Youngest Delegates Part of an Exclusive Club
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Looking at the faces of the 2,000 delegates who will over the next few days make decisions on policy affecting the Seventh-day Adventist Church for the next five years, Mark Howard and Aira Arina stand out. Howard, the student body president at Oakwood College, in Alabama, United States and Arina, a church planter from Latvia are the youngest delegates attending the 58th business meeting of the world church. |
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Mark Howard, 20 (center), shown here with Don Scneider (l), president of the Adventist church in North America, is one of 35 delegates under the age of 30. [Photo: Gary Burns]
Aira Arina, also 20, help to start a church for young people in her native Latvia. [Photo: Kelly Coe]
Looking at the faces of the 2,000 delegates who will over the next few days make decisions on policy affecting the Seventh-day Adventist Church for the next five years, Mark Howard and Aira Arina stand out.
Howard, the student body president at Oakwood College, in Alabama, United States, and Arina, a church planter from Latvia, are the youngest delegates attending the 58th business meeting of the world church. Both 20-years-olds reflect a church membership that conservative reports place at 60 percent under age 30. They and 33 others make up the small group of this age range.
"Being here at these meetings is a great opportunity to see how the church operates behind the scenes," said Howard, a history major. "You get to meet more people as well as give a young person's perspective on different issues discussed by the church."
Arina is the youth director of the Adventist Church in the Baltic countries of Latvia and Lithuania. She helped establish the "Korinth Church," which world church President Jan Paulsen visited in May. Arina said she wants to make a difference and make Christianity available to all.
"Riga is the 'Las Vegas' of Latvia, so having this in mind, we wanted to create an informal environment where people from different backgrounds would feel welcomed. We wanted to show them that God is real and make Christianity alive," she said. Korinth has about 60 members, 31 of whom are baptized.
"It's important for the youth to be willing to get involved, and that starts at the local level. We are the church of tomorrow, and need to participate now so that we will know what we're doing later on," Howard said.
Even though these delegates are younger than the main delegate body attending the General Conference, they said it's not hard to get to know more experienced members. And, since they participate in their local churches, both are familiar with the issues discussed and the process involved.
Young adult delegate representation is less than in the 2000 world church session in Toronto, Canada, where there were 45 delegates under 30. "There could be more young people," Howard concluded, but "I'm looking forward to learning new things from those who are older and putting it to use for years to come."
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