1. Relevance and credibility

Our Christian attitude, our actions and our decisions produce visible and public effects. Are we really conscious of this responsibility?

We are watched, criticized and questioned by others. Credible Christianity often requires of us as leaders and administrators more effort than we feel able to supply. We react to this fact very differently. Yet, it seems absolutely necessary that we constantly remember the most crucial themes of our faith.

Credibility - the mark of a Christian life - may be found in these words of our Lord:

“A new commandment I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you have love for one another, then all will know that you are my disciples” (John 13:34, 35).

We all know how easy it is to slip into patterns of mechanical Christianity, having a good appearance on the surface but lacking in genuine spiritual substance. It is crucial that the leaders of the church find ways to live genuine Christian lives and lead the Church and its entities from this spiritual foundation.

“It is not exaggerated to say that the most advanced techniques and the noblest of corporate purposes are bankrupt without personal nobility, and that if the house - any house, and especially God’s house - is to prosper, its leadership must, above all, possess moral goodness” - Calvin Rock in “Church Leadership, a call to virtue”, p. 8.

Is the glass half empty or half full? A problem of vision.

There can be no real change or growth in our leadership until our basic perception of reality - our vision - is changed. This is so important because our vision - our way of perceiving our mission, our calling, our action - impacts all realms of our lives: what we are, what we do, our relationship with others and our relationship with God. At the beginning of any great work, we always find personalities led by their vision. It is the same in the church. What is our vision? What motivates us? What employs our energy? What is our dream for the church, and what action are we implementing for her? As leaders we must think about these important questions.

The leadership task becomes more challenging in Europe where we are committed to reaching unchurched men and women and to training people who are already fully dedicated disciples of Christ. Reaching both ends of this spiritual spectrum is difficult. It requires a unique approach transcending one’s own culture, an upside-down organization in which servant leaders empower teams of lay members who, in turn, help to build more effective churches.

2. Unity

Real unity requires the acceptance of diversity. Our multicultural church faces a tremendous challenge in this respect. As leaders we must accept the “other way” and the “other one” and integrate them into our own concept of the Church. This will only be successful if we become so strong and open-minded that we shall no longer consider our neighbor, our brother, or the person with a different mindset as a threat to our personal opinions and convictions. This openness is God’s gift of grace to His children who trust Him. Extremism and separatism are always consequences of an unsatisfactory experience with God. We are mistaken if we think that we are responsible for keeping the Church on course without trusting the Lord.

The French philosopher Roger Garaudy has expressed this thought very aptly in the following words:

“My freedom is not limited by the freedom of another person. My freedom is based on the conviction that the other one has his freedom, and I am responsible for helping him to unfold it.”

The Bible gives us the “Golden Rule” of a genuine Christian attitude:

“Do for others what you want them to do for you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets” (Matthew 7:12.)

3. Our message and theology

One of the main reasons for our problems with an increasing polarization is that we too often define our theology as the answer to a real or assumed position taken against us. But by doing this, we in reality are preparing the soil for increased polarization and theological distortion. We must be conscious of this dynamic if we wish to define our message and teach Biblical theology in the spirit of a “Christian Adventism.” We should learn from the people who profess theological positions different from our own.

We can only reach this goal by following the example of Christ more closely. His was always an attitude of trust in expecting the best from others.

One key to a sound definition of our Biblical message is that we accept the Scriptures as our supreme rule of faith and practice in our personal lives as well as in the life of the church and at the same time be open to the essential issues and needs of society.

We must come closer to one another and give up our defensive, ideological positions. This is the only way Adventist theology will be able to give the church further orientation concerning her increasing search for identity, role and mission.

“Every Church produces the sects it needs. If she neglects an important part of her faith, there will come up splinter groups claiming this part for themselves” (Dr. Friedrich Heyer, Professor of Confessional Studies, Protestant Faculty of Heidelberg).

4. Christian Values

Spiritual arrogance and pride are the threats that we, as Christians, must meet.
“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

We should consciously ask ourselves: What does humility really mean, and which promises are connected with it? What may be wrong in my life, in our churches? How can humility find its way into the life of the Body of Christ?

I am convinced that the answer to this question is related directly to our credibility as Christians. We must decide very consciously to live a credible life of higher value than success and honor. As Christians we are on the loser’s side if we set our spiritual priorities incorrectly. Only if we live in a deep relationship with Jesus Christ and recall the essential values of the Gospel shall we experience liberation from outward pressure and find inner peace.

“I clearly feel that God is opening a new door to us in Europe . A huge and broad door for the Gospel. A door which leads forward. This door has only one latch: it is set extremely low, maybe no higher than our knees. We cannot walk through it with our head lifted up, or hover through it happily, or trip through it naively, or fall through it by chance, or develop from victory to victory; but we must fall down on our knees, or maybe our face, and stay there until God says: It is enough” - Wolfgang Simson: “Demut, Gottes Schlüssel für Erweckung in Europa“ (Humility, God’s Key to a Revival in Europe).

5. Mission

Society finds itself caught up in a gigantic tornado of social, cultural and mostly unknown spiritual phenomena. We live in a time of transition. The past is disappearing, and nobody knows what will happen in the future. All traditional values seem to be melting away. Doubt is digging itself into the soil of our society, producing fear in the hearts of men and women. As committed Christians and leaders, we bear a message of hope for our fellow human beings and church members. Our message is the answer to the doubts and fears of 21st century people.

“The Way of Hope” is the theme the General Conference has chosen for the next five years.

Disunity, unbiblical pessimism concerning our future, an unsatisfactory indifference about the problems of our society and useless discussions are preventing us from following our vision, paralyzing the dynamics of our missions, hindering us from following God’s way of hope and leading to the questioning of the credibility of our message.

“It is true that we have a message that is very specific and that proclaims God’s last message for the Human Race, but even in proclaiming it we should do it with grace, love and in a winsome way.” Angel Manuel Rodriguez, BRI, October 2005

“When it comes to the church’s mission, nothing should be routine. In all our thinking and planning, at every level, we must constantly ask ourselves: What must we do and how must we act to bring Christ to people who do not know Him? How can we effectively and creatively communicate hope to those who have none? This is our mission! May each one of us - church members and church leaders - commit ourselves anew to the task with which we have been entrusted: to tell the world of the good news of Jesus and His soon return” Jan Paulsen, June 2005.

Our message must be formulated so as to be understood. Our Church must be open while maintaining its identity.

It seems that it is time to earnestly evaluate the quality of our understanding of the message of hope in Jesus Christ and His soon coming, to coordinate our efforts in order to be able to express this hope in an efficient way, to promote the cooperation and unity of the Church as Christ’s Body and to define the development of our vision of history and our role in society in the light of God’s revealed Word. Our credibility and the basis of our existence are at stake.