Plenary Sessions

Building a healthy small group ministry (Laszlo Szabo)
An African proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Small group ministry is essential not because it is one of the best methods for church growth and mission but because it is a partnership with mutual accountability, a community with personal benefits of belonging, and a fellowship to build up each other and grow in different areas of our lives. Because of its nature, long seminars and class presentations focusing on the cognitive conviction of participants can hardly move church members to start small groups. In this presentation, we study the biblical foundation of ministry in groups and its necessity in today’s modern society. We will also pay special attention to questions of didactic and appropriate team-based training opportunities that have been proven effective in motivating and preparing church members for small-group leadership.

The Centrality of the Sanctuary in the Pentateuch (Daniel Olariu)
The Sanctuary is one of the core teachings in SDA’s theology. Historically, the interest in this topic was triggered by the study of the eschatological prophecies in the Book of Daniel. Given such a hermeneutical trajectory, some still think about the results. In this presentation, which follows a more natural trajectory of reading the Hebrew Bible, we conclude that the sanctuary material constitutes the central part of the Torah, and is pivotal for the development of Biblical thought. The conclusion supports the SDA pioneers’ emphasis on the importance of carefully studying the Sanctuary’s constellation of ideas and concepts.

Cracking the Code of Secularism (Laszlo Szabo)
The present European context of the twenty-first century seems to be a historical challenge for most Christian churches: diverse secular and religious trends, the shift of focus from obligation to consumption even in local Adventist churches, the ‘feel-good factor’ replacing commitment, demographical challenges and declining local congregations… Our experiences teach us some lessons and force us to frame our message more authentically and convincingly to win hearts and minds for the gospel.

A Deep Calling: the pastor’s spiritual health (Tara VinCross)
The truth is simple to see, and more difficult to put into practice. Most of us recognize, following Jesus is not just about belief, it is about practice. It’s the daily practice of our faith that puts our beliefs into action. Being a disciple and making disciples is a life-long journey. But how does this work in the real-life demands of pastoral ministry? God is inviting us to practice discipleship, answering the deep call of God in our own lives, as we continue to lead others.

The Doctrines of the Sanctuary and Salvation in the Development of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (Denis Fortin)
Development is a normal process in the growth of a religious movement, and many things have changed in our denomination since the beginning of our church in the 1840s and its organization in 1863.  Our understanding of the doctrines of the sanctuary and salvation have developed over this period of one hundred and eighty years and they have influenced the development of our church. This presentation will briefly explain some of the developments to our doctrines of sanctuary and salvation, and how they impacted our identity as Seventh-day Adventists. We will also consider how these developments will continue to impact our identity in the future.

The Heavenly Sanctuary Interpretation and Understanding (Elias Brasil de Souza)
This paper examines the interpretation and understanding of the heavenly sanctuary in the context of Seventh-day Adventist theology, focusing on its biblical foundation. The study explores biblical passages that form the basis for the heavenly sanctuary doctrine in Seventh-day Adventism to deepen our understanding of the heavenly sanctuary's significance in the Bible and its role in shaping Adventist beliefs and practices.

How Long, Oh LORD?: The Problem of the Delay of Parousia (Laszlo Gllusz)
The problem of the delay of Parousia is one of the greatest challenges which Adventism faces in the 21st century. The extended waiting period is not only a theological matter, but also a pastoral issue: Christian hope does not seem to be any more a major concern to many church members. This presentation discusses Adventist responses to the crisis of delay and asks the question: Dare we believe that Jesus is coming soon?

LGBTQ+ and the Bible (Roy Gane)
There has been a radical upsurge in attention to persons who identify themselves as LGBTQ+. This has led to much renewed investigation of scriptural teaching on the issue. Many, including some scholars and some Seventh-day Adventists, have attempted to reinterpret relevant biblical texts to allow for homosexual practice, especially in a committed monogamous relationship. However, these attempts fail because the Bible clearly disallows any kind of homosexual practice, although it never condemns anyone for just being homosexual in the sense of having sexual attraction to members of the same gender. Misinterpreting biblical texts regarding homosexual practice carries serious implications for interpretation of texts dealing with other issues and for Christian family and social life. However, Christians should reach out to LGBTQ+ persons with Christ-like compassion and assist their challenging journeys in gaining and/or maintaining sexual purity.

Mediating Hope in Suffering: Adventist Mission in the Last Days (Wagner Kuhn)
Through His incarnation, Christ translates God’s good news into human reality, into human language. Jesus mediates salvation by communicating hope in an audible, visible, and touchable form. In him, God becomes human—he takes the initiative to bring divinity into humanity, to connect heaven with earth, and is thus calling us to do the same on behalf of the other, of the neighbor. By following His example of service, sacrifice, and suffering we witness of his love and grace, and are empowered to proclaim His soon coming in these last days.

The Pastor’s mental health (Torben Bergland)
Every pastor has a mind that has its unique history and experiences, its joys and pains, its strengths and weaknesses. What do our minds need for us to become whole?

The Pastor’s physical health (Torben Bergland)
Every pastor has a body. It’s a gift from God we often take for granted and treat without much care. How can we enjoy physical wholeness despite our body’s inevitable frailties?

The Pastor’s social health (Torben Bergland)
Every pastor is a social being, created as such by God. What are our social needs, and how may we become whole in community?

Reform (digitally) or die! (Samuel Gil)
People spend more and more time in the digital environment. This represents a new field of missionary work that can become a powerful communication tool at the service of the Gospel. This is a new "digital continent" where there are many different countries (applications), inhabitants (users), languages (formats) and customs (uses). How do I use my digital profiles? Why?

The Relevance of the Sanctuary in Postmodernism (Daniel Olariu)
One of the more intriguing paradoxes of the Postmodernist society is that, in an era dominated by social media, people are still crying from loneliness. The drama of God, as unfolded by the interplay of time and space in the Sanctuary, connects with the drama experienced by Postmodernist man. In addition, Sanctuary theology, when interpreted as a journey, connects with the need for increased mobility as required by our global society. Finally, the fears for the future receive an answer when the Sanctuary is approached as a memoir repository.

Sanctuary and Eschatology in the Book of Revelation (Ranko Stefanovic)
The presentation deals with centrality and role of the heavenly sanctuary in the last book of the Bible. The book is replete with the reference to the temple and its furnishing. The heavenly temple in Revelation has a fivefold function, two of which appear to be particularly significant to the central message of the book. It appears that the structure of Revelation is modeled on the Old Testament sanctuary service. The heavenly temple is presented as the center of all divine activities on earth. All the divine activities on earth are preceded by the divine activities in the heavenly temple. The sanctuary structure of the book renders a number of implications for the understanding of the central message of Revelation.

The Sanctuary and the Two-Phase Atonement. Soteriological Applications (Roy Gane)
Different kinds of Israelite sacrifices performed at the ancient Israelite sanctuary prefigured various aspects of Christ’s once-for-all sacrificial death, from which all atonement flows. Purification offerings (so-called “sin offerings”) remedied relatively minor sins and physical ritual impurities and resulted in transfer of residual symbolic defilements to the sanctuary in a first phase of atonement. Some defilements from rebellious sins also automatically defiled the sanctuary from a distance. The ritual defilements borne by the sanctuary, representing God’s administration, represented problems of theodicy for him when he forgives and cleanses faulty but loyal people or condemns the disloyal. These defilements were ritually removed from the sanctuary on the annual Day of Atonement in a second phase of atonement. This ritual cleansing on Israel’s day of judgment between the loyal and the disloyal signified that God is just and right in the ways that he treats people who accept or reject his sovereignty and the mercy that he offers through sacrifice. Following Christ’s death and ascension, he applies the benefits of his sacrifice as our high priest in two ways that were typified by the two-phase atonement at the Israelite sanctuary: forgiving sins and then justifying the retention of that forgiveness for the loyal in an end-time judgment between loyal and disloyal individuals among his nominal people.

The TED as Contemporary Mission Field (Anthony WagnerSmith)
Exploring the context and approaches to mission in the Trans-European Division

The temple of God in the New Testament, with special reference to 2 Thess. 2:4 (Laurentiu Mot)
The presentation will first highlight the various Greek temple-terms (e.g., hieron, naos, oīkos, hagia, skēnē, katoikētērion) and their general distribution throughout the NT, in the hope to grasp their core semantics. Then the study will proceed to discuss the phrase “the temple of God” in the context of 2 Thess 2:4. The apocalyptic-eschatological context of 2 Thess 2 facilitates the understanding of the temple concept in the NT, as this passage brings together prophecy, theology, and identity issues. Particularly interesting will be to see the man of lawlessness as sitting as, not in, the temple of God, which really makes the end-time events look like a Tale of Two Temples.