SWYC 2014: What We Believe: Back to Basics

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GYC Southwest

Breakout Session 5

Laurel Damsteegt

Gender Roles and Ordination

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you very much for your continuous care over your church.

We know that your church is the apple of your eye, that you are watching over it, but we also know that we have trouble as times ahead.

Oh Father we pray that anything said today will only glorify you so we go through your word please guard my mouth guard my thoughts and may everything be very clear and we pray that you will truly be our best friend always as we lean on you in Jesus name amen.

I have a lot of friends that are pro-ordination and I would feel very badly if I in any way I hurt their feelings today and so I just want to say that this is something that we have to be really really sensitive to There are many people who love the Lord with all their hearts and have differing opinions.

And so, 1 thing that I've really done sometimes is, When I am feeling a lot of turmoil inside, especially about issues and about situations, it really, really helps me if I spend time praying for each person individually.

People that I disagree with and maybe rightfully so or for whatever reason it doesn't mean that I need to personally feel upset towards them and I encourage you to be the same.

Jesus bled at his enemies hands and you and I can bleed.

It's okay to feel really really bad but always just like Jesus did always pray always pray by name for different people that you disagree with.

So for 2000 years men have been leaders and ministers and elders.

Women have been earnest believers, followers, workers, not ordained but just the same, working completely alongside husbands, pastors, and in situations.

With the French Revolution, society pretty much took a total different turn.

A lot of things were unleashed at the French Revolution.

That's why it has its own chapter in Revelation, chapter 11 in Revelation, because of all the important things that actually changed.

All of life changed after the French Revolution.

French Revolution had an impact on feminism.

At that time, atheism and agnosticism rose.

Not that there wasn't any before that, but it rose.

Humanism and a debunking of God's word happened.

Higher critical methodologies started coming out, but were later popularized by liberal Protestants.

Not too many years later, 1844, the Adventists came to the fore.

When the churches changed, when they rejected truth, we are told that they became Babylon.

1 aspect of their change was the way they interpreted scripture.

Because they had their hopes so set on the second coming, they earnestly longed for the second coming.

They were so disillusioned when the second coming didn't happen.

And when you have an extreme disillusion of that sort, you have to realign how you interpret everything.

Because if your sweetest spiritual experience has been tied up with the Advent movement, then how do you go back to the Bible again?

And If Jesus didn't keep his word and come, how do you figure that all out?

And so early Adventists had a real struggle trying to come through with all that.

And so historicism, The way you interpret prophecy with a historical methodology, like Seventh-day Adventists do, took a real hit.

And that's why historical critical methodologies came in.

Then you get your futuristic views, where everything goes to the future.

And so scripture took a real hit in the way it was interpreted.

So you get futurism and preterism and higher criticism coming in at that time.

Shortly after that were the first ordinations of women outside the Seventh-day Adventist church.

The spiritualists were among the first to introduce women ministers.

Women's liberation takes on the cause later on.

And later on, still, the thrust was to get rid of male leadership, not so much get rid of, but at least put it on an equal 50-50% plane and encourage and promote lesbianism.

In the SDA church, we began having a series of studies.

The first study was in 1973 called Mohaven.

This was a camp similar to this, only in Ohio.

And at this point, our church came to start to study the whole picture of whether elders, ministers were the same.

And a whole group of scholars from Andrews University went there and other scholars from around went to there.

I have a personal letter from her, which she explained some of the proceedings there and how she was very much against women's ordination of any type, but the chairman came to her personally and said, would you go along with trying, a trial basis of trying women's elders?

Would you be willing to try it and see how it works?

And she said, well, she would go with the committee if that's the way that they wanted her to.

And so she went ahead and didn't, it wasn't an official vote she gave, she just assented.

And up to this time, it has never been restudied.

It was not, never validated in general conference in session, only at annual council.

Okay, And so this is a true fact and I can supply you with the the facts there.

1975 the General Conference had Another commission to find out if ordination was biblical, 1985.

Again, another general conference discussion in 1989, Caheta Springs.

Because of tax issues, it was decided that all elders may marry and baptize.

Now you say, what does that have to do with the IRS?

IRS shouldn't be getting involved in our theological questions, but this is how it worked.

Because Seventh-day Adventist ministers get a benefit, a parsonage allowance, a benefit, the parsonage allowance.

If you don't have, if you are not baptizing and doing marriages, then you can't get this benefit.

And there were a lot of young elders that should be able to get this parsonage allowance.

And so because of the tax issue, all elders at that time were allowed to marry and baptize, which allowed women to marry and baptize.

They put forward a statement, which was actually voted in 1990 at the Indianapolis General Conference.

And the statement there was that women could essentially do all the things that pastors do, marry, baptize, and all, but not be ordained.

And I mentioned to you earlier, I've been many times disappointed with the way things turned out.

And that was 1 of the times when I was very disappointed, because number 1, we go by the Bible.

We don't go by, you know, what's politically expedient, number 1.

And number 2, why are you going to let them marry and baptize and not let them be a full pastor?

That is a hundred percent discrimination in my book.

If you're gonna go that, then you need to go the whole way.

And it was a very, but their rationale was, well, 1 step forward is better than no step at all.

And in 1990, that was allowed no women's ordination but allow for full ecclesiastical authority that's why elders from the church can also baptize they can okay but you have to go also to the state and all that kind of thing it's not just the church itself but do you have to be now that's true most of these would be applicable to say interns working in the church and women all right those would be the exactly correct all right But it also it also allows local elders if they're allowed by the conference to go ahead and marry and baptize.

Then there was a, it all came up again to general conference in Utrecht in 1995.

And The proposal came from the North American division that women be ordained to the gospel ministry but realizing that the rest of the world wasn't ready for ordination they had the exception that only North of America or anybody that was ready for this be forced into this.

Nobody else had to do this, but just just the countries that were ready.

And Like I mentioned just before we broke, before my husband had the opposing speech to this, which I will play at the end of this time together, so that you can actually hear the issue that was being put forth and how applicable it is today.

But in essence, the World Church in session voted that down, so women were not allowed to be ordained at that point.

So NAD was not allowed, TED, any of the divisions were not allowed to ordain women.

La Sierra and Sligo went right ahead with planned women ordination.

It didn't matter what the church voted, they just went ahead.

There was no discipline offered for them.

Some of the conferences changed the terminology to commissioning rather than ordination to make it OK.

And then, of course, you all know the recent North American Division struggles where Columbia Union and Pacific Union went against the General Conference's recommendations and began ordaining women with the idea that they're never going to come around so we might as well just go ahead and do it.

Then the Southeastern California Conference votes a woman president in and we're on territory here aren't we.

Taariq Patel

Adam Patel

The Time of Trouble

Jesus was leaving the east side of Galilee.

And when he left the east side of Galilee, he left there 2 men that were formerly possessed by a legion of demons.

These 2 men wanted to accompany Jesus, but Jesus told them, no, stay where you are.

Go tell what the Lord has done for you and how he has had compassion on you.

And those 2 men began to publish and tell everybody where they were from what Jesus did for them.

So as they were doing the good work on the east side, Jesus went to the west side of Galilee.

And as he arrived on the shore, as usual, everybody was there on the beach waiting for Jesus.

And he hooked up with Levi Matthew, and there he is hanging out with the publicans and the sinners, as usual.

But there came a man, a ruler of the synagogue.

Now you would think this man is of a Jewish origin, of high authority, a distinguished man that would not be associated with publicans and sinners, But yet this man came into the presence of Jesus at Levi Matthews house Why because this man had a great need?

He had a need that no 1 on this planet could fix for him His daughter was lying at the point of death and he heard about Jesus and he comes to Jesus feet Worshipping him and he says Master if you come to my house put your hands on my daughter She will be made whole now.

That was a mighty bold proclamation of faith Not maybe not probably you come over and she will be made whole.

Have you ever made a prayer in faith like that?

But now that faith for this man named Jairus was about to be tested.

And as Jesus, who cannot resist a humble prayer, Oh Lord, thou will not despise the brokenhearted.

You see, sometimes it takes for us to be in a situation where we know we need God.

Doesn't matter our status, our rank in life, because no man can fix that kind of problem.

So Jesus couldn't resist that prayer, and he walks with Jairus.

But there was someone else that day who heard of Jesus, someone else who was also in desperate need, someone else who had invested all her time and money to seek the world, but the world couldn't help her.

In fact, the world made her ailment grow worse.

And she saw Jesus there on the beach, couldn't get to him because of her ailment, because of her disease.

She saw Jesus with Levi Matthew, and she saw Jairus there, and she thought in her mind, maybe I can meet him at the shortcut, at the crossroads.

And so she goes there because she sees Jesus walking with Jairus, but as she arrives at her spot, he couldn't see her.

And she reached out because he couldn't hear her.

But she thought, if I could just touch his garment, If my finger can just scrape his robe, I will be made whole.

Now that was another bold proclamation of faith.

Have you ever prayed and you were broke before you prayed?

And when you got up off your knees, you were still broke.

You had a storm in your life when you prayed, and you got up and the storm was still there.

But when you said in Jesus' name, amen, were you, okay Lord, I don't know if you're gonna answer it, but I'm still in the same boat.

Or did you say in Jesus name, amen, and you rejoiced in the Lord?

You were excited and experienced that answer to prayer before it happened.

This woman said, I will be made whole while she was still sick.

There were many people along the side of that road that day that were saying, Jesus, thou son of David, help me, have mercy on me.

And on the way to Jairus' house, Jesus was reaching, he was teaching, he was preaching, he was healing.

But out of all those people crying out to Jesus that day touching Jesus that that day only 1 person touched his clothes.

He turned around in the press and said who touched my clothes?

The disciples said we're all around you everybody's pressing in on you.

What do you mean who touched your clothes?

He said I perceive that virtue has gone out of me power has left me Righteousness has gone out of me She didn't ask permission.

He turned around and saw this woman, for she could not be hid.

And when the disciples saw the eyes of Jesus and they followed his sight, they looked at this woman, and everybody looked at this woman.

The sea parted and the spotlight was on her.

And she began to say how she gave her whole life to the world.

Oh, the lust of man is for his appetite, the Bible says, and yet his soul is not fit.

And when she began to tell the story of how she believed, how she reached, how she touched, how she was restored, can you imagine?

This woman had just experienced the healing, and right after that, she's testifying.

Can you imagine the tears out of her eyes, the trembling in her voice, the gratitude?

The people were so moved at that scene that Matthew had to write about it in the Gospels.

Mark heard about it and he had to write about it.

Luke heard about it and he had to write about it.

When Jesus asked that question, it wasn't because he didn't know, it was because we need to get to know.

Jairus, are you paying attention, Jairus?

As Jesus was saying these good things to this woman, afterwards he said, daughter, be of good comfort.

Go home and behold of thy plague, for thy faith hath made thee whole.

While Jesus was saying these things to her, while he yet spake, Here comes 2 friends from Jairus' house, and Jairus knew these guys.

He didn't have to hear their words to see the look on their faces to know that they're bringing bad news.

You know when we encounter bad situations, we go into the place of denial.

And as they get closer, they say, leave the master alone, for your daughter is dead.

My son is 5 months old, as I shared with you all, and I couldn't imagine the devastation of hearing that my son has passed.

The denial I would feel, the sadness, the shock, maybe the anger, Jesus!

I said if you touch her, she will be made whole, Jesus.

But why are you healing all these people with blindness and deafness and this lady has an issue of blood my daughter's about to die Why didn't you go heal her first and come back for these people?

It was at that moment when Jairus' heart sunk to the depths of despair and depression and hopelessness that Jesus looked at him and said these words, Be not afraid, only believe.

It is when your heart is destitute of your spirit.

It is when the clouds of depression and stress hover above your heads.

It is then you must let living faith pierce the darkness and scatter the clouds.

If you have your Bibles, Turn with me to Psalms 57.

If you have it on your phone, go to Psalms 57.

David was on the run from King Saul, running for his life.

I don't know if any of you in this room have ever lived in a cave with your family, with your children, with your brothers, with your father, with your loved ones in a cave, not knowing where you're going to get your next meal from, Not knowing if your kids or your family are gonna survive.

Not knowing that if you step out that cave, you would be spotted by the enemy.

Questions and Answers- Part 2

By popular demand, some of you guys, we had some requests as far as the continuing Q&A because we weren't able to cover much of it yesterday.

So just for our speakers, we have a really big stack of questions.

So if we can move a little bit faster than we did yesterday without feeling too pressured, just so that we can cover everyone's questions.

So yesterday I kind of messed things up a little by grabbing all these mics and giving you guys different mics.

So if you guys can grab the mic that's nearest in your direction.

So Pastor Kim, if you mind praying before we start Q&A.

Dear Lord, thank you so much, Lord, for this opportunity to provide answers, Lord, to the questions that have been turned in.

Just pray that your spirit would be here with us and that we would all be blessed during this time together.

If you have, what was your worst and best experiences?

Thank you for choosing this question, God bless.

This person's a canvasser, he assumed the cell.

So have you canvassed before and what was your best experience and worst experience?

I have big booked in Utah, Salt Lake City, Mormon territory.

This was a long, long time ago in the 90s.

During the first week in our team, I was the first to sell a Bible story set.

And I just felt like God had his favor on me.

And I was thinking I was going to be the top seller that summer.

The next 3 to 4 weeks, I didn't sell any big books.

And it was a very painful, very humbling experience.

And at the end of the summer, I ended up having the lowest sales.

And I look back and I just thank God for those kind of experiences that God used to just really teach me about humility.

I highly recommend canvassing to everybody because it's very difficult and it's character building.

How do we know when to ask a boy or girl to court or date?

Okay, we'll leave the answers to our speakers.

I bet you this person is probably really young, huh?

But, you know, I can always just tell you my personal experience.

When I was, you know, in my high school years, college years, 20s and stuff, Well, I wasn't with the Lord.

And I followed my own heart, my own decisions.

And that always proved to be sour in the end.

And When you get into relationships without following God, you end up damaging a part of yourself along with the other person.

And then when you finally get with the person God wants you to be, you bring in all that baggage with you.

So when God speaks, it's good to first fall in love with Him.

If you haven't fallen in love with the Lord, then you're wrong already.

Then this question should be thrown away, okay?

Because, you know, delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

I decided to delight myself in the Lord because he saved me.

I'm gonna share a little bit of my testimony.

And when I did that, I wasn't even looking, honestly, how it happened to me.

And God gave me the desires of my heart, the best desire ever.

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Series

Breakout Session 5

Gender Roles and Ordination

Transcript

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Parent Conference

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Recorded

Parts

Gender Roles and Ordination

1h 12m

The Time of Trouble

1h 10m

Questions and Answers- Part 2

20m

Sound Doctrine