pastor is working too hard and you'd like to give him a break I have a follow up.

With an interest coordinator, just a moment.

With an interest coordinator, could you give a personality or characteristic or what would be the person you would look for that would be good at doing that?

What specific job description or qualities do you have, skills?

If 1 of the primary things is to keep record of something, make sure you write it down.

Keep track, they're organized and they're faithful.

If they show up to meetings, If they're supposed to give a report, they need to be someone who attends the meetings, that kind of thing.

So, the good thing is they don't have to...

Notice the interest rater is not the 1 who's doing all the follow-up.

They don't even have to be that good at giving Bible studies.

They're organized and can stay on top of things, can anticipate, make the list ready for the meeting, if a Bible study interest comes in, oh, this is on this side of town, Sally, why don't you go take this 1, and behind the scenes, this is 1 of those great things that you don't even have to have a great personality.

And we got plenty of people in the church you can get.

Yeah, but getting stuff done is 1 of the primary things I would take.

Back to Menu

Presenter

Mark Howard

All Recordings

02- The Origin and Nature of the Bible

1h 14m

01- The Uniqueness of the Bible

1h

Ignite Your Church - Part 16: Questions and Answers

1h 15m

Ignite Your Church - Part 15: Missing Member Ministry

51m

Ignite Your Church - Part 9: The Implementation Guide

59m

Ignite Your Church - Part 7: Evaluating Your Church

1h 13m

Ignite Your Church - Part 6: How to Give Really Good Bible Studies

1h 2m

Ignite Your Church - Part 5: How to Give Really Good Bible Studies

58m

Ignite Your Church - Part 3: GROW-The Soul-Winning Road

1h 5m

Ignite Your Church - Part 2: GROW-The Soul-Winning Road

49m

Ignite Your Church - Part 1: Evangelism 101

1h 11m

Reading Ellen White - Part 2

1h

Sound Doctrine