By Colleen Tinker
Last week the Seventh-day Adventist Executive Committee met for its Annual Council at General Conference headquarters. During the session, president Ted N. C. Wilson dedicated the 2019 Missionary Book Of The Year.
In keeping with the Adventist organization’s commitment to meeting people’s felt needs by conducting free health screenings, vegetarian cooking classes, and doing community clean-up projects around the world, this year’s book is co-authored by Willie and Elaine Oliver, “Family Ministries Co-Directors for the Seventh-day Adventist World Church”. Entitled Hope for Today’s Families, this book helps to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Adventism’s Family Ministries department next year.
The Adventist organization uses its yearly Missionary Book as a “witnessing tool”. The Adventist News Network reports that Almir Marroni, the publishing director of the Adventist organization, has said, “if every church member gave away one book per week, 1 billion books would be distributed in one year.”
“This has tremendous potential!” Almir said.
Co-author Elaine Oliver says, “All of us, regardless of whether we had great families or not so great families, are in families. We, as a Church, give hope to people and…now we have an opportunity to say to people, ‘We have hope for your family.’ Everyone can relate to that.”
The Prophet’s Mandate
The Adventist Book Center has this 96-page book available at special rates for bulk purchases of ten, 100, or 1000 books. Local churches and members will be urged to distribute this book widely to help fulfill Ellen White’s mandate. The Adventist News Network says this:
“Publishing work in the Seventh-day Adventist Church began with a vision. Ellen White, Church co-founder, was shown the early Adventist pioneers should print a ‘little paper’ and circulate it among the people. From this seemingly insignificant beginning, ‘streams of light’ would flow, flooding every corner of the darkened globe. And, while today’s advanced technology allows us to spread the gospel with the click of a mouse, personal literature ministry is still as important as it was 170 years ago.”
From its beginning Adventism has used printed literature effectively both to instruct its members and also to proselytize new members. Because Ellen White had a vision mandating this type of outreach, the organization remains committed to the personal contact involved in handing out literature and using it to entice people to the Adventist lifestyle and beliefs.
Adventism has been growing, especially in developing countries. In fact, its size and influence, accomplished partly through it humanitarian programs such as Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) and its health message, have resulted in the organization’s beginning to use the phrase “World Church” in naming and describing itself. Officially, the name of the organization is Seventh-day Adventist Church, but they have begun to use the words Seventh-day Adventist World Church both in print and in their news videos.
Experts at marketing themselves to appear Christian and “normal”, Adventists will again, in 2019, distribute thousands of copies of yet another book written with the intention of beguiling people into wanting what they offer.
Adventists are caught in a trap that cuts them off from truth. They need the gospel, and they need to know that there is only one source of authority: the Bible. As they prepare to sweep the world with Hope for Families in 21019, Christians everywhere need to understand that the “nice person” who hands them a copy of this booklet needs to know the true Jesus whose work of atonement is already finished. †
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