Unchurched is a codeword for agreeing not to engage in sheep stealing.

   As we have sat at the feet of pastors of mega-churches and invited their church growth experts to our workers meetings, a word has begun to surface among us that until recent years didn't figure in our evangelistic vocabulary.  This word is “unchurched”.  I believe this word can be problematic for the Seventh-day Adventist church for two reasons.  The first is that the Bible doesn't see people as being church or unchurched, but rather as saved or lost.  The other problem is that focusing on the unchurched can affect our mission.  My father had an experience that illustrates this.

   For a while, my father was the secretary of the Protestant ministerial association in the town where he was serving as pastor.  Later he told me, “Dick, during the years I served as secretary of the organization, I didn't conduct any public evangelistic meetings, because I wanted to avoid the perception among the other ministers that I was engaged in sheep stealing.”

   The word unchurched as used by pastors of other faiths is a codeword that means, we won't steal members from each other's churches.  While we can understand their professional concern, the message that God has given our church to proclaim to my people doesn't have this ethic.  “I heard another voice from heaven, saying, come out of her, my people.  Revelation 18:4.  The three Angels messages are not sheep stealing messages, but sheep saving messages.

   A candid appraisal of the effect of sitting at the feet of teachers from first day churches may reveal that by and large, our image of who we are and what we represent has been diminished.

    This has practical application for my success and eventual well-being, because if I spend my emotional energy trying to get my conference president to run the conference as I think it ought to be run, I’ll probably be wasting my emotional energy and creating ill will with my boss.  This isn’t to say that I can’t express my opinions to him.  But I need to realize that by the very nature of things, he has more influence on what I do than I have on what he does.

    There is another old saying that probably fits here, and that is that my freedom ends where your nose begins.  Although we all have a sphere of influence, so does everyone else.  My influence will be more effective and better appreciated if I respect everyone else just as I wish to be respected.  This is important not only in professional and public relationships but especially in the home

A minister who no longer believes the doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist Church should probably resign; and the same might be said of its members. If you have ever installed software on your home computer, you will know that, at one point in the installation process, there is a screen that spells out the terms and conditions for the use of the program. At the bottom of the page, there are two little boxes. One box says, “I agree,” and the other box says, “I disagree.” If you happen to check the box indicating that you disagree with the terms and conditions, the installation aborts.Is it asking too much to insist that a minister of this church subscribe to all of its twenty-eight fundamental beliefs? I believe it is not too much to insist, not just for spiritual reasons but for ethical reasons. In business and industry, executives and employees are required to respect the policies of their employing organizations. Should it not be the same for a religious organization?

     When we became a Seventh-day Adventist, we affirmed at the time of our baptism that we subscribed to the fundamental beliefs of the church. We became members by our own free will. We were not condemned to “do time” as members of the church.  Although there are beliefs that are not classified as testing doctrines--by that we mean conditions for church membership--we have an ethical responsibility to uphold the twenty-eight doctrines of our faith.

     The Nature of Christ is not included in the list of doctrines, but the Gift of Prophesy and the Investigative Judgment are. While the church does not have a Creed [meaning our doctrines are dynamic--could be changed subject to reinterpretation], there is no reason to believe that the founding mothers and fathers of our church were mistaken in these two important fundamental beliefs. A person who feels they can no longer teach with personal conviction the unique doctrines of this denomination may do well to consider the ethics of their position.

As pastors we cannot bring a person closer to Jesus than we are ourselves.The Kentucky-       Tennessee conference is located in the region of Nashville. My father's second assignment in the ministry was to be what was then termed the Home Missionary and Sabbath School secretary of the region comprising the churches in those two states.

       It was early morning and dad was driving to the office. Those were the days before freeways and going into a city was just that, street by street and traffic signal by traffic signal.

      He happened to notice out of the corner of is eye a man staggering down the sidewalk. Though it was still morning the man had begun to drink early or he was yet recovering from an all night binge. He was so drunk that he was using both out-stretched arms, steadying himself along the wall of the building that faced the sidewalk on which he was staggering along.

       It was in vain, because in spite of his trying to steady himself he lost his balance and scrapping his nose along the wall of the building fell to the sidewalk in a drunken stupor. Dad stopped his car and went to where the man lay.

       My dad was six feet tall and a strong man. As he contemplated the man's situation he concluded that to leave him there might meant that the police would find him and take him to jail. Dad had another plan. He would put the man in the back seat of his car and take him to the office where he would leave him in the back seat to sleep off his drunk.

       He followed through with his plan and left the man sleeping in the back seat of the car. He lowered the windows so that there would be fresh air. He then went up to his office and promptly forgot all about the matter until about 10:30 in the morning. Realizing that he had better check out the situation he went down to the parking lot and as he approached his car he saw that the man was just waking up. His face was red and his hair messed up. Through blood-shot eyes he saw this stranger approaching and asked, "Who are you?"

         Dad replied who he was. "What am I doing here?" asked the man from the street. Dad explained what had happened and how he had thought to keep the fellow out of jail.

       The man's next question was, "Why did you do that?

        Dad's answer, "Because I love Jesus".

        "What is Jesus like?" the man blurted out.

        "Like me. " Replied dad.

        The Scripture says, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." Johm 1:14.

We beheld the glory of the Father in the person of the Son. Now we are called upon to reflect the beauty of our Lord in our own lives. We sometimes sing, "Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.

        Was dad arrogant to say, Like me? I don't think so. "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 2Corthians 3:18

       We're impressed by what we see and hear. Some of the world's worst despots came to power professing honorable causes. If the people had known their hearts, they never would have followed them.

       One day, God sent Samuel the prophet to anoint a king for Israel . He told him that He would choose one of Jesse's sons. As the young men passed by one by one, the prophet was impressed by their appearances. But God told him something that on one hand is comforting but on the other hand can make our pretensions of no avail as far as God is concerned. "Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his statue; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).

        Our problem is that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). This is why the psalmist prayed, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And seee if there bge any wicked ways in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23, 24).

       In our prayers, motive is everything. The problem of unanswered prayer is usually of our own making. I am sure that often God doesn't answers our prayers because our motives aren't at the level of what we are praying for. If God answered prayers that were motivated by pride, selfishness, or bitterness, He would, in effect, be aiding and abetting our sins.

       I have found it helpful, when making a request to God, not just to pray that this or that will happen but sometimes actually to explain to God why I am making that particular request. I don't do this to help Him understand but to understand better myself. I must confess that more than once when I've finished telling Him why I want Him to do something, I end up saying, "Never mind!"

      A person once told me that if he has to choose between love and the law, he will choose love. I asked him how the will of God could be adversarial to His love?