It is a commonplace to state the importance of the role administrators assume in our midst. These men are called to be leaders in the church, and the influence of leaders is extensive and decisive.
Leadership is something more than the acceptance of a position. This responsibility extends afar and involves the eternal destiny of souls. In fact, every advance step in this great work can be traced to the influence of a "man of God." The leader either builds up or tears down. The basic problem everywhere and in everything is to find a man or a woman whom God can call and use to glorify His name.
Such has been the story since the beginning. A "cloud of witnesses" have attended the unfolding and prosecution of God's cause. True leaders who, like Gideon, could say, "Look on me" (Judges 7:17), have been in the forefront across the centuries.
Their personalities have been marked by courage, constancy, and caution. They have been men of vision and action. Their example has inspired the leaders of the Advent Movement whatever their field of activity. Let us thank God daily for these stalwarts of the past, including those of the remnant church. We of today must aspire to fulfill our mission with the same singleness of purpose and dedication.
So vital is it that we understand the importance of leadership that I would like to begin our meditation with these inspired words:
"If the leaders in the cause of truth show no zeal, if they are indifferent and purposeless, the church will be careless, indolent, and pleasure-loving; but if they are filled with a holy purpose to serve God and Him alone, the people will be united, hopeful, eager."—Prophets and Kings, p. 676.
This is true. The holding of an office implies, therefore, a responsibility of cardinal significance. Special duties devolve upon leaders. Their accomplishment requires laborious effort, a high sense of duty, constant vigilance.
Very evidently we who would lead today must be spiritual men and women. Of such Gideon of yore is a striking example. Of him it was said, "The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet" (Judges 6:34). The Spirit of God blew gustily in the apostolic church. The leaders were sanctified channels through which life and power were manifest. Every successive age has felt that impact. This is God's way today.
Only Spirit-filled leaders can lift God's remnant church to the high plane of life and action to which it must attain. The church is the theater of God's grace, in which He delights to reveal His power to save. It is there that He would make experiments on human hearts through the exhibition of His mercy, effecting "transformations so amazing that Satan, with all his triumphant boasting, with all his confederacy of evil united against God and the laws of His government, stands viewing them as a fortress impregnable to his sophistries and delusions."—Testimonies to Ministers, p. 18. The gift of the Holy Spirit, rich, full, and abundant, will encompass the leaders of a church committed to this program with a wall of glory against which the powers of evil shall not prevail. Certainly, we of this incomparable hour should be inspired with a willingness to match God's pattern for the stewards of His love.
God's Administrators
Now, let me invite your attention to another vital thought. We have recognized that administrators are leaders. We can reverse the order of approach and state that leaders are administrators. But of what are they to be administrators? What is the object of their administrative burden and skill? It is here that the title of this article comes to our rescue: we are to be administrators of God's cause. It is well that we ponder this statement, for its significance is of far-reaching importance.
Administrators are numerous and of many types in today's world. In fact, administrative personnel probably has been inflated out of proportion to achievement. In government and industry they call this bureaucracy. When a correct balance between activity and personnel is lost, bureaucracy rises up to plague any organization. In this connection, our care must be to discern those activities that are essential and to place capable, aggressive administrators in charge of them. In the church of God many fruitful activities will be added to the present impressive list. God still has a thousand ways unknown to us by which He intends to do quickly His work. We must discover them. This expanding program will call for many more workers endowed with administrative ability.
The thought I am emphasizing, however, stems from the nature of our administration. We are not called upon to administer a debating society or a philosophical brotherhood, or some good will league of community interest. We are not summoned to share the responsibilities of "big business." Ours is not a commercial or industrial enterprise. Nor is our responsibility to administer a republic, a commonwealth, or an earthly kingdom. Our mission is to administer the cause of God.
Obviously, the basic principles of administration are more or less applicable to the various forms of collective enterprise. In fact, there is much for us to learn from a correct administration of the types just mentioned. The respect for organic law and policy peculiar to the administration of a state evokes a similar requirement in the administration of God's cause. No municipality, county, or province can undertake legally to pass a law or adopt a policy which conflicts with the principles and powers set forth in the national constitution. On the other hand, definite powers and responsibilities are reserved to the subsidiary units. Numerous principles of statesmanship are applicable to the exercise of church government.
Having said this, we must not be unmindful of basic differences and the need of careful thinking. Mistakes in fundamental principles will be made if we are unduly influenced by the political organizations of the land in which we live. Apostasy can result when churches perfect a form of government comparable to the civil government under which they have developed. The Roman Catholic Church grew into power surrounded by the autocratic authority of Rome and the absolute rule of the ancient kings and emperors. The end result was an autocratic, totalitarian form of ecclesiastical government wherein the pope is supreme. The papal dogmas and pronouncements constitute the supreme law of the church. This is just one example, and it has been repeated under diverse circumstances.
However, from the first, Seventh-day Adventists have endeavored to shape their forms of church government in harmony with the principles underlying the organization of the apostolic church. We have set ourselves to follow the teachings of the prophets and the apostles. These teachings must ever be before us. We must refrain from aping the executive, legislative, or judicial procedures of any earthly government. I could spell out real dangers in this connection. On the contrary, we must hold fast to the basic principles of organization and administration peculiar to the cause of God.
A word of caution is in order, too, as regards "big business." This is an age of industry and commerce. Business today is operated on well-established lines of organization. This organization is extremely efficient. Many basic principles of commercial function are essential to any good administration. These desirable features arise chiefly from common sense and a correct understanding of relationships.
Here, again, however, we can commit a grave error. The church of God is not "big business." The remnant church cannot be organized and administered as "The End of the World, Limited." Good finances and efficient operation are important, indispensable; but the "good business" factor, however successful, and basically needful, is not to dominate. It should not even be given prominence in the over-all setup. The Advent Movement is the cause of God, and leadership in it must take this fundamental conception into account.
Our church possesses a special genius. The care of its leaders ever must be to remain sensitive to the nature of this genius, and in this peculiar setting to develop and expand an organization that will operate efficiently. Quite naturally, they will shy away from national or commercial forms and will think and administer consistently within the framework of a cause —the cause of God.
The Scope of Our Administration
Another principle needs to be emphasized. This pertains to the scope of our administration. Coming straight to the point, I mean that Seventh-day Adventist leaders assume the responsibility of a world administration. The work of God will never be finished in any country, church, or institution until it has been finished everywhere.
The everlasting gospel must be proclaimed to "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." Jesus did not say, "I am the light of Palestine"; He proclaimed, "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12). He did not teach His disciples that they would be "the salt of Nazareth"; said He, "Ye are the salt of the earth" (Matt. 5:13). His program was expressed thus: "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me" (John 12:32).
This was strategy on a universal scale, and the apostolic believers came early to this conception of God's cause. The Jerusalem council set the course of the Christian institution: the church would not be sectarian; it would not be provincial, national, nor even continental; it would be a world undertaking. The servants of the church would be administrators of a universal message.
History records that there came a falling away. The church outlook narrowed, became chiefly Latin and European. The church ceased to be catholic. This loss of world vision had disastrous consequences. The urge to world evangelism disappeared; the sword of conquest was broken. At the dawn of our modern age the non-European world was still in complete ignorance of God's good news.
Then came the sixteenth-century Reformation. It was in part because of the uncatholicity of Roman Catholicism that the Reformation occurred. The Reformers sought to restore not only the inner purity of the church but its universal mission. At the same time there was a revolt against restricted, oppressive principles of administration that made true catholicity impossible. On this point the following quotation from John C. McNeill is pertinent:
The Reformation was a revolt, not against the principle of unity and catholicity, but against the privilege and oppressive monarchy of Rome—an uprising not merely of national, but of catholic feeling, against what had become an overcentralized imperialism in Christianity, which made true catholicity impossible. . . . The parish was not a congregation, but an administrative unit. The governmental aspect of unity was not supported by an adequate religious bond. The Roman Church had substituted the idea of Roman obedience for the earlier conception of catholicity expressed in a universal free communion. . . . In the Reformation the Christian people were taught to think, to believe, and to sing together, and given a new vision of the high and universal fellowship which is the church catholic.—Unitive Protestantism, pp. 63-65.
A return to the thought of a universal mission brought the founding of missionary societies to extend the Christian witness in lands afar. This was the beginning of the era of missions. Messengers of the cross soon were marching out to many countries. Their efforts were facilitated by Western Europe's achievement of dominance in world affairs. In some instances the support of government was enlisted through the negotiation of treaty privileges and otherwise. Fundamentally, the program was based on a church with missions and was dressed in Western garb.
This concept was quite different from that of the apostolic undertaking. Christ's disciples went forth to establish a world missionary church. The completion of God's program at "the time of the end" will be achieved in harmony with the apostolic pattern. The remnant church must be prepared to address itself to all nations, to all races, to men of all creeds.
A World Mission
The leaders of this cause, and paticularly those who assume extensive administrative responsibilities, must keep this conception of a world mission constantly before them and before the church. They will understand and teach that our purpose is not to convert to Protestantism, nor to a special brand of Christianity. Our mission is much larger, more comprehensive. They will recognize that this is God's last movement, that our mandate is to teach all men "the everlasting gospel" and to bring them into the fold of the redeemed. With this in view, we will preserve ourselves in every section of the world from national and ecclesiastical affiliations and commitments, from regional philosophies of religion, economics, government, or culture, and will stand firmly on the platform of a universal message and a world organization.
We will cooperate, to be sure, with all men of good will and purpose. We will be conscientious collaborators. In this, as in all that we undertake, we will make sure that we have the garb of divine revelation and carry with us the atmosphere of God's cause.
Administrators with this world vision of the task will eliminate the unorthodox distinction the church is sometimes tempted to make between "home" and "overseas" missions. The evangelistic appeal and the missionary undertaking will be one and the same work and will go forward at the same time.
The teachings of Jesus make this clear. He did not put a time lock on His great commission, to be released to men afar after the home folk had been converted and the work built up. He knew that such strategy would spell failure at home and afar. "Ye shall be witnesses unto me," said He, "both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8). This was a global utterance, and was to send His disciples to the other side of the streets and across frontiers and seas simultaneously. The matter of geographic difference was irrelevant. Said He, "The field is the world" (Matt. 13:38).
We all have known long-visioned administrators who were moved greatly by the needs of distant lands, but who remained more or less listless about conversions in the home field. Others sometimes have been nearsighted. The like are moved by a strong evangelistic fervor toward people they can see and whom they consider to be a part of their parish, but are less interested in the winning of people obscured to them by the veil of distance and the absence of what they consider to be immediate responsibility. Both are wrong. In the Advent cause, each believer, each worker, each church, each institution, each field, is responsible for the evangelization of the home field and "the uttermost part of the earth." The administrators of God's cause must have a vision of the world as their parish.
Have we geared our administration to this fundamental consideration? This is something every leader ought to think about. One question cannot be avoided: How can the legitimate desire to expand and to strengthen the work at home or in any section of the field be related to the needs of undeveloped lands and unentered areas? If we labor in the fair land of America, upon which God has laid so mightily His hand of abundance, the problem will be a real one, and upon the solution given to it will depend in a very definite measure the success of the Advent Movement. However, the same question to a greater or lesser degree must be answered in every section of the world field. In every land, God calls men and women to evangelize their own and to share the treasures of the gospel with peoples everywhere. There always is, there always must be, a field afar.
Moving a little further into this conception of a world administration of God's grace, we come face to face with another problem, and we find God's solution to it. This problem is indicative of the crisis that has appeared in the missionary planning of the Western churches. In fact, an influential magazine recently carried an article with this title, "Is the Missionary Done For?" The thought of the author was that though, since the early days, the missionary had faced cholera and cannibals with courage and zeal, today his confidence is ebbing, his task is approaching an end. In this thinking the whole future of the mission program is at stake.
There can be no such crisis for a world church led by administrators with a true vision of our church government. Varying circumstances in the world may open or close doors to associate workers from overseas or from across frontiers. However, our world conception and organization make it possible to adjust procedures and to provide for the needs of the cause from changing sources of men and means.
For many decades the churches in North America carried a very heavy burden, and almost alone, in providing for the church's advance. Today this burden is shared in varying degrees by every world division. The Advent Movement employs today nearly 45,000 workers in evangelistic and institutional activities. Of this total, nearly 43,000 are nationals. Of the more than 2,000 overseas workers, approximately 60 percent were sent to their fields of labor from the North American Division. The remainder went out from the other divisions. In fact, last year, of the 392 workers sent overseas, approximately 50 per cent left the shores of America and 50 per cent were sent out from other world divisions. Practically every section of the world has now become a home base as well as a field of evangelism. This is a natural development for a truly world church.
This world conception has an organizational aspect, too. Every unit of our church is self-propagating and self-governing within the framework of the world church. The whole is responsible for every part and every part is responsible for the whole. The weaker units find assistance in associating themselves with the whole. The stronger gather inspiration in the same association. A world church is one body with many members. These members organize and direct their labors, build up the house of God, and extend His work by counsel with one another through the general leadership. Without thought of crisis or upheaval, leadership is appointed as the natural projection of this world conception. Qualifications for this leadership are not the special gifts of a race, a people, or a school. In the natural play of circumstances and experience the very best qualified men and women take their places as workers and leaders.
Such principles are fundamentals on which can be built the edifice of a world work. Our administrators must recognize them. They will recognize, too, that the work of God is best fostered in any section of the world by a cosmopolitan working force. Wherever the ideal can be achieved, they will associate workers, national and overseas. Gifts and abilities thus will be sufficiently varied to counterbalance weaknesses and to enhance qualities. Moreover, this association of men and women from every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people" will constitute a constant reminder that ours is a movement embracing the world. Onlookers will continue to marvel as the cause of God advances triumphantly to the four corners of the earth.
These are some of the basic elements of administration to which leaders in God's cause are committed and dedicated. Let us ponder them and resolve under God to be administrators according to the divine pattern.
