ASI 2020: Three Angels' Messages - Our Urgent Calling

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Our Urgent Call: BUSINESS and the Three Angels' Messages

Jesse Zwiker

Business in Prophecy and the Three Angels’ Messages

And today we have another seminar session with Jesse Zwicker.

So this is the second part of our seminars this afternoon.

And today, Jesse is going to share with us, he's going to introduce the actual title, and we are going to be blessed, certainly.

We've been collaborating for some time now and Hive.

And I know that you were a missionary on Diaz and you profit a lot from Aludas because you gained a lot of business experience that you're gonna share with us because you saw a need.

And nowadays you have a couple of companies and you also dedicate your time to provide consultancy services, and also have a translation company.

So really blessed to hear you, Jesse, Just go ahead and share with us today.

Why don't we just start with a word of prayer, and then we can just dig into the topic, business in prophecy.

Dear Father in heaven, Lord, we just want to come together this afternoon to study your word, study prophecy, and study what your opinion is as to how important business Really is to help advance the work in the time of the end.

And so we we just ask for your wisdom We ask for your holy spirit to be present to speak to us this Today in jesus name we pray.

Amen amen Okay, good, Let me share my screen and we can roll into our presentation.

So here we have, this is the title, Business in Prophecy and the 3 Angels' Messages.

So what in the world does this worldly thing like business have to do in prophecy and especially in the 3 Angels' Messages?

We'll study into this whole thing much more much deeper and preparing for it.

I got so energized just reading all of the stuff and reading that finding out that there's way more content around this topic than I ever could imagine myself.

So I'm excited to share this stuff with you and we're gonna dig into it right now with our first quote from Christ's object lessons.

This you might have heard this quote in the past, religion and business are not 2 separate things.

They are 1, they're the same thing and they really complement each other.

Ellen White is so strong about how they need to be integrated, that she calls the separation of it, essentially a divorce.

So if you look at this quote, here, you can see she says, you have felt that business is business, and religion is religion.

But I tell you that these cannot be divorced.

You are not to put a sunder and listen to the language.

And this is the wording that is used when somebody gets married, right?

You should not put asunder that which God has joined.

Business and religion, you know, whichever 1 is the man and the woman, but these are the 2 that are a couple and they should be presented as a divine, divinely appointed couple.

Here's another beautiful quote that I really like, where she's talking about how we're going to do enterprises.

And we love doing enterprises here on earth.

But really the grandest enterprises, she says, are not going to be here.

But this is just a preparation ground here for the bigger enterprises that we're gonna do in heaven.

There in heaven, every power will be deployed, developed, every capacity increased, the grandest enterprises will be carried forward, the loftiest aspirations will be reached, the highest ambitions realized.

I just love this quote, you know, because it really gives us a sense that what we're doing here is really just a training ground, even though sometimes we think in entrepreneurship, you know, we think what we're doing is cool stuff, and so forth.

But really, what we're going to get in heaven is going to be so much more and so much more entrepreneurship is going to take place in heaven.

So I'm very excited about going to heaven to get started on some of these cool projects up there.

So before we get into more of the nitty gritties here, Luke 19, where it tells us in this parable, essentially where Jesus tells us that we should do business till I come, till he comes, right?

And that we shouldn't get like stuck just getting rid of everything and then not being able to do anything anymore because you know Jesus might come tomorrow or in a few days or in a few months as some people believe and I believe that Jesus is coming soon but the idea is really to do business until we cannot do business anymore and and part of that is that the business that we are engaged in should not be this, you know, what people think is a, you know, worldly business, you know, we should be in business, but really in business to advance the work of God with the things that we're doing.

And we're gonna read some more about that theme.

Now in the past, really business and money has had a quite a bad reputation, if I can say it in a positive way.

So, but let me ask you, just make a poll here and ask how many of you guys have run a business or own a business now, maybe you're not running it anymore, but you own a business or have started a business in the past.

You can answer that poll right now and we're going to continue with these and then we'll share the results of that poll.

And Jesse, we can also educate people right now.

The first poll that you can see the polls on the right side of the chat box.

So you can click on the right side, you will see chat and polls.

And then you have the first live question that Jesse has put out that is right now available for you to book and then you can continue Jesse and then we can share the results very soon.

Okay so I can't see the chat but that's okay.

It's fine I will tell you the results and then in a bit I'll close the poll.

Okay, so let's just continue here with the backstory behind why business really got this bad reputation.

So business used to be a good thing in the Hebrew in the Old Testament.

Business was a very healthy, very positive thing.

If you were doing well in business, that meant God was blessing you and was helping you and you were following the laws of nature and the laws of the mind, which business is mostly has to do with the laws of the mind, with the understanding of value and how to contribute, how to identify needs and how to supply needs.

But then later, especially in the medieval time period, the church started abusing business and other enterprises as well and started actually making people feel like when if they're making more money, then they must be more worldly.

And if you're making less money, and actually if you're poor, then you're going to be a very spiritual person.

So the most spiritual people, as you know, in that time, who were they?

And the monks, many monks, not all of them, but many monks like Martin Luther himself, as an Augustinian monk, he had to make a vow of poverty as part of being a spiritual person.

And so, and then that came together with the church you know creating business models like can I ask you well just 1 thing you have the box of color the color palette on top of the presentation?

So the point is basically that in the past, they've abused really with indulgences and so forth, forcing the people to give their money to the church.

And by doing so, they commit spiritual acts and you can actually win your salvation by giving more money to the church and also creating purgatory where if you give money then to the church, then you'll allow your grandma to be less time in the fire burning.

So these kind of misconceptions really created a bad taste also for money and for business until really Martin Luther came along and Zwingli for that matter actually Calvin was the strongest 1 in the pack that really talked heavily about business and how the gospel and how the Bible was actually in favor of business and in favor of entrepreneurship.

And it was very interesting because that really pushed the Protestant movement to become much more entrepreneurial, much more business-oriented and much more against the status quo, against the rule of the church at that time and so forth.

And so they really created a lot more businesses to not have to be employed by Catholics and so forth.

And the effect that it had on countries is very phenomenal.

This guy, Max Weber, a German guy, wrote 1 of the most quoted books in history in social economics, talking about how Protestantism affected the spirit of capitalism and the economics of different countries.

Ruben Dias

Harold Lance

Denzil McNeilus

Donna McNeilus

Gary Rayner

Panel Discussion: For-profit Business in Light of the Three Angels’ Messages

Hello everybody and welcome to another seminar of ASI virtual.

We have an opportunity to share some thoughts with you about our title today, which is, I like to actually call it a different way because in our description, we have put up a phrase that I think will probably be the focus of our conversation.

We can summarize it, which is the competitive advantage that truly matters for eternity, right?

In business, we are always seeking for competitive advantages, right?

And the competitive advantage that matters for eternity is actually the 1 that we're gonna be discussing today.

So why don't we start with a word of prayer, then we have a brief introduction from each 1 of us, and then we dive in.

Heavenly Father, thank you again for the privilege to share your word with those who want to be known by your name.

We ask that you'll be with our seminar today, with all those who would love to have attended our convention, and with our church.

There is 5 of us and different backgrounds, different cultural experiences.

So why don't we start with Benzo and Donna and then we will go with Gary and Harold.

Give us a little bit of your background, who you are, what business are you involved in, and how you got connected with ASI.

Well Donna and I first got connected with ASI many years ago.

Matter of fact, we're here at the virtual convention right now, so if you see some people walking by, it's because we had to do it, the internet's not that strong here, so we had to do this Skype and the Zoom.

Now, Harold's actually done it longer than we have.

But we joined the ASI organization, and we've never missed a convention since.

It has really changed our lives and we have been really blessed being part of the ASI family but Donna and I were bankers by trade.

That's how we make our loving, our, excuse me, our living, but our real job is to tell others about Jesus.

I'm a Grammy, and I'm passionate about our health message.

So we have a combination of health and ministry along with our business.

And it works because God blesses, that's how it works.

Yes, So I'm originally from Australia and I've been in the US now around 25 years, so about half my lifetime.

I've been a businessman since my teen years.

Educational background is an MBA, Master's of Engineering Science, and I'm currently working on a Master's of Computer Science in Artificial Intelligence.

I'd had an exit from a company that was very good.

And my wife and I, my wife Sophia Rainer and I were looking at ways to expand out our ability to support Christian ministries.

And we didn't feel like we had enough exposure and experience ourselves to really do a great job of managing it and just have really found great camaraderie advice and kindred spirits at ASI.

Harold, you have studied long time ago, long, long time ago.

I was in the army as a special investigator with the counterintelligence corps and then left after my tour to practice law in a private setting in Ontario, California, where I was a trial lawyer for 32 years.

During the course of my trial work, I tried about 150 jury trials and tried in every case in the latter stages of my experience to bring some spiritual lesson to the case to the jury even if it had to do with something else.

About 30 years ago we left the law practice and went to head up Outpost Centers International and did that for a period of 9 years and then another ministry.

And so we've been retired, retired about 20 years, 45 years as an ASI member.

I came in because I was trying to get Ken Livesey, who was the Secretary-Treasurer of Southeastern Conference, off my back and saying, why don't you come to ASI?

We haven't missed a convention since then, and it's been a significant part of our activities and we've been blessed.

Yeah, that's a very interesting point, Harold.

You know, because each 1 of us had a calling to ASI.

And this morning I was hearing Denzel on the first members meeting, and he was sharing a story that I heard in 2008.

And time flies Denzel, remember we're in Portugal, and when we joined ASI, right?

And, you know, I called, I never forget something you said that time you and is that it's like a chain reaction and I always say that ASI is like a chain reaction you're all connected by chains that I receive an influence, then I have a responsibility to provide that influence and to share that influence so I can bring in another member and to be excited about sharing Christ in the marketplace.

So let's just dive in to this theme of today, which is we're business people, professionals as Harold, and we have a mission in our companies.

So we have a specific business thing to accomplish, which in our case is all for profit.

But now we actually have a much bigger calling and how we can manage it in the perspective that the 3 angels message which the first angel message as we know is to proclaim.

So how can you share with us a little bit of how have you had opportunities throughout your life at proclaiming that first angel message?

Well we definitely have had opportunities.

We pray every day that God will give us a divine appointment and Henry Martin was very famous in saying that and you know we really believe that God leads us to who we should be witnessing to each and every day.

Now, I will give you a, let's go right away.

Let's do what's happened in the last couple of weeks, because maybe you've heard some of our stories in the past.

But we, as a family, made a decision that we would like to have some Bible workers come to our territory.

And I just felt impressed that we should have them stay with us.

And so we prayed about this and Denzel contacted Wachita Hills College and asked them if they could provide us 2 young people.

And I said, okay, they have to be the same sex because they would be staying in the same apartment.

And so I thought for sure they would send us 2 young men.

And boy oh boy have they been passionate about sharing Jesus in our community.

Not only have they been in our community and our church, but they've even been in our business too.

And it's really given us light and it's really made us grateful and brought us to our knees because during this COVID crisis, we have been so socially or physically distanced, whichever way you want to say it.

But we have realized that this has given us opportunities to personally be involved in giving Bible studies.

Both Denzel and myself and others in our church are giving Bible studies.

And our church and our community and us as a family, as a couple.

Talk about our Bible studies and what we're doing for them and how we're praying for them and where they are in their walk with Jesus.

And it wasn't that expensive to have these young ladies come.

And the benefits and the blessings that we receive from this small investment has been worth it all.

Because we will not know until eternity what the complete results are.

But we are sure happy that we get to sow some seeds.

John Huynh

How Non-Profits Can Thrive in the Midst of Major World Crises

All right, well, good afternoon to everybody.

Good evening, good morning, depending where you are.

Here we are again with another very exciting seminar.

And today we have John sharing with us the theme of how nonprofits can thrive in the midst of major world crisis.

And it's John Yuen, and it's a pleasure to have you here today, John.

I'm just gonna share my screen really quick with you.

I'm actually going to be collaborating today with Bo Kim from Fusion Ministries.

I'm going to be able to highlight him later on, but I just want to share with you a little bit about myself.

I am the Director of Development for Center for Online Evangelism.

A little bit about my background is that I started off as a fundraiser within the Adventist Church.

It's been 10 years so far since I've been doing this, but I first started off at a ministry called Breath of Life.

I was actually, before that, I was actually doing marketing, freelance marketing, and somebody from the Adventist Church came and recruited me to become a fundraiser for the Adventist Church.

And at first I said, you know what, I'm honored for this privilege, But actually, number 1, I don't beg for money.

And number 2, I'm Asian, so I really don't beg for money.

And at that time, somebody said, she said, the recruiter said, she started laughing.

She says, John, that's not what philanthropy is all about.

You're going to be able to navigate and help a lot of people want to give.

They just don't know how to give it away in an effective way.

Bill Gates for the longest time was accused for being a selfish guy because he wouldn't give to philanthropy.

And Bill Gates, they interviewed him and he'd said, you know what, it's not because I don't want to give away money.

It's because it's actually easier to make money than to give it away effectively and efficiently.

And so I started my journey on guiding donors on how to give their money away to ministries.

I started off at Breath of Life as their fundraising slash marketing coordinator.

Later on, after 2 years, I moved to Hope Channel at the world headquarters of the Adventist Church, to where I was focusing on major gifts and annual givings.

So at Breath of Life, I was focusing on major gifts for the $5, 000 range.

When I got to Hope Channel, it was more of the $25, 000 range.

And then after that, I decided to move back to Southern California to witness to my dad, who was Buddhist.

At that time, we were raising millions of dollars for the Hope Channel to send missionaries out there and to put up satellites.

But you know, something was impressing on my heart.

God was basically saying, John, out of all the parents I could have given you, I placed you in front of these parents, you know, and, it was for witnessing opportunity.

And I moved back to Southern California and I didn't want to feel as if 1 of those pastors where they saved their whole entire congregation but lose their family in the process.

And for 5 years, I worked for my college that I graduated from, it was a secular university, it's called Cal Poly Pomona.

I worked for the College of Engineering, where I helped the threshold for raising money there is for major gifts is $100, 000 and above.

And then I also do, I have an itch for evangelism in general or the Adventist church.

There is a void of me that can never be filled unless I do ministry work.

And 1 of the organizations that I do consulting for is for Center for Online Evangelism and I'm the director of development there.

So that's a little bit about my background and today we're going to be discussing on how nonprofits can thrive in the midst of a world crisis, right?

With all these craziness happening and that is going on, what can we do?

You know, Oftentimes it is very difficult, but I want to suggest to you, and we're going to get into it, is that there is hope.

Actually there is just so much opportunity.

I'm just smiling, just thinking of the opportunities out there.

But first I just want to submit a poll question.

I don't know if you guys are shy, hopefully not, but I want to ask you guys a poll question.

You can go ahead in your poll and answer this question.

It's during COVID-19, Which of the following do you feel?

A, my church slash ministry slash business has declined.

B, my church ministry and business has stayed the same.

Or C, my church ministry business has progressed during the whole entire COVID-19, right?

Many of the things that I'm going to be talking about today, as I'm going to wait for the polls to come on in, but many of the things that we're going to be talking about today is interchangeable, meaning that it could be applied to nonprofits as well as businesses and ministries in general.

Many of the concepts of when I talk about donors, it could be applied to customers as well too.

It's gonna be something that I'm hoping that you'll be able to see a different perspective that you've never seen before.

And so with that we're just waiting for the polls to come on in.

During this COVID time, how do you feel about your church?

Has it stayed the same or has it been declined?

We're just waiting a little bit more for people to participate.

And we'll have another 15, 20 seconds, and we can close it.

You know, it's funny because oftentimes during this time we scale back as a church.

You know I'm gonna I'm gonna jump before we have a result for you John and I have a result for you already.

And what we have is, well, 30% of my church business has declined, and then the other split, pretty much, on the rest, 35-35, my church ministry has stayed the same and my church business has progressed.

Hopefully I'm, if you guys ever see me lead a Sabbath school or something like that.

I don't like the format where somebody is constantly talking and there's no response from the crowd.

So feel free to, you know, submit your questions at the end as well as interact with the poll questions as well too.

You know, during an economic downturn, our natural instinct by nature is to actually scale down.

It is something that I find it very weird, not only in nonprofits around the world, but in churches, particularly the Adventist church, we tend to scale down, you know, and cut people and so forth, right?

It's funny, because in the line of fundraising, as what I do for my career, My job, my position always gets cut the first 1.

Series

Our Urgent Call: BUSINESS and the Three Angels' Messages

Panel Discussion: For-profit Business in Light of the Three Angels’ Messages

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

ASI 2010 Seminar: Business

Six Secrets to Success in Business and Beliefs

1h 13m

ASI 2009 Seminar: Reaching Your Marketplace

How Business Gives Birth to Mission

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Business & Management

What We’ve Learned in Business

1h 18m

Seminar: Management

Develop an Effective Marketing Strategy

58m

ASI 2010 Plenary Meetings

First Things First

1h 43m

ASI 2014 Plenary Sessions

Town Hall

1h 13m

ASI 2013 Seminar: It's Time

Ministry and the Internet

1h 12m

Young Professionals

Starting a Business

35m

ASI 2013 Plenary Sessions

To Jesus by Night

2h 28m

2-Applying the Faith

Connected Relationships In a Disconnecting World

1h 16m

Health & Family

Juggling Work, Home, Family, and Ministry: Finding the Balance

1h 19m

United

Partners in a Finished Work

1h 14m

Sound Doctrine