In this episode of Ask Pastor Mark, Pastor Mark Finley answers questions about the Seventh-day Adventist government and how problems in churches should be handled, women ordination, will there me marriage in Heaven, fasting and more.

<p>In this episode of Ask Pastor Mark, Pastor Mark Finley answers questions about the Seventh-day Adventist government and how problems in churches should be handled, women ordination, will there me marriage in Heaven, fasting and more.</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>

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Mark Finley

Adventist Government, Women’s Ordination, Marriage in Heaven and More

Thank you for joining us for Ask Pastor Mark with Matt.

And I've been traveling a lot recently as well.

I've been at the ASI convention in Kansas City, and then from there to the Teachers' Convention in Phoenix where it was really, really hot.

Last few days, I've been in Florida doing some writing and preparing to continue on the itinerary.

So, Matt, I'm always excited about the question and answer periods we have.

So let's pray and ask the Lord to give us wisdom.

Father in heaven, thank you so much for Jesus and thank you for the opportunity to seek you for your wisdom.

You've said, if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God that gives liberally to all men.

Lord, we're asking you for wisdom from above.

Thank you for those who participate in the program who will ask questions and grant to me and Matt the ability to look at the questions and give me the ability to give answers directly founded on the principles of your word in Christ's name, Amen.

All right, well, for anyone who is first time viewer here, I just wanna give you some instructions on how this works.

I will be monitoring the YouTube comments.

So what you can do is just type your comment into the comments there on YouTube.

I will go through them as fast as I can while trying to keep track of everything here on the show and I will ask Mark live.

We are in fact live at this moment so I'm gonna take these questions and ask Pastor Mark what you have for him And we'll just go as long as we can today, probably what, about an hour or so, Mark?

All right, Pastor Mark, just I have a question here just to kind of get us started, since I haven't had a chance to look at the comments yet.

So the question is, can you explain the Adventist government to us?

You know, if there's some problem in a church, for example, maybe a pastor that's doing something or maybe some outside source, some problem happening there, What are the different, you know, we've got conferences, we've got unions, we've got the general conference.

What are the roles in a problem and how they solve it?

Matt, that's a very practical and a very good question.

In the Seventh-day Admonished Church, we have a constituent basis for our governmental structure.

It's really based on Scripture, where Moses had a decentralized approach to solving problems.

Remember, it was the thousands, the hundreds, the 12s, et cetera.

And so in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, there are 4 basic levels of church administration and church governance.

The local church is governed by a local church board.

Problems within the local church are to be handled by that church board.

Then each church, local church, is part of a larger structure called the conference.

In our church structure, the physical facility of the local church is owned by the conference, not the members of the church.

I'm talking about the physical plant, the building.

Because let's suppose that you had a renegade, rebellious pastor or congregation that wanted to take that whole church out of the orbit of Seventh-day Adventist teachings and theology.

Then the conference owns the building, so they couldn't take the building with them.

The local conference is responsible for churches within that state conference.

So many of our conferences are lined up according to states.

There are some that you have conferences that are in more than 1 state.

But typically, you have what we would call the state conferences.

But again, you have conferences that may overlap into other states.

The responsibility of the conference is to minister to, support, encourage local churches.

The tithe from the local church goes on to the conference.

The conference then uses that tithe to pay the pastors.

Now, what if you have a problem in a local conference?

First, the constituency of that conference meets approximately every 4 years.

And so each church can choose delegates based on a proportional representative way form of government that go to a constituency meeting.

1 way of making a change in a conference is voting new leadership in.

And that has done in constituency meetings, that happens.

Let's suppose you're between sessions and there's a problem that's very egregious in a conference.

The next level of organization is the union.

The union of churches deals with a multi-state or multi-conference area.

The responsibility of the union of churches is to guide, nurture, spiritually support, resource, help to develop major plans.

And that's happens in the conference level too.

It's a strategic planning for evangelism, for outreach and so forth.

But the union of churches consists of those conferences within that particular union.

In some of the smaller overseas fields, we have what we call the union of churches, which they may be too small to have a conference and they're directly attached to the union.

But the union's responsibility when it comes to problem solving, Matt, is to work with the conferences to solve that particular problem.

It could be personnel problems, could be theological problems, could be a variety of problems.

I don't want to give the impression that the function of unions and conferences is merely to solve problems or give direction.

The function of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is to fulfill the mission of Christ, where Jesus said in Matthew 24, verse 14, "'This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached "'in all the world as a witness to all nations.

"'Then the end shall come.'" Where Jesus, through John and the angel in Revelation 14, verse 6 says, I saw another angel flying in the middle of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those that dwell on the earth.

So the function of every administrative unit, whether it's a local church, whether it is a conference, whether it is a union of churches, the function of those is to nurture members spiritually so they know Christ, so they can be ready for the coming of Christ and so that they can proclaim the gospel and facilitate that.

Then you have what's called the division.

Now the division does not have a constituency.

The division is a division of the general conference.

Some people think we have 5 layers of organization.

They would say, you have a general conference, you have a division, you have a union, you have a conference in a local church.

No, the division does not have a constituency.

The division is a division or of the General Conference of Seminary Adventists.

Now, a lot of people would wish that the General Conference could solve problems in a local church, but that's not how our governance structure is set up.

The president of the general conference does not have the authority, as some would think that he might, to wave a magic wand and solve every local church problem.

That church problem is dealt with by the local conference.

Because if you don't have that kind of a structure, you can easily have abuse of authority.

So we have a structure that is constituency-based, where conference leadership is elected by representatives from local churches.

Union leadership is elected by representatives from conferences, not all administrators, and lay people from those conference areas.

And union administration is elected by union, by conference delegations.

It's elected at a general conference session by the general conference constituency.

So we are based, our whole structure is based on the idea of lay involvement, pastoral involvement, administrative involvement, working together to accomplish the ultimate mission of Christ to build up the people of God and to facilitate mission.

Thank you, Pastor Mark, for that question.

Now, Pastor Mark, our next question, or Matt, but Don, I'm gonna come back to your question.

The next question comes in, Pastor Mark, about being perfect before being saved.

So the question is, I've been told that you have to be perfect before being saved in your thoughts and your deeds.

The answer to that question is found in the Bible.

It's found in Ephesians, the second chapter.

And I really appreciate the question because it indicates to me the heart of somebody who is seeking God.

In Ephesians chapter 2, we begin there with verse 8.

For by grace are you saved through faith, not of yourselves, it's the gift of God.

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Adventist Government, Women’s Ordination, Marriage in Heaven and More

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