They will attend to business—lots of it. The 10-day meeting of the worldwide Adventist Church, which happens once every five years, covers a multitude of tasks, including choosing who will lead the church in the coming five years. But, that task aside, there is something more important for this worldwide denomination. As the group congregated June 29 for a worship service before the Session officially kicks off, they were challenged to examine the act of worship.

“As you come together as a church ... as a worldwide congregation, when we attend to the business of this church, when we attend meetings ... when all is said and done, will we be able to look back and say, regardless of all else, ‘We worshipped?’” asked Randy Roberts, senior pastor at the Loma Linda University Adventist Church in Loma Linda, California.

“How is your worship life? Does God have the loyalty of your soul?”

Nothing matters more than worship, Roberts said, emphasizing that worship is the heart and soul of who Seventh-day Adventists are. “Who I worship determines how I live,” he declared.

“[The message] is very relevant to Adventist life today,” said John Arthur, publishing director for the church in the Trans-European region. “The way we live is affected by the way we worship.”

Anything in life leads to worship or grows out of worship, Roberts said in his talk. “It is worship that most accurately portrays the loyalty of my heart. All you need for confirmation of that is to check what you worship in day-to-day life. If you know what you worship, you know what has your heart.”

“Our primary purpose is to know Him and introduce others to him. [As a church] we’ve had significant success. The Lord has blessed,” said Keith Jacobson, delegate to the Session from North America.

But, he added, “Do we have work to do? Of course. But we have meetings like these to remind us ... God is the focus, not ourselves as individuals, or even as a denomination.”