"God is in the business of saving everyone He can lay His hands on," Pastor Jan Paulsen, world president of the Seventh-day Adventist church, told a group of students during an informal discussion Oct. 16 at Andrews University, the movement's flagship edu
“God is in the business of saving everyone He can lay His hands on,” Pastor Jan Paulsen, world president of the Seventh-day Adventist church, told a group of students during an informal discussion Oct. 16 at Andrews University, the movement’s flagship educational institution.
The meeting followed dedication of a new Campus Ministries center. Students who participated in the dialogue represented a range of degree tracks and interests.
Guillermo Magana, president of the school’s student association, asked Pastor Paulsen what young Adventists can do for the church.
“For us to know what we can do, we must first answer the question in our own hearts, ‘What do we want the church to be?’ Only after defining that issue can we move on to be active members,” Paulsen replied.
He urged students at Andrews to not be satisfied with the role of bystander or observer, but instead to take action and ask Christ to show us what we can do every day as individuals and as part of a world church.
Issues discussed ranged from General Conference support to pastor’s wives, to individual support of people struggling with homosexuality; from personal missions on Andrews’ campus, to the Adventist church’s mission in closed regions like North Korea and Saudi Arabia.
Omar Palmer, a seminary student from Jamaica, asked about age and gender representation on a General Conference level. To that, Pastor Paulsen said he has endeavored to create more spots on higher organizational levels for different age groups. For instance, six young professionals between the ages of 25-32 (three from North America, one from Mexico, one from Europe, and one from Papua New Guinea) were recently chosen as members of the Executive Committee of the world Church, with the only requisite being that they were loyal Adventists involved in the life of the church. These six young people are now learning at an early age how the church works on a world level.
In response to senior David Carbonell’s comment that the church needs to educate young people on how to respond to homosexuals in an inclusive way, Pastor Paulsen said he believes that Seventh-Day Adventists are a community: “We need to treat others like they belong to our family, showing the love of Christ without necessarily agreeing with life choices.”
Sung Jin Kim, a master’s of divinity student from Seoul, Republic of Korea, spoke of North Korea and wondered how the Adventist church was reaching out to people in areas where outsiders are, at times, not allowed to enter the country, and where Christianity and evangelism are expressly forbidden. Pastor Paulsen noted the Adventist church’s media evangelism, namely radio, television, and the Internet. He said that a year ago the church began to develop an Internet evangelism program that he believes would be effective in developing countries.
