ANN Video Full Episode transcript - June 22, 2012

This week on Adventist News Network, the president of Kenya praises the church’s focus on education

… How Europe’s largest community of Adventist believers is reaching their neighbors 

… and why an upcoming youth conference could change a generation of young people.

These stories and more, coming up.

This is Adventist News Network, a service of the Seventh-day Adventist world church. Thanks so much for joining us this week.

First in the news, the president of Kenya is commending the Adventist Church’s emphasis on education. President Mwai Kibaki praised the church’s commitment to providing education in Kenya and across the continent of Africa during a recent speech at Adventist University of Africa. The national leader was on hand to inaugurate the university’s newly-built Judith Thomas Library. The three-story complex was funded in part through a one million dollar donation from U.S. philanthropist Judith Thomas. The library includes an Ellen White research center and an African heritage center featuring literature, art and cultural artifacts. Adventist world church President Ted Wilson said the library is a testament to the church’s belief in holistic education.

Romania is home to Europe’s largest community of Adventist believers. And Adventist world church President Ted Wilson says they can use that position to impact the region. He urged thousands of Romanian church members gathered in Bucharest’s Palace Hall recently to reach out to every village, town and city. While in Romania, Wilson toured a church-run media center, publishing house and theological institute. He also met and prayed with the staff of an Adventist Development and Relief Agency shelter for victims of domestic abuse. At the airport, young Adventists greeted Wilson with a traditional Romanian welcoming ceremony. Later in his visit, the Adventist Church leader met with young church members for a question-and-answer session. Discussion topics ranged from Christian lifestyle to Wilson’s personal life as church president.

The Adventist Church has a new local conference. And it’s an entire country. The Southeast Asian nation of Singapore recently became a self-sustaining administrative unit of the denomination. Adventists in the small country have demonstrated that they can stand on their own when it comes to leadership and finance. Money is less of a problem in the wealthy, modern country. It was staffing that held administrators back in changing the church’s status in Singapore. The church there has just nine full-time pastors. Church administrators in the country help minister to local congregations, something they’ll continue to do, according to Johnny Kan. The Adventist Church president for Singapore says the work helps leaders stay in touch with what’s happening on the local level.

A nutrition conference drew health enthusiasts from the United Kingdom to a London suburb recently. Adventist Nutrition professor Winston Craig spoke at the event. Craig chairs the Nutrition department at church-owned Andrews University in the U.S. State of Michigan. He reminded attendees that the church’s health message should strengthen the church, not divide it. He also spoke on the risks and benefits of vegetarian and vegan diets and how to avoid health scams. Church health officials say they’ll follow up the event with local cooking hubs where community members can learn healthy cooking techniques and nutrition principles.

So we hope from this that potluck lunches will be elevated in terms of its scope of diets and nutritive value and that we will have healthy, happy, holy people as we fellowship together.

Next year, thousands of Adventist young people from around the world will meet in Pretoria, South Africa for the World Conference on Youth and Community Service. They’ll raise awareness of HIV/AIDS, operate health expos, support school and community development and hold evangelism meetings.

Thousands of young people of young people are coming from every corner of this planet to meet together to be inspired, to understand how to do, first of all community mission work, going door-to-door, helping people with different projects, helping young people to find meaning in life of service to others – just as Jesus did.

The Adventist world church Youth Ministries leaders are saying the event will help build unity among young people. Earlier today I sat down with Gilbert Cangy to learn more.

Thanks for so much for joining us today, Pastor Cangy.  Community service is just one element of this congress but tell us about what plans you have for those two weeks in South Africa? 

Well we have exciting plans, it is in a heavily Adventist populated area of the world so we are expecting about four-thousand young people.  Three distinct spots to the impact South Africa, the first one is essentially we will have community services being carried out by young people from all over the world in Pretoria, in Soweto, in Johannesburg and in Cape Town.  That will be between the first and the fifth of July and they will spend the weekend with their host churches at the same time then they will move to Saint George hotel in Pretoria where the congress itself will take place with three thousand five hundred young people, with workshops, inspirational preaching and teaching.  The third part will be a coming together of the youth community and adult community of Pretoria inner stadium, we are expecting about fifteen thousand people to join us and in the afternoon, those ten thousand young people will be sent to satellite cities and communities where they will be involved in acts of kindness and some form of evangelism.

That sounds exciting, now what kind of impact after this conference do you think it will have in the lives of these young people?

Well we are hoping and trusting that this is not just an exercise, that we want these events to be more like a spring board, like the beginning of a new way of life and service – getting your hands and feet dirty have become an integral part of youth ministry and our hope that this is taken back to their local communities where they will continue that ministry.

Wonderful, now how can young people find information about this conference?

Our website is up impactgcyouth.org or they can contact their local conferences, union or divisions.  The website is up and all the information that they need to register is already available.

Wonderful, thank you so much, Pastor Cangy. Coming up, we have a preview of the latest edition of Adventist Review. This week, the magazine uncovers a story of fraud and deception from the early church.

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Welcome back. Here’s Sandra Blackmer with a preview of this week’s issue of Adventist Review.

The June 21 cover story, “The Captain Goes to Church” by White Estate director Jim Nix, isn’t your typical church history piece. Nix brings to life a largely unknown figure from Adventist history—Captain Henry Norman—a con man who became associated with the church in Michigan in 1899 in a way that appeared providential to leaders at the time. Norman caused a great deal of financial damage to the church because of his pledging to make very large donations to aid with mission work in Australia that never materialized. Before he finally disappeared from the scene, never to be heard of again, Norman also had swindled two Adventist women of their money, as well as made promises to marry them. George A. Irwin was GC president at the time; Ellen White was in Australia.

This story’s unusual nature raises many questions, such as why the Lord allowed the situation to progress and didn’t send a warning to His people through Sister White. Nix doesn’t leave readers hanging with such questions, however, but offers plausible explanations that leave us with much food for thought.

In the Adventist Life article “Seven Ways to Teach Kids Critical Thinking,” author Whitney Hopler describes a 2011 study of college students nationwide that found that 45 percent of them weren’t learning the critical-thinking skills they needed to objectively consider information and make judgments about it during their college years. So what does that mean for your children’s future career potential, and most important, their ability to make sound spiritual and ethical decisions? What can you as parents do to help them develop critical-thinking skills? Whitney Hopler provides some answers.

Church growth doesn’t just mean bigger congregations. Gary Krause thinks new, smaller groups of Adventist believers can better support the church’s focus on community and mission.

The Seventh-day Adventist church began as church planting movement, it’s continued to grow as it has focused on church planting.  In the future, if we plan to continue growing we must keep the focus on starting new congregations.  Back in 1990 when Global Mission began it was focusing on starting new congregations in some of the world’s most difficult and challenging areas.  You know, some people say, “well why don’t we just try build up existing churches?”  Well that is great, we need to focus on that but as we look at growth around the world today, it is not coming from just existing churches growing – it is coming from focusing on starting new groups of believers just like in the book of Acts. 

Research has shown over and over again that as churches grow, as they become older, they start becoming focused inward and not outward.  A study not so long ago showed that churches one to three years of age – it takes three church members to bring one new believer into the church but if a church is at ten years or older, it takes eighty five church members to bring one church member in.  Church planting keeps our focus on the community, on mission, and thank you for your prayers and support for church planting around the world.

This week our Facebook and Twitter followers talked about how social media can impact relationships. Megan Brauner reports. 

Obviously, we’re big fans of social media here at ANN, but we suspect that sometimes the constant connection to the Internet might be a distraction. So we asked you what impact social networks have on your friendships.

On Twitter, Shola Renee told us that social media should not be your primary form of communication, but it's a great and inexpensive way to keep in touch.
LukeF disagrees, saying if anything, it disconnects you. He says he used to love it, but his relationships are better without it:
DMOstrovsky thinks personal, offline communication is key. But, he adds, if it´s the only option, it´s better then nothing. He says he uses Facebook to communicate with people that are far away.
Harvey Alferez also keeps in touch through Facebook, because he says he’s lived in 4 countries during the past 7 years.
On Facebook, truck driver Dale says he uses social media because it enables him to stay in contact and remain "up" on all the latest family news without investing a lot of time or money.
Pringo says we need to maintain a balance, that too much of everything is bad including addiction that can come with it. He says, it’s cost effective yet dangerous especially to an undisciplined person.
Dorothy sees social networks as mostly positive. She says, it helps me to keep in contact with far away and long ago friends and family. It lets others know that I am praying for them in their difficulties and their triumphs.

Thanks to everyone who participated this week, and don’t forget to visit us on Twitter and Facebook every week for a new question.

Still ahead on Adventist News Network, an Adventist scientist has a Biblical perspective on a fossil many researchers believe is a missing link.

But up next, this week’s Tech Corner.

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Welcome back. On this week’s Tech Corner, John Beckett recommends a great way to digitize important documents.

Many of us deal with lots of information. Some of it like e-mail and web pages is digital, and some, like mail and drawings are physical. This can make for some challenges. For instance, what happens when you want to e-mail your handwritten notes or diagram?  What if you want to fill out a form and then e-mail it? Wouldn't it cabinet.

It seems like scanning all that paper stuff and managing it digitally could be really handy. But, scanning things can be time consuming if you attempt it with a traditional flatbed scanner. This type of scanner is designed for making high-quality scans of things like photos, but is not a great tool for digitizing multi-page documents. For that, you really need a document scanner with a sheet-feeder.

The one I use and highly recommend is the Fujitsu Scansnap S1500. To turn a multi-page document into a PDF, just load the stack in the tray and press the "Scan" button. The ScanSnap loads page after page, front and back, and then asks where to save it.

Some documents I keep only on my computer, others I put in a dropbox folder for easy access on my computer and iPhone.

The ScanSnap comes bundled with different software depending on whether you get the Mac or PC version, so make sure you pick the right one.

For me the ScanSnap has proved that it can be easy to turn physical documents into digital ones. If you're thinking about digitizing more of your work, I think you'll find it very helpful too. 

What do fossils suggest about the origins of life? Timothy Standish shares some answers this week from a limestone quarry in Bavaria.

I’m Tim Standish from the Geoscience Research Institute.  Behind me is a Jurassic limestone quarry in Sonthofen, Bavaria, famous for it’s fossils.  My colleagues and I are here studying Archaeopteryx, possibly the most famous Sonthofen fossil.  Imagine Charles Darwin’s excitement over archaeopteryx, a bird with teeth in it’s mouth and a dinosaur like tail.  Was it a missing link between dinosaurs and birds?  Possible missing links are still big news which emphasizes their rarity when Darwinism predicts them everywhere.  This is common with news making missing links, after further study, most experts reject archaeopteryx as a missing link.  Abundant other bird fossils including at least one modern bird are found in Jurassic rocks or in overlying cretaceous rocks.  Patterns of fossil appearance and disappearance are difficult to understand.  As scientists, it is tempting to wish we had all the answers but the creation is far more interesting than that, we don’t know exactly why diverse fossil birds appear in a pattern essentially the opposite of Darwinism’s predictions.  Sometimes faith liberates us to admit we don’t know everything but that there is sufficient evidence to believe the biblical record of history over the alternatives.

For this week’s Family Ministries feature, Willie and Elaine Oliver discuss why a balance of commitments can keep marriages happy and satisfying.

Marriage is one of the most wonderful gifts that God has given to humankind, to be sure, to be in a happy marriage there are important ingredients that one needs to be mindful of, one of those ingredients is commitment.  According to research by Dr. Scott Stanley from the University of Denver, there are two types of commitment that we need to be mindful of.  Dedication commitment and constrained commitment, the two need to be in a healthy tension to have a great marriage. 

When we talk about dedication commitment, we are talking about how much one is willing to invest in their relationship to make it great, to make it happy and satisfying.  It is sort of like you when you nurture something that you love to do and you put your all into it, that is dedication.  Constraint on the other hand is those things that keep us stable in the relationship – sort of something like the fact that we made a commitment before God, before our friends, before our community when we took our marriage vows.  Sometimes we might say that our children are also a constraint but in a healthy way so there needs to be a healthy balance between constraint and dedication if we want to have a happy and satisfying marriage.

The reality is we want to have a happy marriage because when we are happy, our children are happy, the community is happy, the church is happy and we can give honor and glory to God.

When we come back after the break, this week’s iShare report. 

And coming up later, this week’s look at Adventist history.

Welcome back. Let’s turn to Sergio Gonzales to find out what news you reported this week.  

Welcome to iShare, where you bring us the news. Recently a group of young adults sent us a story about their news ministry – Adventist Youth News Network. The students from the Philippines say they were inspired to share the latest youth activities and updates from their region. They share the news via webcam on Sabbath afternoons, and they ask for your prayers as they continue their efforts.
To learn more about their ministry, visit them at facebook.com/adventistyouthnewsnetwork. And don’t forget to send us your stories at news.adventist.org/ishare. 

For our Adventist World Radio feature this week, Dowell Chow updates us on the church’s radio ministry in South America.

I would like to speak to you today about South America.  South America is the second largest region of the Seventh-day Adventist church worldwide.  For many years we have not had a lot of experience with radio in South America but in most recent years that has changed, now we have over thirty-four stations, FM stations, in Argentina alone.  We also have over thirty stations in the country of Chili – and obviously Brazil, the big giant in South America has dozens of radio stations throughout the country.  Then we have Bolivia, we also have Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay and Paraguay – each of these small countries have tremendous radio stations that reach millions of people in the Spanish language.  Obviously Brazil is in Portuguese.

Today, we are preaching the gospel to the entire continent of South America through radio programs throughout these countries.  After that, Venezuela, Venezuela is part of the South American continent, even though it belongs to a different region of the church, which is called Inter-America, likewise, Columbia is another country that belongs to South America.  In Venezuela alone we have over thirty-four stations throughout the country and it is growing as we speak.  In Columbia it has not been that easy, it is a country that we have not been able to find a license or purchase a license for a radio station.  Many smaller groups of people, lay people, are working on the Internet and streaming programs with the Three Angels message throughout the country.  I’d like to thank you for praying for the people, groups in South America and the many millions that still need to hear the gospel message.  Thank you for your support, may God bless you.

Finally this week, Benjamin Baker has our look at Adventist history. We find out about an early Adventist who was arrested for his observance of the seventh-day Sabbath.

Welcome to “This Week in Adventist History.”

On the Monday of June 22, 1916, a Seventh-day Adventist woman from Los Angeles, California, named Margaret Rowen purported to have a vision from God.  Rowen, a recent convert, quickly assumed the role of full-fledged prophet, similar to the manner she had seen exhibited by Ellen White.  Early the next year her claims were investigated by a Southern California Conference committee, which concluded that she was no prophet.  Meanwhile, Rowen garnered a following who called themselves “Reformed Seventh-day Adventists.”  However, it wasn’t long before the jig was up and developments took a rogue turn, with Rowen making wild assertions, planting counterfeit Ellen White testimonies, date setting, and finally attempting murder.  Rowen served a year in San Quentin prison.   

June 23, 1889, saw R.M. King of Obion County, Tennessee, arrested for plowing corn in his field on a Sunday.  King, a farmer by trade, was the first in his community to become a Seventh-day Adventist just five years earlier.  Arrested again a year later in 1890 for hoeing in his potato patch on Sunday, King’s case was appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Realizing its far-reaching implications, Adventists rallied around the case, but it was never heard, for King died on November 10, 1891.

And that’s “This Week in Adventist History.   

Thanks for watching Adventist News Network. Join us next week for more news from the headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

In the meantime, look for us on Facebook. You can connect with other Adventists worldwide and find links to all of our stories, photos and videos. Just visit Facebook slash Adventist News. 

Our good news for this week comes from first Corinthians, chapter thirteen. Verse two says, “For if I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and If I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” 

That’s our show for this week. Don’t forget, you can always visit news dot Adventist dot org for daily news and videos. Until next time, God bless.

-- transcribed by Carol Little

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