"New Loyalties"
Annual Council Keynote Address, October 2, 1990
By: R S Folkenberg

The theme of our devotionals this week is "All Things New." I have been assigned the topic, "New Loyalties." There is danger in talking about loyalties. It is easy to be misunderstood. When a new president talks about "New Loyalty" I can imagine that it might make some people nervous. "Is he going to ask for new loyalty to himself?"

Those who have read the story will know that the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba is an illustration of misplaced loyalties. It demonstrated a collective dynamic called "Group-Think" where an unwillingness to contradict the boss resulted in disaster.

We need no politically motivated loyalties to people! What we do need is a new loyalty to Christ, His church and each other. Saul was a loyal person. No one could question where his loyalties were. We read in Acts 8:3 NIV "Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison." Saul was loyal alright but it was a misplaced loyalty. His loyalty was to tradition. When our loyalty is for programs and tradition it is a misplaced loyalty.

There is an inscription beneath Mark Twain's bust in the Hall of Fame which reads, "Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul." [Bartlett's p. 764] We will not break the lethargic Laodicean chain of apathy that holds some parts of the church in an indifferent stupor by loyalty to our petrified opinions.

Saul was loyal, but we need more then loyalty. On Saul's way to Damascus to prove his loyalty, he was confronted with a vision of Jesus, and his loyalties changed. Saul the loyal persecutor, became Paul the loyal missionary, because he had a vision of Jesus. Meeting Jesus totally changed his loyalties.

Paul met Jesus and was changed from follower of laws and traditions to follower of Christ. Unless the foundation of all our loyalties is the rock of Jesus Christ we will end up persecuting the truth rather then teaching truth. Loyalty to anything, without Jesus as the foundation, will eventually slip into destruction of the truth for the sake of the truth.

Paul's new loyalty to Jesus didn't mean the work of the Lord was a walk in the park. When the Lord told Ananias to go to Saul He said, "I will show him how much he must suffer for my name."(Acts 9:16) On his first missionary journey he and Barnabas; were persecuted and expelled from Pamphylia, escaped a plot to stone them in Iconium, and were nearly stoned to death in Lystra.(Acts 13,14)

Paul returned to Antioch with Barnabas. After all of these trials and suffering and you would think he could relax among "the brethren." We read in Acts 15:1 NIV "Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved."

Don't you imagine that having been persecuted in Pamphylia, and stoned in Lystra it was pretty discouraging to come back and be under attack from "the brethren!" Paul had a new loyalty to Christ, but now what happened to Paul's loyalty to the church when he was attacked by "the brethren?"

Acts 15:2 NIV "So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question."

He was appointed as a delegate to a church committee. Another church committee to solve a problem that he knew the answer to already! Did Paul need to go to the Jerusalem committee to find out the truth about circumcision? Did he need to check things out in Washington? Didn't he know the truth in this matter? Didn't he understand clearly that these Judaizers were in the wrong? Why did he go to the Jerusalem conference - when he had the truth?

Because Paul's loyalty to Christ was manifest in loyalty to the church. He went to Jerusalem even though he knew he was right and some brethren who mistreated him were wrong. Paul didn't start an independent publishing work to criticize other workers. He didn't tear down the church because he had the truth. The fact that our first loyalty is to Christ doesn't make us the Lone Ranger of truth. We work with the church and its leadership.

Paul was not only loyal to the church by going to Jerusalem but he was loyal to the results of the meeting. He was loyal to the message of the church. In Acts 16:4 we read "As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers."

A new loyalty to Jesus resulted in loyalty to the message of the church. The message of the church that came from the Jerusalem Council is interesting. Peter says, Acts 15:19 "It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God."

Don't make it difficult! There are circles in the church today that want to make it difficult to be loyal to the message! They wish to define the teachings of the church in ever narrowing circles. The remnant isn't a concept that the fewer there are the more special we are.... The Remnant is really a message to deliver ...not a club to belong to. The church's cistern of truth is maintained in purity by living the truth and sharing the truth, not by sealing it up in the theological legalese of doctrinal statements.

Not only do we need a new loyalty to the message of the church but to its mission as well. The mission of the SDA church is an integral part of its message.

The articles that appeared in Readers Digest Magazine and scientific journals about the mirror in the Hubble Telescope were uniformly appreciative of the fantastic mirror that was being placed into orbit into space. The mirror was ground to such a smoothness as had rarely been accomplished ever in the past.

If the mirror had been expanded to the size of the gulf of Mexico the largest irregularities would have only been waves of a few inches high. It was incredibly smooth, and a magnificent achievement. But they ground the mirror to the wrong mathematical formula.....There was a very small error and the mirror was ground perfectly wrong It was beautiful to behold-but it didn't work.

We have many programs that contribute marvelously to the mission of the church. We have a few others that are beautiful to behold on paper, but they don't work! A lot of people are busy working them, but still they don't work. The objective is not being met. I sense that the Church no longer wants to support programs that are not functioning. Programs and projects that are no longer accomplishing the mission need to go.

Our agenda for this Annual Council includes a full presentation of the services identified by the "McBride Report" as needing review. Some you will vote out of existence. Others you may decide to retain. The services which you decide to retain should be those which clearly contribute to the mission of the church.

Red Adair, the famous fire fighter who has been called to put out some of the most violent oil-well fires around the world, found that to succeed, his charges of explosive must be positioned precisely.

In order to accomplish the same here at headquarters, the General Conference Committee recently appointed a "Commission On Governance" which will review all our in-house operations.

After studying all the counsel that is available from Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy, they will try to define internal relationships. They will go on to review the composition and terms of reference of all 108 standing committees and the job descriptions of all employees. I hope they will then recommend changes that will make our work as effective as possible.

Why go through all of this? There are several purposes for both down-sizing and this structural review.

First, to operate as efficiently as possible in order to direct the maximum resources to the mission of the church.
Second, efficient operations build unity and credibility in the church and its leadership, both of which are indispensable for the Latter Rain.

It would be tragic if this process were to occur at the General Conference level alone. Consistency demands that we practice at home the steps we apply here at headquarters. The same standards should apply to everyone. The services offered by every church organization should be evaluated by those receiving the services. The General Conference is going to lead by example. I hope every other church organization and institution will follow that example.

Let me say a word about Global Mission. This succinctly describes the primary purpose of the church. However, there are some dangers inherent in the very words "Global Mission."

One is that people will think, "Well that's Global and so it must be the responsibility of the General Conference." Global Mission means not only entering Russia, China and Djibouti and the 20 other unreached countries with the gospel.

Global Mission means that each member, church, conference, congregation, college, hospital and union will identify specific evangelistic objectives and lay plans to reach them.

A second danger is that some will think that evangelism, baptisms and goals are no longer important. The unentered area, or penetration objectives, of Global Mission must be in addition to, not in place of, an ever-increasing emphasis on the soul-winning mission of the church.

Paul not only illustrates loyalty to Christ, the church, its message and mission but his life illustrates loyalty to people as well. Differences of opinion didn't stop the work.

You remember that Paul fired John Mark, and Barnabas picked him up.

Even though he fired him once, he later said, "Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry." (2 Tim. 4:11) Paul was loyal to people even if he had disagreements with them. Loyalty must not be interpreted as "do it my way." It is not loyalty at all, that "goes along with" someone's ideas even though you feel that they are not in the best interest of the church. We could use a new loyalty to each other.

Our church depends on a perishable commodity called credibility. Those of us in leadership positions ask our constituencies to trust us, to have confidence in us. They will not have any more confidence in us then we have in each other. They will have no more confidence in us then we have in them. Let's build that confidence by being fully open with them. By sharing the good news and the bad. We need a new loyalty to each other, and to our constituents.

Unfortunately, we have a tendency to highlight each others faults rather then good points. We act like the people in the California town that discovered three new earthquake faults running through it. They named the faults: his fault, your fault, their fault. No one is very interested in being identified with faults or problems.

This church is a family. As a family we need to be loyal one to another. That is why I am adamantly opposed to the "bad news press" that gets some satisfaction in publishing family garbage. We should question our experience as a member of the church if we get pleasure out of feeding on its refuse. Blowing out someone else's candle doesn't provide illumination, and publishing somebody's problems doesn't provide solutions. Loyalty doesn't ignore problems but neither does it use them as grist for the gossip mill.

Let's consider our most valuable asset for a moment...our young people.

Valuegenesis is the name of a recent study conducted in North America of Seventh-day Adventist young people. It is the largest study ever done on any denomination's youth. Project Affirmation commissioned the study and it is an effort to enact planned change in North America that will result in academically and spiritually sound education.

This study found that seventy percent of our young people do not understand the good news of the gospel. They feel little peace and assurance, for they believe their salvation is determined largely by their conduct. If we succeed in providing them the highest quality basic education, yet fail to teach them the beauty of assurance in Jesus,...we have failed miserably.

I think I can candidly say, we have a problem. We must find a way to make Jesus and the church relevant to our youth. They are vital to both the present and the future of this church.

We face the dilemma of all religious organizations as they mature. As we move farther from the fervor of the founders we face the difficulty of how to transmit the faith to our children.

There is a mounting fear that the bond of young people to Adventism may be loosening. It is time that the church capture the imagination of the young by passing on the dream of Adventism, by giving them a piece of the pie, if you please.

What do we do to make all this happen? I don't come as the answer man. I know we are doing some studies now that can point in some directions.

I also recognize that it is unlikely that any solutions will be equally applicable to all the divisions and cultures around the world. These answers must be sought and tailored to each area of the world.

Maybe we should ask the youth what they feel the church can do to make Jesus meaningful to them rather then devise activities independent of their participation. In order to model this approach in North America, Elder McClure and I are appointing a Presidential Youth Council, two-thirds of which will be youth. We are going to ask them to tell us what we can do as church leaders to meet these objectives.

Young people need to be involved. The church is not something that is handed to them on a silver platter when they graduate from school, or when they are old enough to play church. Our church has to demonstrate to its young its relevance to their life.

At times we have acted like curators in the museum of church, dusting the artifacts of religious life and trying to pass on the responsibility to the young who don't see the point.

Loyalty on the personal level is epitomized in the leadership of Moses. The people built and worshipped a golden calf. God said in Exodus 32:9-10 "I have seen these people," the Lord said to Moses, "and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation."

Moses went back to the Lord and pled on their behalf in Exodus 32:31-32 we read "Oh, what a great sin these people have committed. They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written."

That is identification with people, that is loyalty to each other. "Lord if you can't save my people, these stubborn critical people, don't save me." That is loyalty!

A friend of mine was working on a lawn mower that he was rebuilding. He started it, but the governor was not working - that device that controls the engine's speed.....

The engine ran faster and faster and faster and faster and would have disintegrated had he not been able to turn it off just in time.

I have been on the job only a short time and already I have been overwhelmed by the many centrifugal forces that are building to a destructive force in the church. I will mention just four.

First the theological forces. Each person is convinced that his or her opinion is a reflection of the truth for the church.

That is appropriate. The problem arises when one person's perception of the truth is promulgated in destructive ways. Truth used as a bludgeon is an abuse of truth no matter how Biblically accurate.

Second, the forces focusing on the conduct of fellow believers. We are beset on every hand with people who choose issues that they believe in all sincerity are the issues that will separate the sheep from the goats in our church.

Words are chosen to symbolize those issues and hurled at other people with very little rational reflection on the fundamental issues involved. What we are observing is really symptomatic of deeper concerns. People are anxious. They want "The Old Advent Movement" to move again. And so they are attacking issues they believe hinder that movement.

Third, strains between the organized church and independent ministries. There is a feeling in some quarters that we are in competition with self-supporting ministries.

I believe we should be on the same team. We have some wonderful, effective, soul-winning supporting ministries. I am proud of the service they contribute to our church.

Unfortunately, not all positive, mission-driven organizations. These give a bad name the term self-supporting ministry. They survive by creating a spirit of distrust, driving a wedge between unsuspecting members and the church and its leadership.

I want to welcome those supporting ministries which advance the mission soul-winning mission of the church.

There are some who fear the drain of money to these ministries. We will not stop, nor should we attempt to stop the flow of funds to those few self-supporting ministries which are reaching out to unsaved souls with the good news of the gospel. We will never increase the flow of funds to the church by seeking to shut off funds to others.

Our members need some criteria which will provide a yardstick to help them evaluate the validity of each of these ministries. It is time for leadership to clearly help our members identify those other groups which have chosen to follow more divisive paths.

Let's remember, we do not have a corner on the market of how to reach people with the Gospel. The advice Gamaliel gave the Sanhedrin is still valid today. If it is of man it will fail, and if it is of God we wouldn't want to be found opposing it.

We as church leaders need to be sensitive to the charges leveled against us. The most serious is that we do not adequately feed our flocks. We are called to prepare a people to meet the Lord. We should not let others make the claim that they are more loyal to the message than the church is.

Some say that if we preached the SDA message they would go out of business. Well it is time for us to see if they would, by being clear about our belief in the message of the church, and by not being hesitant to preach it.

Fourth, are the forces of financial concerns. Whatever savings we can accrue at the General Conference will never satisfy the thirst of each church entity.

I will tell you now, in case you did not know, there is not a pot of gold at the end of the General Conference rainbow.

Individualism that looses sight of the grand world-vision will not usher in the coming of the Lord. We need a vision that supersedes special interest groups. Cutting budgets may increase credibility but it isn't the panacea for resolving financial woes.

We know money isn't the problem. In God's treasure house there are unlimited resources available for the progress of His work. His problem is to find channels, unrestricted by selfishness, through which to pour out His blessings on His church.

The Christ-centered message of our relationship to God as His stewards is the only prescription He has provided to cure our souls from the cancer of selfishness.

A byproduct of our stewardship relationship with God will our willingness to return to God what is rightfully His and thus provide the resources necessary to advance His cause.

Lets commit ourselves to restore the importance of Stewardship education to its vital, life-saving role in the life of our members and their church. As Elder Bresee reminded the G.C. Committee a short time ago, "Let's not allow the urgent to supplant the important."

We will never administrate our way into the Kingdom. There is no perfect plan, program or policy that will alone finish the work. No human leader is wise enough to lead a church through these shoals unscathed. Ultimate triumph will only come as we recognize that Christ alone will lead us through.

I sometimes feel that the church is a pressure cooker on the fire of a secular culture. Pressure is building that causes one to fear an explosion.

It is the measured release of pressure that drives a locomotive.

If we don't find a way to release pressure that will drive the church toward its mission the pressure will lead to destruction.

The story is told of a steam train that was climbing a steep hill. The engineer wanted everyone to look out the windows of the train to see how steep the hill really was so he blew three long blasts on the whistle. Everyone looked out of window to see the train roll to a stop. - the engine lost its head of steam when it blew the whistle. Let us release steam in work not in whistle blowing.

A man went into the store with the sign in the window, "Pants pressed here." He brought his pants in and laid them on the counter. The clerk said, "Oh no we don't press pants here we just sell the signs."

Brothers and Sisters it is time we quit just selling the signs. It is time we quit just blowing the whistle. It is time we started experiencing the message.

I don't suggest increased commitment. Many of you are already fully committed.

I don't suggest we all work harder. Many of you work too hard already.

I don't suggest some new program. We have all the programs we need.

I don't intend to put us on a guilt trip. Let us not preach Righteousness By Faith in the pulpit and practice Righteousness by works in the field. Let us not preach grace in the pulpit and works at workers meeting.

It is time for us - not to say to those we serve as leaders - "why can't you do better?" It is time for us to say to those we serve as leaders, "Come let us kneel together and pray for a new vision of Jesus."

Brothers and Sisters I don't want to just sell signs, I want to see a vision of Jesus. Ellen White's first vision was of the Advent people on a straight and narrow path that led to the New Jerusalem.

She said of the people on that path, "If they kept their eyes fixed on Jesus, who was just before them, leading them to the city, they were safe." (EW 14)

Like Paul on his way to Damascus we are also on a road. It is a road to the New Jerusalem. Like Paul, we also must have a new vision to give us new priorities and the vision is a vision of Jesus.

Our people will flock to an experience of the Gospel seen in the leaders. Our workers will rally around leadership that has seen a vision of Jesus. Our young people will follow leaders who celebrate their love for Jesus.

It is time for a new vision of Jesus that will change our priorities. A vision of Him will give us new loyalty to Jesus, the church, its message, its mission, and its people.

I say to you: "Come let us kneel together and pray for a new vision of Jesus."

Copyright ^© 1990 by R S Folkenberg