Make an Impact on Independent Adventist Journalism in 2019
Dear Friends,
What a year in Adventism! A backstory for you about one of the biggest news events.
It was August, time for picnics in the park, vacations, and the last days of summer fun. Annual Council was still six weeks in the future. Checking email one evening before heading to bed, I found a message with the minutes of the General Conference Administrative Committee meeting attached. Casually, I scrolled through the various actions looking for something about the committee that had been referenced in the July document “Regard for and Practice of General Conference Session and General Conference Executive Committee Actions.”
Aha, here was the action on the committee. I looked at the list of names, turned the page, and there was another committee and then another and another. Five compliance committees: one for core policies, one for the Fundamental Beliefs, another for issues surrounding homosexuality, one for teaching of origins, and also one for issues of ordination. I kept going back over the pages and the many names of people on the committees. The system of compliance committees took my breath away. What had started as a single issue had been changing every year — from women’s ordination to unity to church authority and then to compliance, and now that compliance issue had just multiplied five times. Where would it all end? We broke the news of the committees the next day on the website.
In the days and weeks since then, we have been inundated with materials from individuals, churches, conferences, unions, and divisions. The controversy has brought an ever-growing number of people to the Spectrum website, new subscribers to the journal, and an expansion of the understanding among church members of the value of an independent press.
Looking ahead to 2019, we know there will be more surprises. We look forward to researching, documenting, and writing the stories that will come. And we ask for your continued support in the form of a year-end gift. It is your contributions that have made possible our ever-expanding work on the website, Facebook, and Twitter. You have helped us grow and meet the information challenges of our community. Please help us fund more reporters, more coverage of this important time in our church life.
Click here to donate via our secure online donation form. Learn more about additional ways to donate to Spectrum, including giving stock, airline miles, and more on our Donation page here.
Thank you for your support of independent Adventist journalism, a unique mission inspired by the very first Adventist publication: Present Truth.
Happy New Year,
Bonnie Dwyer,
Spectrum Editor
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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