Reviewing the Review: Lay Power edition
July 17, 2008
Vol. 185, No. 20
GENERAL COMMENTS
This is an above average issue. I have only two Bouquets to award; no article deserves a Black Eye. Editors, thanks for publishing my letter. Now work harder with your authors. The overall writing quality is uneven.
BOUQUETS
Women’s Empowerment Key to Church Culture Shift
Reported by Ansel Oliver
Women are now serving as church elders in Southern Mexico, and the Adventist Church is coming alive! This report is a MUST READ.
Fishing in a Global “ChurchPond”
reported by D. Dwayne Adams
This story is a testament to what lay members can accomplish without official church support. If I were spending General Conference funds, I’d provide grants to assist lay men and women in realizing their humanitarian and evangelistic dreams.
Today, without official sponsorship, ChurchPond has its own Web site, which streams live and prerecorded programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Letters, e-mails, and phone calls come in
from around the world—Australia, China, India, Trinidad, Jamaica, the African continent, Korea, Europe, and across the United States.
Even though only two pieces have earned a Bouquet for their uplifting message and special interest, I do have a few pats on the back.
ARTICLES
Howard Was Here
a story by Michelle Sabo Kendall
Neighbors like Howard and Betty set the standard.
DEPARTMENTS
The Church Has Left the Building
by Fredrick A. Russell
According to Russell, “most churches have ‘cocooned’ themselves behind closed doors, while the greater world outside see those on the ‘inside’ as having nothing to do with their lives”. He has also become “increasingly skeptical about the value of putting huge dollars into church structures”. For him, what happens outside the building determines whether or not a local church is a light “set on a hill that cannot be hidden”.
EDITORIALS
Young Adventists Offer Church Hope
by Mark Kellner
Walla Walla students Becca Parshall and Mensink and Janelle Walkonis raised $37,000 for an orphanage in Zimbabwe. Their story is an affirmation of faith in the future of the Adventist Church.
Eveready
by Stephen Chavez
This comment is memorable. “Too many Adventists sing, ‘Is my name written there?’ instead of, ‘Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it!’”
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Andy Hanson is Professor of Eduction at California State University, Chico and blogs at Adventist Perspective.
