“Do not define the church as something other than yourselves; that would be a mistake,” Pastor Jan Paulsen declared to the opening-night assembly of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s 58th General Conference Session. The quinquennial business meeting began today in St. Louis, Missouri, some 59 years after it was supposed to open here.

According to Pastor Dennis Carlson, president of the Adventist Church in Mid-America, a General Conference Session had been scheduled for St. Louis in 1946, but was relocated to Takoma Park, Maryland, because enough housing wasn’t available in the Missouri city. This year, with an estimated 59,000 hotel rooms being used for at least part of the Session by Adventists and friends, housing did not appear to be a problem.

Along with the debut of “Jesus Christ, How We Adore You,” the session theme song, the meeting included greetings from North American church president Don Schneider, Carlson, and Pastors G. Alexander Bryant and Walter E. Brown, presidents, respectively, of the Central States and Iowa-Missouri church areas.

A 196-member nominating committee was suggested, moved and accepted by voice vote. The panel, which begins meetings tonight, will select world church leadership nominees over the next 10 days. (See related story.)

But it was Pastor Paulsen’s report that was the main feature of the evening. After paying tribute to his wife, Kari, for support during 50 years of marriage, the Paulsens presented stories of church members serving their communities in various parts of the globe. A question for church members, he said, was “is your city, your community, your country a better place because you [as an Adventist] are there?”

To the youth of the church - members between 15 and 30 - Paulsen said, “I want you to come in and to partner with the rest of us. I want to make room for you, for you have energies and ideas which no one can quite match. If you don’t find the church interesting, you can make it interesting. Just don’t walk away. That would be the worst possible thing you can do: It is Christ we are talking about. Don’t turn your back on him, for if you do, all you then all you are left with is Peter’s haunting question: “To whom shall we then go?” (John 6:68)

Lay members, youth and women each and all need “to claim and accept a much greater share of ownership in our church,” Paulsen said. “The church is not defined by election nor is it by who pays your salary. The church is defined by faith. Do you have faith? OK, you’re the church.”

He declared, “I say to you - especially you who are young: ‘Come, walk with me for Christ and his church.’ I will do my best to make space for you, for you are my partner. Christ invites you. The church needs you. And we are all one family of faith.”

The next 10 days will help shape the future of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a Protestant denomination with 14.3 million baptized members and a total of 25 million attending weekly worship in more than 200 countries. Two series of seminars, Paulsen noted, one on the nature of Adventist leadership, and the other on “challenges to mission” should be daily requirements for all delegates, he said.

One of the proposals Paulsen put to delegates during his keynote address was that they should spend a considerable amount of time discussing five crucial issues facing the Church. These were: the spiritual life of Church members, the Church’s relation to society, tackling increasing rates of apostasy, making the Church more effective in cities, and how the Church can meet the challenges of secularism.

Time has been scheduled for this discussion during the Session next week but the Church will undoubtedly need to take these issues seriously for some time to come.

A quick exit poll showed that delegates and guests agreed with the importance that Dr. Paulsen had attached to these issues. Ken Beyreis, a guest from the church in North America, felt that spiritual life was the main area that the Church should concentrate on. “Without a spiritual life it’s hard to deal with any of the other four issues.”

Althea Mc Millan, a guest from the Inter-American region agreed. “I think that spiritual life is the most important because that is what empowers you to do the others.”

However Friedhelm Klingberg, a Bible Correspondence School instructor from Germany, felt that secularism was the big issue of today. “The position of the Church in the world and its ability to bring the gospel to common people is the most important thing. These people are deeply impressed by the gospel, but only if you present it in a way they understand.”

Fourteen-year-old Renee Cardoza from New York said that the issue of apostasy was important for the Church to look at. “If others see people leaving the Church they won’t want to join will they? But I guess sometimes people just stop believing.”