Organizational and Operational Principles of the Seventhday Adventist

Organizational and Operational Principles of the Seventh-day Adventist Church General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Office of Global Leadership Development Prepared by: Lowell C Cooper January 2010

Legal Notice and Terms of Use Copyright 2010 by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists®. All rights reserved. The information is provided for training purposes only and is not intended nor should it be used as legal counsel. This program may not be used or reformulated for any commercial purposes; neither shall it be published by any person or agency other than an official organizational unit of the Seventh-day Adventist® Church, unless prior written authorization is obtained from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists® Office of Global Leadership Development. Subject to the foregoing terms, unlimited permission to copy or use this program is hereby granted upon inclusion of the copyright notice above. “Seventh-day Adventist” and “Adventist” are registered trademarks of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists® and may not be used by non-Seventh-day Adventist entities without prior written authorization from the General Conference. Use of all or any part of this program constitutes acceptance by the User of these terms.

Biblical Pictures of the Church 1. Sheep with a shepherd (Isa 40: 11, Jn 10: 14 -16) 2. Body of Christ (Rom 12: 5, 1 Cor 12: 27, Eph 1: 23) 3. Vine and branches (Jn 15: 5) 4. Household of faith (Eph 2: 19, 1 Tim 3: 15) 5. Family of God (Deut 14: 2, Rom 8: 15, Gal 4: 5 -6) 6. Children of God (Matt 5: 9, Rom 9: 26, 1 Jn 3: 1 -10) 7. Building (Mt 16: 18, 1 Cor 3: 10, Eph 2: 21, 1 Pet 2: 5) 8. Bride (Isa 62: 5, 2 Cor 11: 2, Rev 19: 7)

Multiple Meaning of “Church” • A particular group of believers in a town or city. • The larger family of faith, of which the local church is a part. • One of many Christian denominations. • The universal family of God.

Multiple nature of the Church: • Dual reality—divine and human • Participation is voluntary • Invisible boundaries (“other sheep”) • Visible structure as an organization • Has “civil personality” o. Can own property/assets, hire people, establish institutions, etc. o. Can be sued

Understanding structure: • Local church • Local conference/mission • Union conference/mission • Division • General Conference • Institutions and agencies • Constituency sessions • Departments

The local church:

The local church: • A “family” of SDA members who have been granted, by the constituency session of a local mission/conference, official status as a Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Local mission or conference: • A family of churches, in a specific geographic area, which has been granted, by a division executive committee action, official status as a Seventh-day Adventist local mission/conference.

Union conference/mission: • A family of local missions/conferences, in a specific geographic area, which has been granted, by a General Conference session, official status as a Seventh-day Adventist union mission/union conference.

The General Conference: • The worldwide “family” of union missions/union conferences and other directly attached fields.

Divisions: • A regional office of the General Conference which has been assigned general supervisory responsibilities for a specific group of unions or other church units within a geographic area.

Companies of believers: • A preliminary stage of organization for individual members who, under the supervision of a person authorized by the local mission/conference, begin to function as a congregation or family of members. A company elects a leader, not officers. Membership is held in the mission/conference church.

The “conference church”: • A group of Seventh-day Adventist members who, for reasons of geographic isolation, are unable to have regular fellowship with a nearby local Seventh-day Adventist church. The conference/mission committee serves as board and business meeting of the conference church, president serves as head elder.

Institutions/agencies/services: • Subsidiary organizations, with defined administrative powers, established and operated by local missions or conferences, unions, divisions or the General Conference.

Departments: • Groupings of specific non-administrative program functions supporting the general administration and leadership of churches, missions, conferences, unions, divisions, General Conference, institutions, services, agencies, etc.

Constituency session: • An official business meeting of the members of an official administrative level of church organization.

Basic operating principles: 1. Defined membership • a person can only be a member of one church at a time • must be a member in order to hold office or to participate in the business meetings of the local church • boards and committees also have defined memberships (invitees role? )

How to become a member: • By vote of members in an official local church upon: obaptism by immersion oprofession of faith otransfer of membership from some other SDA congregation

Basic operating principles: 2. Conferred status • membership in a church is always a privilege that is granted by a group (e. g. no one can baptize himself/herself); organizational status is never self-proclaimed nor self-derived nor automatically perpetual, it is always conferred/entrusted by others • membership is not a right • membership can be withdrawn by the same

Basic operating principles: 3. Authority ascends to a group • final authority is always in a group not in one individual • every elected/appointed leader is accountable to a group • no group or committee has greater authority than the group that appointed it

Basic operating principles: 4. Authority is distributed throughout the organization • different types of authority reside at different places in the organization (i. e. membership, ministerial ordination, doctrine) • distribution of authority helps to unite the church –no one part complete in itself

Basic operating principles: 5. Representative democracy process • in a direct democracy every member can vote on each decision–particularly in the choice of leaders • representative democracy involves the selection of representatives who then vote in the decisionmaking process

Basic operating principles: 6. Shared identity—concurrent elements of local and global identity • a local SDA church is an official church but it is not the whole church • the world church is more than merely the sum of local churches

Basic operating principles: 1. Defined membership 2. Conferred membership 3. Ultimate authority in groups 4. Distributed authority at various levels 5. Representative democracy 6. Shared identity