Monday Meditation: Surviving a Church Split
For this week’s Monday Meditation, an interview from a couple of years back with John Van Patten, A PhD student in biophysics at the University of California, Berkeley. Speaking to Adventist Journey, a publication of the North American Division of the Adventist Church, Van Patten shares some eloquent thoughts about what happened following a split in the local congregation he attended while growing up.
“As a child that just broke me because I was separated from a lot of good friends,” he says. Yet as he got older and began to find a voice for leadership, he also worked to connect young members of the congregations, even as older members were still in conflict.
“I eventually convinced the leaders . . . to actually allow the students and young adults and kids to have church-sponsored events together where they could just have fellowship together,” he says.
You can watch the full interview below, which also includes Van Patten’s thoughts about he has approached the interaction of his faith and scientific career.
Alex Aamodt is managing digital editor of Spectrum
Title image credit: Screenshot from NAD Adventist on Vimeo.
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