ASI Conference 2023: Revived to Witness

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United

Norbert Restrepo

Ivonne Restrepo

Breaking Barriers & Building Bridges

Ron Price

Play Nice in Your Sandbox at Church: How to Prevent or Resolve Conflicts with your Brothers and Sisters

Rick Remmers

United in Mission

And isn't it good to be at an ASI convention?

It's your first time to be at a convention.

And I hope you're enjoying the inspiration, the networking.

It's almost overwhelming to go to the exhibit hall.

There are so many different ministries, so many different resources that are available, but it's great to be able to see that.

And then there's the inspiration of the music, the great preaching, and then the seminars.

So welcome to the third in the United track as we look at being united, transformed, and sent.

Dear Lord, thank you for the opportunity to be here at this ASI convention.

Lord, we pray for a fresh outpouring of your Spirit, and we are grateful for the blessings that we have already received.

And this morning, during this session, as we take a look at Scripture passages, as we look at how best to do ministry, We pray that your spirit would lead and guide and that you would help us to apply it in the best ways in order to accomplish the mission that you've given to us.

Well, let me introduce myself to get started.

I'm Rick Remmers and there's a little bit of a bio, but I'm currently serving as assistant to the president at the North American Division.

And the follow-up question, if anyone has any curiosity, is What do you do?

It means I serve as a liaison for a number of different departments and ministries out of the North American Division, 1 of them being ASI.

And so I represent presidential with ASI.

And Philip Baptiste is the Secretary-Treasurer, has his office at the North American Division.

And so the NAD president, Elder Alex Bryant, who we've seen a number of times here with the election process, chairs the nominating committee, is on the board as well here at ASI, but my position also puts me on the Missions, Inc.

Board and the ASI board, which has been a great learning experience.

I've been doing this for the last year and a half.

I've served as a union executive secretary nearly 10 years as a conference president, and what, about 19 years as a district pastor, as an assistant pastor, as a senior pastor, as a pastor with 1 church, 2 churches, 3 churches.

When you start doing 3 at a time, you get a lot of churches quickly with that.

And I remember our first ASI convention was in Cincinnati.

And our kids were in kindergarten level at that time.

And my wife and I were just amazed and appreciative of what the staff were able to do to provide engaging, spiritually focused programming for the kids in 4 walls.

And they went in with nothing but 4 walls in a small banquet room and made it an engaging and exciting place for kids to learn and grow.

And through the years, our kids have loved to come to ASI conventions.

But there, you know, life has its realities.

He graduated a year ago from Andrews University and is now doing a finance residency with Advent Health in Orlando.

My daughter, there's a health care theme that runs in our family.

I'm still coming to grips with that reality.

A year ago, she finished her associates in nursing at Southern Adventist University, took this last year out to work as a nurse in the Philippines at Adventist Frontier Mission site in the southern part of the Palawan Island, Camatian, and she and 1 other were the 2 nurses staffing the clinic there which was just an incredible experience for her.

She had to learn the language and learn nursing.

And without a physician there, the nurses did all the diagnostics, and there were times where she would call in the middle of the night and my wife is a very experienced nurse and so she would be calling to have questions from her.

And there was 1 patient, they actually were able, as relatively primitive as the setting was, they were able to do, I think it was a 12 lead EKG to get the heart rhythm.

She was able to send that to my wife so that she could read that rhythm and advise her on what the patient's situation was and how to help treat that.

And there were times too where she'd be, there's an ER physician in our family and she'd be calling him for counsel.

But just a lot of, a lot of great stories and a lot of great experience living in a bamboo house hut with rats at night and snakes going through and, and anyway, lots, lots of stories there.

She could, She could easily fill the time with that.

But she's going back now for her final senior year.

She needs to get her bachelor's at Southern.

So she's getting ready to go back there to finish her last year.

And then my wife is, as I mentioned, a nurse and has 30-some years of experience with that.

Cardiac intensive care has been her specialty and what she has enjoyed throughout her career, which means that on any given day, the sickest patients in the hospital will usually land up being assigned to her.

Sickest are already in ICU, but then within ICU, the sickest, you need nurses that know the equipment and how to operate that.

And so anyway, she does a lot of training of new nurses, young nurses, orienting them.

So I just share that so you have some context of where I'm coming from.

If you have questions as we go through it, I would welcome that.

But it has provided a number of different perspectives on what it means to be united in the mission of the church that God has given to us.

We know the Great Commission, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And that Great Commission is for all of us.

It is not restricted to the disciples in Jesus' day.

It's not restricted to 1 part of the world.

All of us are called to be a part of that great commission.

So how does that work out in a practical and realistic way?

My wife said, make sure you tell them, you have 123.

So, first we're gonna look at the biblical and spirit of prophecy foundations for unity in the body of Christ.

Okay, well it's converted to video, I guess, format.

And then we'll look some practical applications of where that gets lived out, and then address some of the common challenges that get in the way of pursuing the mission that God has called us to.

So looking first at 1 Corinthians 12, we're used to looking at this in the context of spiritual gifts, and rightly so, because in the heart of 1 Corinthians 12 we find it talking about the various spiritual gifts, and we'll briefly touch on those.

But Romans 12 also covers this in Ephesians 4 with a little different emphasis and so we'll briefly take a look at this.

But we look at 1 Corinthians 12 verse 4, there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit.

Now with that, Paul summarizes what he then unpacks over many, many verses.

And it's, there's a contrast that we often times see in Paul's writings.

This is a passage where we go through it and say, okay Paul, I got it, I got it, let's move on.

And he repeats it again and again and again.

Which leads us to ask, why would he do that?

Why would he spend so much time unpacking and reemphasizing some of these same points?

And I believe it's because it's so foundational, it's so fundamental, But it's also an area where Satan attacks the church and distracts the church.

And it's something that, yes, it's foundational, but we need to keep going back to shore up those foundations to keep them strong.

He outlines a number of differences, but the same Spirit.

And we find this contrast that he comes to over and over again of there's diversity, there's differences, and yet there is unity that comes by the Spirit.

There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord.

What would it mean if everyone in the church was engaged in health ministries, like my wife, like my daughter, like my son.

If everyone was doing that, and we believe in health ministry, health evangelism, that's a core part of who we are as Seventh-day Adventists.

And it's a vital message that is a practical need in the world.

But if everyone was doing that, who would be the ones taking care of kindergartners like my kids when they were needing religious instruction?

Series

United

United in Mission

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Seminar: Lift Him Up

Health Message & Righteousness by Faith

1h 22m

Sabbath School 4th Quarter 2023: God's Mission My Mission

06 Motivation and Preparation for Mission

25m

ASI 2013 Seminar: It's Time

Ministry and the Internet

1h 12m

Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2025: Allusions, Images, Symbols: How to Study Bible Prophecy?

Is Ellen White a Prophet or Plagiarist?

28m

Personal Evangelism

How to Grow Your Church: The Motion of the Movement

1h 23m

Unlocking Prophecy

17- Prophecy Predicts a People

1h

3rd Quarter Sabbath School 2023: Ephesians

07 The Unified Body of Christ

21m

ASI 2014 Plenary Sessions

Town Hall

1h 13m

Classroom Witnesses

53m

Young Professionals

Unlocking Your True Potential

1h 10m

Deacons & Deaconesses Advanced Training

Deacons & Deaconesses Advanced Training- Part 3

1h 8m

Plenary

Mission Revival

1h 27m

Sound Doctrine