An official statement was voted on the final day of Annual Council (October 14), emphasizing the importance of God’s Word and the changing ways it needs to be shared as technology advances.
General Conference president Erton Köhler told delegates gathered in Silver Spring, Maryland, that the statement was part of the mission we needed to accomplish “to share the Word to the World.”
The statement was voted on by delegates standing to accept it. There were no questions and no objections.
Dr. Andersson opened by saying: “Yesterday we voted a document. Today we are voting an official statement. Official statements begin life in the Public and Official Statements Committee that has the power to recommend to AdCom and then brought to the body, where you have the authority to vote.”
“We wanted to affirm ‘Grounded in the Bible and Focused on the Mission’ and the OneVoice27 initiative,” she said. “But we didn’t use those taglines, because they would date the statement. We want the statement to have relevance beyond OV27 and beyond the end of this quinquennium.
“The purpose of the statement is to affirm ways of spreading the Word to the world, particularly affirming ways that we have used in the past but also the opportunities that we have with technology,” she continued.
The statement was developed by representatives of the Ellen G. White Estate, the Biblical Research Institute, and the GC ministerial department.
The statement was read in full by GC communication department director and secretary of the POSC, Alyssa Truman.
“The Bible is the Word of God, revealing the everlasting gospel to the world,” the statement reads.
After affirming the importance of the Bible, the statement affirms traditional ways of sharing the Word of God, while addressing new ways of communicating biblical truth, referring to White’s quotations on finding new methods to “arrest the attention”.
It affirms the importance of reading the Word, as well as living it out.
“God’s love for us and our love for Him are the source of our mission. Firmly grounded in the Bible, we are focused on our mission to prepare the world for Jesus’ second coming,” the statement said. “Every member is called to act locally and think globally; to witness to a neighbor, a coworker, a classmate, a family member, while also supporting and praying for the advancement of the gospel in the least reached corners of the world.”
In a section titled Mission in a digitally connected world, the statement said: “Livestreamed worship services, online Bible schools, social media evangelism, or digital mission platforms are not peripheral to God’s mission. They represent important fields of mission for our time.”
Once the statement was read, Köhler, as chairperson of the morning, said: “Our statement now is a call to use all our resources for mission, respecting the biblical message, being faithful to what the Lord entrusted to us, but looking for all the ways to reach the world and prepare this world for the second coming of Jesus.”
After the statement was passed, he encouraged church leaders to use the document and share it with their local fields, publish it in their magazines, and share it during their own regional annual councils.
You can read the official statement here.
