Dear Brother Spangler:
Your open letter to me that appeared in the December issue of The Ministry has been read with both interest and concern. I share with you the burden you carry to see the work of God finished in our day! Few people feel the pressures and experience the deep concerns for the welfare and the triumph of God's remnant church more experientially than the person who sits in my chair. Consequently I feel deeply with you about all you have written in your letter.
The 1973 and 1974 Annual Councils were memorable spiritual meetings—as indeed they should be in this late hour of earth's history. As leaders from the world field we dare not gather together merely to vote budgets, solve problems, and lay plans. The Lord we serve calls us to prayer, to the study of the Word, and to a live fellowship in Him on such occasions. Each of the past two Annual Councils were beautiful experiences, and as we near the end, the depth of such fellowship with the Lord should increase whenever God's leaders meet.
While we should never be satisfied, my heart is greatly cheered to see the messages of these councils "getting through" to the grass roots and making an impression upon our pastors and our laity! From my correspondence and personal contacts with the church on all levels around the world, it is evident God is indeed speaking to His people not only in Washington and Loma Linda but far out in the remote corners of the earth. He is telling all of us that the hour is indeed late and a people must soon be prepared for His return to earth.
The Lord Is at Work
I have spent many hours with the leaders in several of our divisions since the 1973 Annual Council. As I have fellowshiped and prayed with these men and women of different nationalities, languages, and cultural back grounds, my heart has been filled with faith and hope. I know many of God's leaders are searching their hearts more earnestly than ever before. More than one leader came to me in Loma Linda during the past Annual Council and said, in substance, "Pastor, I have never searched my heart more prayerfully than I have been doing at this meeting. / want to be right with God and with my fellow men. I want to get this work finished and to see Jesus come!"
Perhaps I do not need to dwell at such length on the reactions to the Annual Councils, but I feel this is pertinent to the questions you have raised in your open letter. When the leaders of this church, from the local church through the General Conference, get on their knees in true repentance and seek to be sure they are right with God, I feel we are a long way toward finding solutions to the problems raised in your letter.
I would want to be the first to recognize that the church is not all that it should be—not all that our Lord intends it should be. In this assessment I would surely say "we" and not "you." I want to be the kind of leader the Lord can use to wind up His work quickly! But I would be untruthful to what I see if I failed to recognize the Spirit of God at work among us as workers and lay members today. Instead of wringing our hands and oozing jeremiads, I believe we should thank God and take courage when we see what God is doing for His people.
Goals and Objectives of Vital Import
You placed your finger on the proper place when you emphasized the need of keeping our goals and objectives before us as a people. Early in my administration in Washington I sought to under score this need. All of the departments of the church have been urged, not once but many times, to spell out clearly the raison d'etre as they found it in the Spirit of Prophecy. They were then re quested to lay plans for their departments in keeping with those objectives. I believe most of our departments have done this.
Unless our institutions keep their goals and objectives clearly before themselves and untiringly work toward meeting the purposes of their existence, Satan can get us off course. Only when a very high percentage, at least, of the workers in these institutions are Seventh-day Adventist men and women who share our burden for a finished work in our day can we ever hope to work at maximum Adventist effectiveness in the work the Lord has called us to do! Obviously workers not of our faith cannot guide people through conversion, teach them the doctrines we hold, and lead them into the remnant church.
As you point out, the revival and reformation approach must shape our policies, guide in the preparation of budgets, and motivate our board and committee actions. This will become full reality only when we as leaders and board or committee members have ourselves experienced true repentance, revival, and reformation. Boards and committees are made up of men and women. Their actions reflect the experience of their members.
Pressure Tactics
You have mentioned pressure tactics within the worker ranks of the church. It is true that every leader is subjected to some pressures. This is particularly so living as we do in a divided world. There are so many groups with special interests, and naturally they are anxious to keep their needs constantly before those who, they feel, may be able to help their cause the most.
I would like to make an observation or two in connection with pressure groups and pressure tactics. In the first place, I believe we should be Christians—Seventh-day Adventist Christians. Whether we "pressure" or whether we are "the pressured," we need to keep this fact ever in mind. This will lead us to sit down and calmly, prayerfully talk over our needs and our problems. Then we should be guided by the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the requests of "pressure groups" are legitimate. If they are, they should be listened to and complied with. Sometimes such requests are not reasonable, or for some other reason may not be complied with. Then "the other side" must exercise Christian tolerance and understanding and not press their claims.
We have committees to deal with what we might term "pres sure requests," and I thank God for committees. There is always wisdom when more than one per son is involved in making important decisions. When the commit tee speaks on these items the matter should be settled, and we all should work together in love and unity.
While, with you, I regret the failure of a finished work, I feel your analysis of membership growth might be open to fair criticism. Of course, 5 per cent annual growth is not "spectacular" and comes far short of your hypothetical 275,458,100 membership we might have had.
On the other hand, there are two basics I believe we need to keep in mind. First, according to my understanding of the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy, while large numbers will accept the message, these large numbers may not represenfhigh percentages of existing population. "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it" (Matt. 7:14).
Secondly, although the Advent message requires change in life styles, job adjustments, sometimes sacrifice of loved ones and friends, radical social and living changes, this movement as we see it today, under God has grown from one country and spread to some 192 countries during the lifetime of Seventh-day Adventists now living! This, in itself, is to me an evidence of God's blessing and leadership! For this I thank God and take courage. I believe this message has gone far beyond the figures our statisticians bring to us today!
"The Bland Leading the Bland"
It is true, the apostolic church was not "plagued with fuzzy concepts as to what their mission was." However, they did not face the sophisticated sin, the complexity of modern society, with all of its resultant problems, that we encounter currently. It is my personal feeling that the Lord never intended that we face the tremendous problems the church faces today. His work should have been finished and the saints should have been in the kingdom ere this!
Unfortunately, such mundane problems as departmental films, the place of the next General Conference session, wage scales, the radically escalating costs of education, the pressures of accrediting associations, of labor unions, and probing government agencies have to be reckoned with. They are part of the very real facts of life in the 1970's. The church is still here. It does not exist in a vacuum. We have a world to deal with and someone has to face these problems. While some of us as administrators would much rather hold evangelistic campaigns and stress other phases of soul winning, we must do what the church has elected us to do and care for some of these nagging, almost in soluble problems that confront the church in these difficult days.
First Things First
Having had a look at the realistic side of the coin, I would hasten to agree that first things should be first. You have heard this slogan with increasing crescendo from the General Conference headquarters in recent years. I firmly believe if we "seek . . . first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness" then we will receive help in all the other problem solving! The spiritual emphasis must be—and is, I thoroughly believe—in the ascendency!
The committees and boards with which I met in recent years give evidence of new emphases! The leaders of this church are giving more and more attention to the spiritual needs of the corporate church and of individual workers and members. While there is much, much room for improvement, I believe in the leaders in this church on all levels, and I believe there is an earnest desire on the part of most of these men and women to truly make "first things first."
One of the most significant steps taken in budget making in recent years was taken at the re cent Annual Council when we set aside nearly half a million dollars as an "opportunity" fund to be used to step into the opening providences of God such as we have witnessed in Zaire, South India, and perhaps a few other places in the world.
When the Zaire opening appeared a couple of years ago the General Conference unhesitatingly stepped in and helped the Trans- Africa Division with nearly a quarter of a million dollars to reap a harvest the Lord had prepared. There was no hesitancy to commit funds where the Lord opened the way. This will continue to be our policy.
At the present time a special committee is engaged in an in-depth study of the distribution of church funds. We want to make sure that every possible penny finds its way to the grass roots where most of the work is being done. We want to also make sure that our institutions are operating as efficiently as possible, generating as much of their own funding as possible, so church dollars may be channeled into aggressive soul-winning endeavor the world around. With you, I agree that soul winning—every-department every-institution, every-worker, every-member evangelism—must take precedence over every other consideration before the church today.
The Gingerbread Should Go
We have lessons we yet need to learn—in the General Conference and on all other levels of administration when it comes to the kind of buildings we are erecting. We have been altogether too lavish and too extravagant in building churches, schools, hospitals, of fices, and other buildings. I accept responsibility for my part in this misuse of the Lord's money, and appeal to my brethren that we experience a real revival and reformation in our building. Let us make our buildings utilitarian and comfortable, but let us save thou sands of dollars for the cause by omitting a lot of the luxury and gingerbread that has been finding its way into Seventh-day Adventist buildings. This goes for extravagant pipe organs and other equipment we are installing. This money should go into soul winning and preparing a people for the coming of Jesus! I appeal to my fellow leaders around the world to help assure the reaching of these objectives and the saving of these funds.
Self-examination
Your suggestion of a re-examination of every church program in the light of the gospel commission is a good one. We have taken some steps in this direction when the Wernick Commission studied all the department programs in the General Conference. In response to their recommendation, many programs were either dropped or consolidated with similar programs in other departments.
We should, we can, and we will do much more of this. The plans are already in the works and in due course results should be apparent. I would like to challenge the Ministerial Association to set the example in a raw, frank evaluation of its program. Mercilessly cut away any "fat" on your pro gram. Get it down to the basic essentials for a finished work. To our other department leaders and to my fellow officers I direct the same challenge! Let us cast aside every weight that so easily besets us and get down to the one task of winning souls, holding souls, and getting the work finished. Away with excess baggage!
We are constantly appealing to church members to give more money to help finish the work. Now I want to appeal to denominational workers—all of us, including the General Conference president—to change some of our spending patterns and save some more of the Lord's money.
What can we do? Here are practical suggestions we can implement without personal discomfiture and without doing despite to the work of God!
1. Cut down large meetings to which we have to bring so many people for department and administrative consultations.
2. Be sure we take only trips that are essential. A lot of travel could be cut without hurting the work. In fact, if more of our leaders were in offices, classrooms, and homes, and less were in planes and automobiles, we could not only save millions of dollars for soul winning, but we could do our work much more effectively.
3. Stay in the moderately priced hotels and motels. New, moderately priced motels and hotels are springing up all over. We can save thousands of dollars by using them both for our personal needs and for the locale of some of our large meetings.
4. Look for other ways in which you can save money in carrying on the Lord's work in your field or your department.
These four suggestions, in addition to the thoughts on the type of buildings we erect and equip, if we would really take them seriously, could add millions of dollars to our annual world bud get. I appeal to all my fellow leaders everywhere: Let's save the Lord's money as well as ask our church members to give more!
I am sure, Brother Spangler, I have not answered all your questions; but I have tried honestly to deal with most of the points you raised, and I added a few of my own. Be assured that all I have written has been written in great love for and faith in my fellow leaders around the world. Let us stay on our knees and on our toes and keep trying, with the Lord's help, to improve our work for Him and to get the work finished in our generation!
I will welcome further future ex changes on definite problems in the Lord's work.
God bless and keep you.
Cordially yours
President, General Conference
