ASI 2019: Business Unusual

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Plenary

Ted N.C. Wilson

God’s Mandate for These Unusual Times

What a beautiful way in which to begin our ASI convention this evening.

To give ourselves to the Lord in a very peculiar and specific way.

What a privilege it is to be here with you tonight to support this magnificent organization that has sharing Christ in the marketplace as your greatest theme.

But the theme for this ASI here in Louisville, Kentucky is written in some letters that may be a little bit difficult for you to see, but it is business unusual for God's unusual business.

You'll see a little clock up there that shows that it's almost 12 o'clock.

It is almost the time for the Lord's appearing.

It is a time in which all of us must be actively involved as a group.

The denominational paid individuals, lay people, working together in a powerful way for business unusual.

An opportunity for us to be involved in God's last day proclamation.

The 3 angels' messages flowing across the skies from 1 continent to another, bringing about the last proclamation.

Tonight We're going to spend a few minutes in a kind of an informal study of God's Word and the spirit of prophecy to understand what it really means to be business unusual for ASI.

ASI was established about 1947, a marvelous organization that started out as the Association of Self-Supporting Institutions, A wonderful way in which God saw that lay people working in order to support themselves would be able to help the church in a powerful manner in its outreach.

As ASI developed further and further, more and more people became part of this amazing outreach.

And it is now developed into Adventist layman's services and industries.

I want to thank all of you here tonight and all those who will be coming.

On behalf of the World Church, I want to give a ringing endorsement and a huge vote of thanks for what you are doing as members of ASI.

Thank you for being part of God's last day proclamation.

Never fear and never feel that somehow you are being marginalized, somehow you are not a part of God's last day proclamation.

The proclamation, business unusual, the time and the clock is ticking.

My own personal family has deep roots in ASI.

My grandfather and grandmother on the Wilson side began essentially their ministry at Madison College.

They along with brothers of my grandfather, my great-uncles, and their families have deep roots in that beautiful experience of Madison College.

From that experience, my own personal family has grown to love this organization because it is full of people that have absolutely 1 goal and that is to allow Jesus to use them to proclaim the soon coming of Jesus Christ.

And that's what business unusual is all about.

Tonight as we focus upon what you can do and what Scripture tells us, this amazing and unbelievable setting in which we are in now will only give us greater opportunity to allow the Holy Spirit to use us.

I want you to understand fully you are part of God's great proclamation.

The theme itself gives you an understanding that there is something that is peculiar, there's something unique, there's something exciting about what's going to be happening.

Now I don't know if you've been able to look at the most recent Inside ASI.

As I was looking through this the other day, I looked at the editor's note written by the editor, Christy Jensen, and Christy brought out some absolutely amazing things about business unusual.

I'm not going to read the entire short editorial, but let me pick out just a few points.

The end is near, yet what are we doing to prepare?

She goes on to say a few more lines down, While dwelling on our mortality is counterproductive, focusing on our mission is imperative.

Are our lives reflecting the time in which we live?

Don't forget that clock up there, minutes before midnight.

Are we living lives of unusual dedication, unusual love, and unusual business?

A little further on, she points out, as we consider our mission in this unusual time in earth's history, take time to pray, to meditate on scripture, and to witness, listen to the voice of the Lord, live a godly Christian life.

And then she concludes with this, we are living in the end times.

The objectives of ASI are amazing, for it is really a practical approach that ASI engenders in its work.

Represented here tonight are many different kinds of businesses, many different kinds of services, self supporting institutions, special mission outreach activities.

You are vital to the mission of the church and the objectives that ASI has is to make this outreach practical as we come up to the end of time.

You know, you can find almost anything online.

You can't believe everything online, but you can find a lot of things online.

In fact, I don't even worry about a concordance anymore.

I don't worry about trying to find specific information in some encyclopedia.

And then, of course, I have to decide whether I want to accept that particular result.

But the ASI website tells us ASI is a membership-based organization of Seventh-day Adventist lay people who are enthusiastic.

If you came here tonight to ASI tired after a long trip, troubled about some experience, challenged about perhaps some business opportunity, maybe a little distracted, I want you to become enthusiastic tonight because that's what it says you are.

Lay people who are enthusiastic about actively participating in the church's worldwide mission.

That's what ASI is all about, to spread the gospel of Christ to the world.

This unique and diverse group of members, and that's all of you, ranges from business owners to individual professionals to supporting ministries, enthusiastically spreading God's Word and His mission.

You see, business unusual requires you to become part of God's great last day proclamation.

Everyone doing something for Jesus as we anticipate the time reaching 12 o'clock.

Recently I was looking at a magazine, it was actually directed to this particular article.

It is in the latest version of Adventist Journey, which is the North American division edition of Adventist World.

There was an article, a commentary, by a gentleman named Adam Fenner.

Adam Fenner is the director of the Adventist Learning Community, sponsored by the North American Division.

In this particular article, and you may have seen it, the title of it is, Is Adventism Relevant Anymore?

And Adam goes on to explain, and Adam is a very single-minded, focused person.

He has friends like you do in the church.

And he went on to explain that 2 of his best friends left the church during the past year.

Both went through Adventist education from kindergarten through graduate school and then he goes on to say that they're financially successful, respected, well-liked by their peers, etc.

He says that they were active in their local churches.

They never let meat touch their lips, never consumed alcohol, and generally were shining examples of traditional Adventism.

But recently, quite independently, now these are 2 of his best friends, they stopped going to church and informed their communities they no longer considered themselves Seventh-day Adventists.

Then he goes on to say, my friends told me the church is no longer relevant to my life.

For them, Adventism became spiritually and mentally draining rather than sustaining.

And then I close with what he continued to say.

For the most part they continue to believe the 28 fundamental beliefs in some capacity, but have been so dismayed by the church's execution of the gospel commission that they simply have lost faith in the church.

Now I don't know who these individuals are and what their background has been.

I don't know what drove them to give up something which had been such a part of their lives.

But I want to tell you, my dear friends at ASI, 1 of the greatest solutions for those 2 individuals, not knowing who they are, but I would venture to say there would be a much greater enthusiasm on their part if those people had joined ASI.

ASI gives you an enthusiastic view of world mission.

ASI gives you that understanding that it is business unusual.

It is unusual business that God wants us to be about.

I want you to pray along with me for those 2 young professionals.

That God somehow will bring them back into an understanding of what service is all about.

When it comes down to understanding God's great plan for each of us, business unusual means being part of God's proclamation and service to others, and that is what ASI is all about.

Get involved with God's work, for the time is ticking close to midnight.

In Scripture, we understand and read something fascinating in the first book of Peter.

And for a few moments I want to focus on 1 Peter chapter 4.

If you have your Bibles with you, if you have your Bible on your iPhone, whatever it is, go to 1 Peter chapter 4 and beginning with verse 7.

Andy Weaver

Amish/Adventist

Father in heaven, we're grateful that you have not left us in this world alone.

You care for us, and Father we claim the promise now.

When Jesus was here, he said, if you pray for the Holy Spirit, I will send you the Holy Spirit.

Help us to encourage 1 another in a time where there is a lot of discouragement, in a time when people seem to feed on bad news.

Father, help us to see the good news, the excitement, and the climax of the plan of redemption where Jesus is coming back soon to take us home.

Naomi and I grew up in an, were born and raised in an Amish family.

Naomi was part of a family of 11, and I was part of a family of 8.

Her mother had 17 children in a little less than 18 years.

I would tell you to still pray for her, but she's sleeping in her grave, so it won't do any good.

She was a loving, very loving grandmother.

When my grandparents died in their 80s, all of their 17 children were still there with their original spouses.

So I have on my mother's side, I have about 181st cousins.

On my father's site, my dad was part of a family of 14.

When my dad's father passed away, well let me back up a little bit.

So my dad was 9 years old, his father died and when my dad was 15 his mother got married to another widower who also had 14 children.

Now I don't think that that is where the idea where Walmart started but I'm told that their basement looked a little bit like a supermarket at the end of the year, in the fall.

My great-grandma just passed away here a couple of years ago, a couple months ago.

She was 100 years old, which is very uncommon for the Amish.

Usually they don't get as old because of dietary issues and they work themselves to death.

I did a couple of presentations before and I said she had 950 great-grandchildren, but I was wrong.

She could have been a mayor of that little village.

Everybody would have voted for her, I'm sure of that.

We raised the corn that made up our corn mush for breakfast.

We raised the wheat that made up our pancakes.

We even knew what it is like to work in the garden with your mother's, 1 acre garden with your mother and your mean siblings, day after day after day.

And I just couldn't wait until I grow up and no more gardens.

But My children are experiencing what I experienced.

Now, I told my children last week, I said, if you think I'm hard on you, I said, when you grow up and you have a family, you'll be just like me, because you will appreciate that you had a country life.

Even though we had all these great things there was something missing.

We knew all about country living, dress reform and all of that but we didn't know how to get to heaven.

And sometimes there's something missing in your life and you don't even know it until you find it.

It's like, wow I've been seeking for this.

Neomi and I went to school together and it was a one-room school grade 1 through 8 and this is where we were taught how to speak English.

This is the schoolhouse, how to speak English and to speak German because we needed to learn English in order to associate with people around us like you and chairman for to read our Bibles because our church services were in chairman.

So this little schoolhouse, can we go back to the schoolhouse for a little bit?

This little schoolhouse I tell people that this is the Swartzentruber Amish Ohio State University.

Now it may be a humble building but I will assure you a lot of great memories are made in there.

So Neom and I went to school there, thank you.

After we graduated from school, we worked in our parents' dairy farms, because in the Amish, you work for your family until you're 21 years old.

So all the income that I made went toward supporting my family.

And then after we turned 21 years old, we were on our own.

So I'm still talking to my children about this.

If you did that for me, I could have a great retirement.

They're being introduced to some different ideas these days.

For those of you that disagree with me that children should work until they're 21, please don't talk to our children about that.

In fact, if you see them, tell them it's a great idea.

You will always be glad you support your parents.

Since Paul told Timothy that he must continue the things or he should continue the things where he was, how he was taught, we were taught that this was the basis of religion.

If you were born Muslim, you stay Muslim and so on.

That is why the Amish are traditionalists.

Never change your dress and if the cars come and go, we looked at cars as a worldly thing.

I remember my brother got hurt when I was young.

I was probably about 10 years old, maybe 12 years old, and He got hurt on the farm, went to a hospital for 2 weeks, and our neighbor offered us to take us to the hospital to see our brother in his car.

And I was excited about that, because I didn't know what it was like to ride in a car.

I got in the car and we started going down the road faster and faster and we were flying.

We went around this curve and we were flying.

I looked over and we were going 35 miles an hour.

But our, the problem was our lifestyle was great.

But the lifestyle, we can have, we can live in the country, we can have all, wear all the right stuff and everything, we can have everything right.

But if we don't have Jesus, we're still, there's only 1 of destiny that we're going to reach.

We're going to either be lost or we're going to be saved.

So we had the lifestyle, but the problem was the lifestyle over the past 125 years, the lifestyle started becoming a religion.

And today, if you just forsake the Amish lifestyle, you will end up being shunned because you have actually forsaken the religion.

They read their Bibles, But corporate Bible studies or even personal Bible studies are not encouraged.

They read the Bibles a lot and they get acquainted with the Bible.

Members in Action

We're glad that you're here to hear how people are sharing Christ and different ministry opportunities that we have.

So we have 3 people that are going to share this evening.

We're glad that you've joined us, each of you.

We have Johnny, we have Jesse, and we have Jim Burr as well with us.

So thank you so much for being here this evening.

And we'd like to get right into it and talk to Johnny Suarez a little bit about PandeVida.

So could you tell us a little bit about what the ministry is all about?

I've been a member of ASI for 11 years, 2008.

This is the first time I share a little bit about what we do.

Some of you may be acquainted with that in 2002.

That's how I became familiarized with ASI.

We started a multimedia company called Pondivita Productions, where we would license material from a variety of Adventist speakers, Pastor David Ashrick, Henry Wright, and also Alejandro Bullion.

And that's how we began producing multimedia materials, audio and video and print.

And then from there, we started doing some distribution elsewhere.

So were you connected with ASI right in the very beginning of your ministry when you started?

It wasn't until 2008 that we started seeing the possibilities of networking with other organizations that were doing similar things.

We thought, well, let's go ahead and join them and figure out how we can communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ through multimedia.

Wonderful, okay, so you made a connection with ASI and GYC as well and kind of even helping to start that organization.

So tell us a little bit because my understanding is that people seem to be reading a little bit less.

There may be also, there's so many media choices out there today that it's sometimes hard for people to know how to, what to choose.

Like you said, you have Hulu, you have Netflix, you have, you know, YouTube.

So we thought to ourselves, what can we do to perhaps stay along the same line of what we're already doing but maybe make it differently?

So the idea was why don't we take them to the very places that the preachers talk about?

So maybe we can go over to Rome if we talk about the Romans.

Maybe we can go over to the area of the Waldenians.

So we decided to create these faith-based excursions and tours and travel.

We thought to ourselves how nice would it be, for example, we go to Rome and we go to the catacombs and We'll also visit the Mamertine prison.

So we'll go down into the dungeon cell and we'll imagine what it would have been like for Paul to have his hands tied, his feet shackled, the stench of human waste all around him and a Roman guard standing at attention waiting for the call to take him out and cut off his head.

And yet he's writing to the people in Ephesus and he says things like, we are seated in heavenly places with God.

How can a man say that he's seated in heavenly places with God when he's about to lose his head?

Well he had hope in something bigger and better and bolder and more beautiful that God had in store with him.

So taking people to the sites makes them re-experience those things in a way that perhaps they've never done before.

So at the beginning you were kind of saying that you're doing productions here, but now you're mentioning the fact that you're actually bringing people to these sites.

So how did that all come about and what are you, how does that actually play into your ministry now?

So many of the people that come with us are not Seventh-day Adventist Christians, right?

So we have some people that are coming that are Baptists, that are Methodists.

A couple of months ago, we have a registration form and we received a registration form for 2 people that wanted to go on our tours, and they put in their atheist, and then the spouse said Buddhist.

Normally, people spend money trying to have evangelistic crusades and paying thousands of dollars to try to bring people to church, but here are 2 people who are giving us the funds for 2 weeks for us to preach them the gospel and tell them about Jesus Christ.

We thought, Wow, this is an amazing opportunity to tell people about the story of Christianity in a winsome way.

And this is because friends, families, and even neighbors.

We've met Seventh-day Adventists who bring their neighbors who are not Christians and say, I don't want to go to your church, I don't want Bible studies, but I would love to go to Europe and I'll go with you because you seem like a nice guy.

And there's an opportunity for soul winning, for evangelism, and for sharing the gospel.

And when people invest in something, they value what they've invested in as well, so that makes an impact on them spiritually.

We've heard that millennials actually are more interested in the experiences that they can have rather than maybe being so interested in material things.

Tell us a little bit more about that phenomenon and how your ministry reaches out to that need?

So there's this thing some of you may have heard.

And they're finding all this interesting statistics where young people are more interested in experiences than actual material goods.

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