What was Ellen White’s favorite color? What was her favorite dessert? What did she do for fun? Was she someone that you would have liked to be friends with? In this introductory seminar, we will read diary excerpts, personal letters and hear first-person accounts of those who knew Ellen White the person. Be prepared to be surprised!

GYC 2016: When All Has Been Heard

<p>What was Ellen White’s favorite color? What was her favorite dessert? What did she do for fun? Was she someone that you would have liked to be friends with? In this introductory seminar, we will read diary excerpts, personal letters and hear first-person accounts of those who knew Ellen White the person. Be prepared to be surprised!</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Meeting the Prophet

Chantal Klingbeil

1. Personal Glimpses Into The Life and Times of Ellen G. White

This message was presented at the GYC 2016 conference, When All Has Been Heard, in Houston, Texas.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

I guess we better begin because our time is real limited this morning.

I know people don't like doing this but it might be more fun to move a little more forward and form like little dense groups.

Because we will be doing interactive work as well.

So you probably want to have a couple of people around you.

So if you're all alone in your row, you probably want to scuttle over and be a little bit closer to someone.

And it makes me feel better when you're all in front.

Other folks I didn't get to meet yet, but I look forward to getting to meet each 1 of you.

If I say something funny that you don't get, I'm used to it, you know, just sort of a little wave and then I'll repeat it or we'll get someone to translate it for you, okay?

Our great Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that we can be together today.

Thank you for protecting us as we came from different parts of the country and even different parts of the globe.

Thank you that we have the privilege of being together.

As we study, as we explore this great gift that you've given us, I want to pray for your spirit to be especially close.

Open our minds, open our hearts, and may each 1 of us find what we need.

Okay, for all the folks that are coming in, come on in.

I'm encouraging everyone to come up front.

Right, a little bit, if you're curious about the accent, just a little bit about myself.

And if you ever get the chance to visit Washington, DC, come along to the GC building and come down to the White Estate.

You get to hold a replica of the big Bible that Ellen White held in vision.

We've just opened a real state of the art museum interactive.

And that's where I grew up and went to school.

And Then we went as missionaries to Peru, where 2 of my girls were born.

Then we went to Argentina, where another girl was born.

Then we went to the Philippines, where no 1 was born.

My husband works for Adventist World, Adventist Review, so you probably see his name now and again.

If you read the review, and I better put in a plug for that, read the review.

As I said, this is an interactive seminar.

Let's see how technologically interactive it is.

It doesn't look that interactive right now.

As I said, you want to be with someone or with a group.

So turn to the person next to you or if you're 3 or 4, this is your little warm-up exercise over here.

Would you have liked to have Ellen White as a friend, why or why not?

And if you finish that 1 real quick, then you can also do that 1 and that 1.

So turn to the person next to you and tell me why or why not you would have liked to have had Ellen White as Hey, welcome guys.

We're just discussing together in a group.

If you would like, Ellen White is your friend.

Guess what her favorite color is and what you think her favorite dessert was.

Okay, it may make a difference if you put an age on her.

Maybe if you would have liked to have had her as a friend when she was 17, or when she was 45, or when she was 79, that may change what you would say there.

Let's see how many of you would have liked to have been friends with Ellen?

All right, how many of you are not quite sure?

I must admit that she was a very different person to what I am.

And I've been uniquely privileged working at the White Estate.

What I particularly enjoy is reading her diaries.

Because I think you see a person very differently when you read their diaries and personal letters.

And the more I'm reading these, the more I like her.

2. Visions, Inspiration and The Bible

Well, I am so glad that I'm not in your shoes because there are so many good, good seminars to choose from.

I actually thought it would be kind of good if I just disappeared, right, and went and attended some myself.

But anyway, I'm glad you're here with us.

Let's begin this 1 with a prayer as well.

Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for the privilege of sharing here with my brothers and sisters, and I pray for your spirit to be with us as we talk about this great gift that you've given us.

On the first 1, we were looking at Ellen White, the person, a little bit of her personal history and her children and her marriage and her life sketch.

Now we're getting to what I think is the exciting stuff.

If you're sitting alone, you would probably need to turn to the person next to you because you'd need at least 1 person near you.

Okay, because we're going to do a couple of group activities.

So if you don't have anyone near you, maybe you just want to go move and sit by someone that you've Got a partner at least somewhere there.

Just quickly discuss with your partner, how is Ellen White viewed where you come from?

Either very positively, they love everything she wrote, or somewhat positively, they say, okay, she has her place.

Or they're kind of neutral, like, yeah, whatever.

Maybe a little negative, Some of her stuff's okay, or maybe very negative.

If you say Ellen White, you start a fight.

All right, so discuss with your partner, not how you feel, but where you come from, how your church or the area where you come from, what it's like.

How many of you say that she is viewed very positively where you come from?

That people just love everything she wrote?

Is it 1 particular church or just the area there?

Anyone else that said their area is like, wow, Ellen White?

Yes, I've got relatives up that way, definitely.

So it's not, we'll jump up and down and get excited, but yeah, nice.

Someone from my church here, so we're just here.

How about Ellen White and you start a fight?

If you say Ellen White, it's just like waving a red flag to a ball, right?

So, I think probably a lot of this has to do with what you really think of Ellen White.

Now, maybe we won't do this in a group, because we'll move on quickly.

How do you think what you think of Ellen White influences how you read her?

Do you think there's a direct connection between the 2?

Okay, she is not someone you can read neutrally like the newspaper because there's this intimate connection between what you think of a person, in this case, this person, and how you read.

So you've got to go back and have a look.

First of all, you've got to find out why did she write.

If you can answer the why, that often solves a lot of problems.

Because I think in some people's mind, why she wrote is she wrote to give me a hard time.

3. For Here And Now

This morning, I see there's quite a few new faces.

Okay, so we've got quite a few newer people here.

This morning we did, the first section was an introduction to Ellen White's life, a little bit about Ellen White the person.

And then the second session we did was about inspiration, about what it's like to get a vision about different forms of inspiration.

For those of you who weren't here this morning, this is interactive.

If you're sitting all alone, you're probably going to want to look for a partner.

So just move over so that you'll be near someone that you can interact with for the interactive bits over there.

And we will begin, well, just a little bit of background.

We know that Ellen White's gift, her prophetic gift, actually predates the official organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Because before there was a church, Ellen White had already had, well, Ellen Harmon had already had her first vision.

So before there was an Adventist, an official Adventist church, that's a whole lot before, Anybody remember, let's do the quick history lesson.

Anyone remember when the Seventh-day Adventist Church was formed?

1863, we officially organized and we took a name when?

We organized the general conference of Seventh-day Adventists and then the church came afterwards.

Well, we didn't really want to, some of us generally wanted organization at that time.

And they were kind of afraid of the organization, that you're going to have to set a set of beliefs, that you don't want to have to write all this stuff up.

It was just, you know, some people were like, this would be a lot of work to do, this is a lot of work.

And I said, well, I'm not going to do it.

It wasn't just work, but you spot on, people were scared of organization.

Because remember, they just come from very, very painful experiences.

They've been thrown out of their churches.

I've never been thrown out of my church, but I'm pretty sure it's not a good feeling to be taken before your church board and told to recant or else get out.

And you have to get out because you believe in the Bible, because you believe in Jesus' second coming.

So the early Adventists were very scared of organization.

And we had young men that were called up for military and they didn't want to fight.

And there was a clause for conscientious objectors.

If it was against your religion to fight, you could enter that, but on the form you had to say what religion you belonged to.

What do you put when you don't have a religion or an official thing?

So this was a real problem because you say, well, it's against my beliefs.

Well, I belong to this church without a name.

So, they realized we need to have a name to protect our young men and we need to have a name to protect our young men, and we need to have a name because right then and there, the printing press was in James White's name.

So if anything happened to James White, if he fell over dead, it would go to his children.

The church would have nothing to do with it.

And James didn't want that responsibility either.

He said, as we're growing and getting more and more institutions, etc., it can't be in personal people's names because if something happens to these people, what do we do?

So it became obvious that we needed to organize.

Now, since then, We have had lots of books and articles that can argue against Ellen White, positively, I mean, argue against plagiarism charges and all sorts of arguments.

It's the same recycled arguments you get over and over against Ellen White.

So we have good, the White estate has piles of really good stuff.

But this is the real problem we're finding right now.

It's not that people say, oh, Ellen White's copying stuff, that's why she can't be a prophet, " or, I have this problem with Ellen Wright.

What can an old lady who lived about 200 years ago almost have to tell me about 21st century living.

Okay, you got your partner and we don't want you to fall asleep so early.

Quickly discuss with your partner what makes Ellen White's writings relevant and what would you as an individual and the Adventist Church in general, lose out on if you never read her writings.

If you don't have a partner, join a group.

I think there's some strays at the back who don't have partners yet.

Well, I'm hoping you get to meet the profit.

We're discussing that question with a partner or with a group, so just join on with anybody and that's what we're discussing.

Okay, some groups have a lot to say, others maybe have already lost the relevance there.

If God has taken the trouble to try to communicate with us, it should be relevant.

Okay, what would I be missing out on if I never read anything of Ellen White?

A better understanding of the future good what else yes I think that a problem that you straight off of all the lines as it would be in literature, there's a lot of times when I would say, hey, you're focusing too much on the health aspect, you've got to focus on the whole thing, or you're focusing too much on this particular aspect, how are you focusing too much on this church or this church?

You need to focus on actually a few things that are in the context of the whole thing.

4. Reading Ellen White’s Writings in the 21st Century

Now, we have some survivors that have been added here with me for a while.

You were here and you've been here the whole time, right?

And let's see, everyone else is new, right?

There'll be some, but we'll be hands on here.

You will probably want to be sitting near someone, because we work together a lot.

Have a look around and maybe just move forward, move back near someone that you can team up with.

If there's someone you, well I guess you'll get to know them then.

So we're saying we're having our teams, at least someone that you can interact with here.

You can join, you can be a bigger group than 2, but 1 isn't a group.

Before we begin, let's have a little prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the privilege of delving into this gift that you've given us.

Please interpret for us Because we realize once again that we are dependent on you.

We started off this morning with an introduction into Ellen White as a person.

We spoke a bit about her as a person, what kind of mother she was, and wife, and what it was like living with her.

Our last session we've had has been on how relevant she is, what we get from Ellen White.

How did it get from a vision to a printed page?

Now we're getting down to the hands-on stuff.

We unfortunately can't listen to Ellen White in person anymore.

We can't hear her deliver sermons or anything else.

So we don't have that option, but we've got her books.

But How can we get the most out of reading her books?

With your partner, with your group, okay, everybody's got someone to talk to.

What would be your reaction if you heard the following?

If you heard that, what would be your reaction?

Maybe you want to explain what that means.

How many of you feel positive about that?

Put your hand up if you feel positive about that.

All right, so we've got some people that feel positive.

How many of you feel negative about that?

Is there anything you don't understand about that?

That's a completely normal, easy English sentence.

But what it means is kind of a little bit more complex.

We need a bit more context here, don't we?

And you are 5 or 6 years old and you have been begging your parents for a dog.

And you're sitting there and in the next room you hear a funny noise and you get up and you go to the door and you're standing by the door and you're hearing this funny noise and Your mom says to you There's a dog in the room, How do you feel?

It's like, Wow, your best dreams have just become a reality.

On the other hand, you're in your house, and you have your hand on the door handle of your bedroom where you have your large, let's see, Rottweiler, all right?

And he is in the bedroom, and you're about to let him out when you see a burglar climbing through the window into your room.

5. Reading Ellen White’s Writings in the 21st Century …continued

Yep, let's begin because we've got lots of good stuff.

And we want to use every squeeze, every minute out.

So before we begin, let's have a word of prayer together.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the privilege of meeting with my brothers and sisters again this morning at this special event.

Thank you for this great gift that you've given us And as we explore this gift of prophecy this morning, we pray especially for your Holy Spirit.

Your Holy Spirit that inspired, may He once again work on our hearts and give us those insights that we need as well.

We had 4 seminars and we had some poor victims that stayed the whole time.

We have a couple of folks that are here from yesterday afternoon.

If you were in the seminar yesterday afternoon, can I just see your hands?

For those 4 hardy souls, we will be repeating the first 10 minutes of yesterday, just to give once again the basics to the hermeneutics and then we will move on to other examples that we will be working with.

So you will know that you're not getting the whole thing all over again.

So it will be something a little different.

So that's actually a good thing because that means I get to walk around more.

We said, well, let me give a quick recap what we did yesterday.

Yesterday in the first of our Ellen White seminars, we did Ellen White the person.

And we spoke about her, what she was like as a mother, what she was like as a wife, A little bit about her favorite color, dessert, what it was like growing up with her, etc.

And in our second seminar, we spoke about inspiration.

And we had a fun hands-on experiment where we tried to see what it would be like to have a vision and to have to then be God's messenger.

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Series

Meeting the Prophet

1. Personal Glimpses Into The Life and Times of Ellen G. White

Transcript

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Recorded

Parts

1. Personal Glimpses Into The Life and Times of Ellen G. White

1h

2. Visions, Inspiration and The Bible

58m

3. For Here And Now

55m

4. Reading Ellen White’s Writings in the 21st Century

1h

5. Reading Ellen White’s Writings in the 21st Century …continued

1h

6. Making the Introductions

58m

Sound Doctrine