ASI 2019: Business Unusual

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Young Professionals

Gary Rayner

The Reluctant Dissident

It's great to see so much talent in this room.

And good to see down the back there some friends of mine from Australia as well.

Okay, well, today I have a topic, which hopefully will come up on the screen here in a moment, which is 1 I would rather not present on.

So I consider myself to be a reluctant dissident.

I hope that you can be reluctant dissidents at the end of this and understand that we are living in a fascist world.

But it's a fascist world that pop culture is okay with.

Now, normally fascism is a pejorative term that people use when they want to insult somebody or just to completely dismiss them and write them off.

I want to make it very clear what this discussion is not about.

It's not about, you know, obviously salvation doesn't come from the Democrats, and it definitely does not come from the Republicans.

It's not about straight or gay, if you think it is, because this topic will come up some of the times during the discussion, it's not about that.

It's not about men versus women, or nationalism versus race or racism, or progressive versus conservative.

What it is about, it's about your allegiance, your moral conscience, and your ability to practice your Christian religious freedoms, to live with moral integrity to the life that you're called to, to have freedom from persecution, true separation from church and state, sanctity of the family unit, and freedom from being compelled to ratify and agree with perversity.

Well, let's get down to some definitions first.

You know, basically, it's somebody that disagrees in the simplest form, but I've got 4 definitions here.

We've got it from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary, Wikipedia, and Oxford Dictionary, so I think we've got it pretty well covered.

But the whole point is, it's a difference of opinion, sentiment, It's the opposite of consent.

So if somebody's asking you to do something or they're making you do something you don't want to do and you disagree with it, that's dissent.

Well, the ultimate dissident, Jesus Christ.

And we're not just talking about here on earth.

I mean, this was a situation where there was a kingdom that was established on this earth, the Prince of Darkness.

And Jesus came down from heaven as a dissident, not just to overturn this kingdom, but to overturn the orthodoxies, the prejudices that were in place at the time.

And this country, the United States of America, was founded by dissidents.

Dissidency is at the very heart and core of this country's spirit.

And essentially, it was based on Christian principles as well, which was freedom of conscience, freedom to flee from persecution and from tyrannical governments, freedom to practice their faith in peace, and ultimately this country was founded on the principle that all men and women were created equal, which ultimately led to the abolition of slavery.

Let's talk about fascism, so we know what we're actually talking about.

And who better to get the definition of fascism from than the founders of fascism, which was Benito Mussolini and Filippo Marionetti.

And this symbol that you see here is the fascist symbol, which is a bundle of sticks that are bound together.

And the idea is that each stick by themselves is easy to break, but when you put them into a bundle together and you tie them tightly with the cord, they become like a log, they become strong.

Now that cord is made of the principles of education and indoctrination.

It's also the media, and it's also force.

And you see the axe, which is tied to the side of the bundle, that represents corporal and capital punishment for those that are dissidents.

So the doctrine of fascism from Benito Mussolini is essentially fascism is totalitarian.

The fascist state is a synthesis and unit inclusive of all values.

It interprets, develops and potentiates the life of a people.

Now it's interesting, if you read behind those words, develops and interprets, what it's really saying is it's telling them what to think and how we want them to think.

So fascism is a religious conception which man is seen in his imminent relationship with a superior, call it a moral law, and with an objective will that transcends the particular individual.

This is much bigger than 1 person, right?

If anyone gets in the way, then we'll take care of them.

And this is about creating a so-called spiritual society.

So fascism, besides being a system of government, is, and above all, a system of thought.

The violent protests don't like what you have to say at a university, so what are you going to do?

Call yourself Antifa, whatever it happens to be.

Let's decode, unpack, and look at what's going on here.

So, looking at the traits of fascism, it is suppression and silencing of opposing views.

And this is an academic which studied fascism throughout World War II and essentially did his doctorate on it.

So violence as a valid political instrument.

The sacralization of politics through totalitarian methods.

It's a new political style and by myths, rights, and symbols as a lay religion designed to acculturate, socialize and integrate the faith of the masses with the goal of creating a new man.

Now these days they're not kidding when they're talking about creating a new man.

It's a police apparatus that prevents, controls and represses dissidents in opposition, including through the use of organized terror.

That's essentially intimidation that something very bad is going to happen to you if you don't do exactly what they want.

If you disagree with what they're positing and putting forth, it is almost a capital offense.

If you see somebody conducting a political correctness infraction, you are immediately to call them to the task.

And essentially, championing the causes of modernism, action, and political violence.

Again, you're seeing it so often on the streets here.

Promoting the establishment of a totalitarian state.

Now if you haven't guessed this, this is bigger than left and right, okay?

So this is, again, it's not about politics, it's about the behavior that you're seeing.

It's social indoctrination through propaganda in education, your schools, with taxpayer money, and the media, and regulation of the production of educational and media materials.

You can obviously see my sources that I'm referencing here too in terms of the characteristics of fascism.

So you're seeing the media being controlled, you're seeing the social media being controlled, you're seeing education being controlled with a very specific anti-christian agenda, which is being crammed down your necks with both arms.

Finally, I hit you with my trump card where I trivialize your entire being into a one-word label like telling you you're a racist, you're a sexist, you're a misogynist, You're homophobic, you're heterophobic, you're transphobic, you're human phobic.

I'm like a doctor handing out complex diagnoses.

When I decide to label someone with 1 word, I don't have to use my brain to understand them because I have a preformed understanding of the 1 word that I use to label them so I can just understand the word that I decided to call them instead of understanding them.

You know, Essentially we're talking about Christian principle, biblical principles, and the intolerance in society towards them.

So essentially the triggers are if you start talking about sin as the Bible understands and talks about sin.

If you stand against the murder of children, also known as abortion, expect to get de-platformed off social media.

If you don't fully and completely adulate, bow down before, and totally agree with transgender and LGBTQ or whatever the alphabets are, agendas, expect extreme and total punishment.

If you stand for traditional family and marriage, expect a lot of problems.

Cynthia Heidi

The Neglected Class

I really admire people who can take fantastic photographs.

A friend of mine who is a photographer, she told me that the trick to a great photo is to optimize 3 factors, lighting, your subject, and the composition.

So I decided to take her advice, and I went to New Zealand for vacation.

I thought it'd be a great place to take some National Geographic worthy photos.

And about 3 days into my trip I was in the South Island in New Zealand and I actually spotted the world's only alpine parrot called the New Zealand Kia.

I pulled out my telephoto lens and I started snapping some photos before this parrot flew away.

I want to show you my best photo of the New Zealand Kia.

I really maximized lighting, subject, and composition.

Now, what's interesting is that I found that having the right perspective on the purpose in life is much like having the right lens through which to view the world.

And what happened for me personally is I had a personal encounter with God a few years ago.

Up until that time, I felt like I was living my life out of focus, And it wasn't until I had that personal encounter where I felt like God gave me a different lens through which to view my life.

And so I left my job in a private equity fund in Boston, and I spent 2 years in a unique mission field.

It is still 1 of the most unchurched places on the planet.

Pastors and Bible workers aren't going there.

These are people that are incredibly skeptical about God and they speak a different language.

That mission field was the Harvard Business School.

I want you to think about the Harvard Business School as an incredibly challenging and untapped mission field.

Like I said, pastors and Bible workers aren't going there.

These are some of the most healthy, athletic, and intelligent people on the planet.

They have a lot of their earthly needs are satisfied and the Bible tells us in Proverbs that the satisfied soul has little interest in the things of God.

Furthermore, I was the only Adventist Christian in a population of about 2, 000 people.

That ratio is worse than the ratio of Adventists in the 1040 window.

Now, what I want you to think about is the Harvard Business School is actually just a representation of a much larger mission field filled with a people group I refer to as the wealthy, the worldly, and the well-educated, or the W3s for short.

Now I actually want to define the W3s a bit more for you because I think many of you are in this group.

Most of you are probably 1 of the 77 million Americans over the age of 25 with a bachelor's degree or above.

What you might not be surprised to find is that a lot of the research out there says that there's a negative correlation between education and belief in God.

I've lost count of the number of times over the years people find out I'm a Christian and they're like, wow, really, you're a Christian?

The worldly very much have this aspirational mindset that is focused on power and influence and money and beauty.

I'm sure you can all relate to those temptations and you probably have lots of friends who do as well.

But I want to spend a little bit more time on the wealthy.

If you zoom in on this graph, this is showing the mix of annual household income in the United States.

You can see that there's a big chunk of the population, about 84 million people, that have a hundred thousand or more in annual income.

Now let's contrast that with the Adventist North American Division population.

If you look at that little bar up there, there's only about 7% of Adventists in this group.

So while we have about 273 non-Adventists for every Adventist overall, in this particular group it's more like 997 non-Adventists for every 1 Adventist.

So this is truly an untapped mission field.

These numbers suggest that we as a church have not done a very good job of reaching these people with the gospel.

The question is, and I've unfortunately gotten to this question a lot, is should we even care about reaching this group?

And What I'd like to share is that, interestingly enough, Ellen White, who many of you know is a very inspired, prolific author from the 19th century, she actually wrote a lot about this group.

She said that, we talk and write much of the neglected poor.

Should not some attention be given also to the neglected rich?

Thousands of wealthy men have gone to their graves unworn because they have been judged by appearance and passed by as hopeless subjects.

But indifferent as they may appear, I have been shown that most of this class are soul burdened.

There are thousands of rich men who are starving for spiritual food.

Many in official life feel their need of something, which they have not.

When I was in business school, I had many classmates who were going to the school psychologist, taking anxiety medication, using marijuana to deal with stress.

In fact, 1 of the most popular topics I came across with talking to my classmates was actually about the Sabbath.

I had 1 particular classmate who is a self-identified atheist from the Czech Republic, and he actually asked me a lot of questions about the Sabbath and how you keep it and the health benefits, and even though he didn't believe in God, he actually wants to keep the Sabbath, and so he's trying.

She actually has another reason, so Ellen White talked about another reason why we should be prioritizing this group.

She also said that men in business life, in high positions of trust, men with large inventive faculties and scientific insight, men of genius, and I add women to this phrase, these should be the first to hear the call.

To them the invitation must be given." So she's actually saying not only does this group need God, they're soul burdened, they should actually be prioritized with the gospel.

Well, she said, converted to the truth, they will become agencies in the hand of God to communicate the light.

They will have a special burden for other souls of this neglected class.

Time and money will be consecrated to the work of the Lord, and new efficiency and power will be added to the church.

So let's think about this with an illustration.

Jeff Bezos is in the Forbes 400 number 1 list.

He has a net worth about a hundred and 60000000000 dollars.

The Adventist global tithes and offerings is about 3.2 billion a year.

If you had Jeff Bezos working for God, he could fund the World Church for almost 50 years.

Now you don't want to be a billionaire for your tithes and talents to matter of course, but you're getting the idea of how W3s can help accelerate the spread of the gospel.

So I want to actually ask you a question.

We've clearly been lax in reaching this group, but I want to probe a bit on why have we neglected this class.

So I want you to take a look at this photo.

It's pretty over the top, but take a look at this guy.

What do you think when you see this gentleman?

Do you think he would be interested in God?

Do you think that he would accept your offer of a Bible study?

If you're like a lot of people that I've shown this picture to, you'd probably be thinking, no, there's absolutely no way that this guy would be interested in God.

And now what's interesting is that right there is the reason why we have not reached this group, is because we kind of assume they're just not interested, so why bother?

The thing is, a lot of times when we make judgments about people like this, it actually says something about ourselves.

What we're really thinking is, what he has is better than what I have.

Now, Ellen White did not mince words about this.

She said there are intelligent men and women whom we are afraid to work for, fearing repulse, but earnest efforts should be made for the higher classes coming close to their hearts, visiting them, and using special wisdom to win them to the truth.

1 reason why efforts have not heretofore been made for the higher classes as I have presented before you is a lack of faith and real courage in God.

So the reason why we have not reached this group is because we're scared, we don't have enough faith, and we don't have enough courage in God.

I always cringe when I think about a situation where I was in like a few years ago.

I was working in that private equity fund in Boston.

I had a co-worker who was curious about my faith and instead of deploying any of the techniques that I'm going to share with you later, I basically choked.

I outsourced the opportunity to share the gospel.

I basically referred him to a prophecy seminar recording.

Needless to say, that didn't really go anywhere, and he never watched it.

And so, If we think about this, we're scared, we are missing faith and real courage in God.

There's actually another reason why we're not reaching this group, and that's because our traditional evangelistic methods don't tend to work with this group.

Think about cold-portering, think about prophecy seminars, think about mailers.

Ellen White even said that the hook is not baited to catch this class.

The best way to reach this group is actually through all of you.

You are the ones who have personal relationships, who have daily interactions with this group.

You're their friends, their co-workers, their classmates, their neighbors, their customers, their bosses in some cases.

You are the ones who have the best opportunity to share the gospel.

Which is why when I talk about access, it is so important that we encourage more people to go into the W3 mission fields around the world.

We actually need more engineers, more scientists, more professors, more doctors, more lawyers, more engineers.

All of these people need to be working for God.

K'dee Elsen Crews

Mind Your Own Busyness: The Mental Health Crisis in the Professional World

As Mike mentioned, it was a whirlwind getting here, but God is so good, and I could clearly see why he had me have a little detour this morning.

I had a divine appointment on the flight over of an individual where he's from San Diego, well, he was going to San Diego, which I'm originally from, so that started up a conversation.

And then slowly he revealed to me that about not too long ago, he had lost his five-month-year-old child, and both him and his wife were grieving and during the grieving process.

So, and at the end of it, it was so beautiful, he said, I wish I had what you had.

He's like, I wish I could believe in God.

And that was just a rich and meaningful experience and conversation that I'm sorry for the delay in AASI for having to work things out, but I know that God intended for me to be on that flight.

So I'm doing fantastic and I hope you all are too.

But without further ado, let's jump into today's presentation, Mind Your Own Busyness.

And if you were probably too busy to read that title, you probably read Mind Your Own Business, or thought I made a typo.

But no, Mind Your Own Busyness will be looking at the mental health crisis in the professional world.

And for me, it's almost impossible to talk about mental health within 20 minutes.

So please pray for me as well as buckle your seatbelts because it'll probably be a little fast ride.

But before we begin, I always like to have a word of prayer.

Dearly Father, Lord, I thank you so much for the privilege it is to be here at ASI.

Lord, I thank you so much for the traveling mercies that we all had in being here, Lord.

Not only the divine appointment that I had on the plane, but Lord, you have the divine appointment of all of us being here today.

Lord, we don't know what we're gonna learn or how we're gonna be touched, but Lord, we pray that you may touch us, Lord, and that we may leave this experience changed and closer and closer to you, Lord.

So I pray that you may be with me, may your words be in my mouth, and your spirit in the hearts of those who are listening.

We thank you and we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.

So when they invited me to talk, they asked me to specifically talk about the global impact of the mental health crisis.

And so for instance, that would include talking about how billions and billions of dollars are being spent in health care, how mental health is the fourth leading cause of disability.

And I'm not going to be talking about that.

And the reason why is I think that often we want to talk about the global impact of the mental health crisis because it allows for us to avoid or deflect talking about the real impact.

And the real impact is the personal impact.

How does mental health and the mental health crisis personally impact you, your friends, your family, your co-workers, your church, our church, our church leaders, how it personally impacts you as a young professional.

And you know, we don't wanna talk about that because that could be uncomfortable, right?

We don't want to talk about how perhaps people here today in this very room are struggling with depression, anxiety, ADD, fill in the blank.

Again, that's not comfortable And maybe some of you are already feeling uncomfortable.

But often I say, as a mental health professional, my job's not to make you feel comfortable, not in a voyeuristic way, but in the sense that a lot of times it is in the discomfort that change, real change, begins to happen.

And often we need to be aware of the problem before we can really know what is the solution.

So 1 of my main goals of today's presentation is to really just bring awareness, not just of the mental health crisis, but how it personally impacts you.

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Series

Young Professionals

God’s Got a Plan and You’re In It!

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

The Reluctant Dissident

28m

The Neglected Class

19m

Mind Your Own Busyness: The Mental Health Crisis in the Professional World

22m

Is Perception Reality?

21m

Communicating and Contextualizing the Gospel

19m

What are you working on?

28m

Personal Finance on an Index Card

32m

God’s Got a Plan and You’re In It!

52m

Sound Doctrine