Organizational and Operational Principles of the Seventhday Adventist
- Slides: 25
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
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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
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