Plucked Out

As the new millennium dawned, I found myself searching for meaning and purpose in my life. I had just dropped out of law school. The realities of property law and the hypercompetitive dog-eat-dog nature of it simply weren’t my cup of tea. While trying to figure out my life’s purpose, I worked in the mailroom and interned for the Universal Music Group. Then the cataclysmic events of September 11, 2001, hit, and the global war on terrorism came in its wake. Things were different, and all the changes fanned my desire to study and understand our church’s prophetic message for myself. That is when a friend of mine introduced me to two young adult speakers who were boldly preaching from the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy.

It was inspiring to see such boldness in my peer group. I joined their young adult Bible study group and began to study the pillars of our faith. I started to read the writings of Ellen White with fresh eyes, no longer suspicious of her as a Victorian relic of the nineteenth century, but considering her relevance today. Little did I know I was part of a nationwide revival of Seventh-day Adventist young adults seeking a deeper understanding of our prophetic message.

Into The Deep

About this time I was accepted as a graduate student in history, and returned to school while simultaneously getting my teaching credential. It was a time of many changes that were happening effortlessly. As my interest in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy grew; all my past interests became secondary. 

One Sabbath our Bible study group visited a little church in the middle of the high desert. When I stepped into the building, I was amazed at what I witnessed. I felt as though I had been transported back to a church service in the early Advent movement. The Sabbath School was taught from the quarterlies the pioneers used, and it was not a discussion group, but a Bible study. The song service exclusively used the hymnal and Scripture songs—and the singing was vibrant with enthusiasm. The pastor also led an army of Bible workers who looked solemn, disciplined, and ready to fight the forces of darkness. The potluck was completely plant-based and delicious. And there were many visitors in attendance.

The church pastor preached the sermon with power and authority. The way he preached was how I imagined the prophets of old preaching. He gave the impression that he could walk on water. He preached from the Bible and quoted from the Spirit of Prophecy, ending with an appeal for baptism to which many visitors (whom the Bible workers had been studying with and had brought to church) responded. Immediately after the sermon the baptistry was opened, and scores of precious souls were baptized.

We owe it to ourselves to study the Bible for ourselves.

It felt like a snippet of Pentecost, when thousands were baptized in one day. The service lasted for four hours, but it felt like time had stood still as we basked in the powerful moving of the Holy Spirit. The pastor had a charisma about him that made you feel as if you could conquer the whole world with the gospel. He gave especially young men a sense of purpose. We felt that no matter what opposition we might face, we would prevail. I started attending the church faithfully, wanting to learn ministry from this pastor and his Bible workers.

While attending graduate school, I would make the one-and-a-half-hour drive to church every Sabbath for worship and every Wednesday evening for the midweek service. Others would drive close to three hours every Sabbath to hear the pastor preach. I felt as though I was part of an exclusive group that would save the church with “present truth.”

But what seemed so perfect began to unravel. A friend shared with me that there were serious concerns about the pastor. Reports of angry outbursts and rudeness from the pastor started surfacing. Newly baptized members would attend church for a few weeks and then go back to their old ways—sometimes falling into worse destructive patterns than before. Bible workers would mysteriously disappear from church attendance without notice. 

Other friends began to share with me some serious moral and financial allegations against the pastor. “These have to be Satan’s attacks,” I reasoned with myself. “They’re mere rumors. This is the most perfect church that I have ever attended, so these things can’t be so.” Then it got personal. My friend, who was the pastor’s protégé, was physically assaulted by the pastor, who also withdrew opportunities for my friend to preach and teach in the church. Not surprisingly, my friend and his family left the congregation.

With allegations swirling around, the pastor doubled down on sermons promoting the notion that our congregation was an elite group that would, with apostolic power, save true Adventism and finish the work. He employed a persuasive “us against them” rhetoric, claiming that all the other congregations in the Adventist Church, all its schools and institutions as well, were in apostasy. Ultimately, the employing conference revoked his ministerial credentials, but not without repercussions.

The majority of the congregation was completely loyal to the pastor, and in a business meeting, the church voted an ultimatum to the conference, vowing that they would not accept any other pastor. The conference eventually had to disband the church.

While the pastor and his loyal parishioners established an independent church I chose to quietly leave the congregation. The focus was no longer on winning souls, but on fighting the conference leadership. Allegations of spiritual, physical, and verbal abuse multiplied as victims came forward, and in time many were proved true. Broken marriages, rifts between family and friends, and a renouncing of anything Adventist became a recurring theme for many who had been part of this pastor’s congregation. Good men were also affected as collateral damage—talented men of good character with a heart for ministry who preached with power had their ministry reputations ruined because of their affiliation with the fallen pastor.

Lessons Learned

In my case the trauma and pain from this experience was limited, I believe, for a few reasons. First and foremost was the fact that I was studying the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy for myself. Yes, I admired the preaching of the pastor, but my spiritual experience was not exclusively from him. The Bible says: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15, KJV). Ellen White counsels that “it is not enough to have good intentions; it is not enough to do what a man thinks is right or what the minister tells him is right. His soul’s salvation is at stake, and he should search the Scriptures for himself.”[1]

For instance, as I studied justification by faith, I came across this statement from Ellen White: “[Justification by faith] is the third angel’s message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in a large measure.”[2] It became clear to me that the “us versus them” mentality had no place in gospel ministry. I realized that no matter how righteous we may appear, we all are broken and in need of a sin-pardoning Savior.

Another factor that helped me was that my fellowship was not exclusively at that specific congregation. I still had ties with my original Bible study group. I had a mentor pastor and evangelist friends that I still communicated with on a regular basis. And I attended regional and national youth conferences in which I was exposed to a diversity of speakers that preached the three angels’ messages. The Bible says: “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety” (Prov. 11:14, KJV). On the other hand, many individuals who were irreparably hurt by this pastor reverenced him as though he were the source of all truth. If anything, my experience is a warning that no ministry or congregation, no matter how righteous it may appear to be, has a monopoly on truth.

Sadly, I see what I witnessed almost two decades ago repeating itself more broadly in the digital age. There is an almost celebrity or cultlike devotion to certain speakers in the digital spaces of YouTube and Facebook. Some speakers have garnered huge populist followings for denouncing the church establishment as being corrupted by outside nefarious forces. And because of social media, this “us versus them” and the perceived “exclusivity of truth” that these speakers preach has a global reach, transcending borders. 

A parallel phenomenon is the lack of personal reading and studying of the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy. Many would prefer to listen to a speaker on YouTube rather than diligently study the Word of God to understand truth for themselves. As the Advent movement was founded upon the importance of Bible study, it is vital for each member of the church to study the Bible for themselves.

No speaker or ministry has exclusive access to present truth. From my experience I learned that the enemy of souls plays to win at all costs. Offering a glass of water that appears pure and refreshing to parched thirsty souls, he taints it with a drop of lethal poison. We owe it to ourselves to study the Bible for ourselves. Not only to protect us from these cults of personalities that come and go, but to continue to grow in our understanding of who Jesus is as we press together and declare, as did Ellen White, that “the last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love.”[3]

 [1]Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1911), p. 598.

[2]Ellen G. White, Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1923), p. 92.

 [3]Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1900, 1941), p. 415.