Category: Insubordination

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Church governance Church Manual Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) delegated authority Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity E-60 Gary Patterson General Conference General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio General Conference Working Policy Insubordination NAD Working Policy Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Unilateral Action Unity Utrecht General Conference Session 1995 Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

Questions & Answers regarding current issues of unity facing the Church

Last year a document was released that quite succinctly answered some of the key questions in the present controversy over unity and the ordination of women. That document was titled Questions & Answers Regarding Current Issues of Unity Facing the Church. We reproduce this document here in hopes of lending it wider circulation. This document was subtitled, “A response by the General Conference Officers and Division Presidents” (i.e., the top 25 world leaders of the Adventist Church).
We also remind visitors to this site that CAP has made available a document summarizing developments of the past five years titled E-60 and the WO Endgame, which is also quite useful in understanding these developments. Finally, a third document addresses similar policy questions as the above and may be helpful. That document is titled Church policy, Church unity, and Women’s Ordination.

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Church governance Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity General Conference General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio General Conference Working Policy Insubordination NAD TOSC Report NAD Working Policy NAD Year-end Meeting Ordination Without Regard to Gender Ted N.C. Wilson Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Unilateral Action Unity Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

Ted Wilson: The State of the Church

State of the Church – Ted Wilson from GCComm on Vimeo.

BREAKING NEWS. This video was released late on the afternoon of Thursday, November 14, 2013. In it, Pastor Ted N.C. Wilson, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, shares a “state of the church” address. The release of this message directly to the church viewership in this way is unusual. Wilson tells about the powerful movings of the Holy Spirit upon the church round the world right now, but also shares four special concerns which are weighing on his heart. Included among these is a special concern over disunity and some segments of the Church ignoring the agreed policies by which the church works together.

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Adventist Today Church governance Church Manual Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) delegated authority Distinct roles Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity Ellen G. White Gary Patterson Gender General Conference General Conference Working Policy Headship Insubordination Kevin D. Paulson Male-sex specific roles NAD Working Policy North American Division (NAD) Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Pacific Union Conference (PUC) Raj Attiken Seminary Spectrum Magazine Unity Utrecht General Conference Session 1995 Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

Church Policy, Church Unity, and Women's Ordination

Kevin D. Paulson takes a look at the authority of the General Conference. He responds to charges presently being published on other websites that the General Conference, in asking that Unions not ordain women, has exceeded its authority. Gary Patterson offers such ideas. Paulson checks them against the Working Policy. FIND IT HERE.

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Annual Council Church governance Church Manual Columbia Union Conference (CUC) Congregationalism Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Culturally driven E-60 General Conference General Conference Working Policy Headship Insubordination Larry Kirkpatrick NAD Working Policy NAD Year-end Meeting North American Division (NAD) North Pacific Union Conference (NPUC) Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Pacific Union Conference (PUC) Polity Sandra Roberts Sandy Roberts SECC SECC constituency meeting Seventh-day Adventist Church Southeastern California Conference Ted N.C. Wilson Unilateral Action Women's Ordination YEM

E-60 and the WO Endgame

Pastor Larry Kirkpatrick has investigated in particular the history of the past five years that have brought so much disunity to the world church. He tells the tragic backstory of these developments in “E-60 and the WO Endgame.”
First, download (the accompanying chart) that will help the reader understand the sequence of developments and print it out. Then FIND THE PDF VERSION HERE or the standard HTML/mobile version HERE.

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Church governance Church Manual Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity E-60 General Conference General Conference Working Policy Insubordination Male-sex specific roles NAD Working Policy North American Division (NAD) Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Polity Sandra Roberts Sandy Roberts SECC Seventh-day Adventist Church Southeastern California Conference Unilateral Action Unity Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

SECC elects woman president

Constituents of the Southeastern California Conference (SECC) voted today directly contradicting the global position of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA). The SDA Church does not accept Women’s Ordination or the placement of women in the conference presidency. But today, October 27, 2013, the SECC made Sandra E. Roberts its president. The vote occurred during the Quinquennial Constituency meeting held at the La Sierra University Church in Riverside, California. The SECC has been a subsection and interlocking unit of the world SDA Church.
The president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Pastor Ted N.C. Wilson phoned Pacific Union president Ricardo Graham Saturday evening and stated that such action, if voted, was out of policy, and that the General Conference would not recognize her as president. (SECC is part of the Pacific Union.) This information was shared with the delegates. During the meeting, several delegates spoke in opposition to the action and in support of the world church. But eventually, the majority voted to elect Roberts.
Southeastern California Conference is a part of the 18 million member Seventh-day Adventist Church. The Church has been carefully organized as an interlocking community. Local members are joined in their local church congregation; these congregations are organized together as conferences; conferences are organized together into unions; unions are organized into divisions of the General Conference. The whole in combination make up one united Seventh-day Adventist Church.
SECC’s meeting was a conference constituency level meeting; the most authoritative administrative body of the Church is the General Conference session. Delegates gather together from round the globe for General Conference sessions every five years. The most recent session was in 2010 and the next in 2015. The meeting enables Spirit-led collective decision making.
In 1990 and 1995 General Conference sessions the Church rejected proposals to permit individual divisions, unions, or conferences (like SECC) to ordain women. As a global organization connecting congregations in more than 220 nations, every subsection of the Church is committed to adhere to determinations offered in General Conference sessions. Unilateral contrary actions—such as that today voted by SECC—are disunifying in nature and prima facie evidence of direct opposition to the world church.
Voted action by 567 SECC delegates has now placed Ms. Roberts and SECC in exactly such a position.
What next? In just four days (Oct. 31) North American Division Year-end Meetings begin, where those gathered include the NAD conference presidents. But current Church Manual (p. 32) and current NAD Working Policy (E-60, p. 244) explicitly prohibit a woman from serving in this position. The North American Division will not be able to include Mrs. Roberts as a presidential participant in its meetings without joining itself to SECC in premeditated opposition toward the world church. All eyes will be on the North American Division and its president as it opens its Year-end Meeting.
The world church is watching the North American Division. After all, ultimately it was NAD’s change of Working Policy E-60 in 2010—and later recognition of its having exceeded its own authority—that led NAD President Dan Jackson to instruct NAD unions on January 31, 2012 concerning how to “move this matter forward” and “consider new approaches,”

“The North American Division and its Unions and Conferences (as local circumstances permit) must become more intentional in the development of pathways to ministry for female pastors. We must also develop intentional methods of mentoring women who can take on executive leadership positions within our conferences. . . . We must continue to move this matter forward throughout the North American Division. . .” (See E-60 Letter, Dan Jackson, http://ordinationtruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/nadletterdanjackson-e60.pdf).

In the same letter, Jackson admitted that in adding the word “commissioned,” NAD had erred and indicated that the word “commissioned” would be removed from NAD Working Policy in the 2011-2012 edition. Thus, NAD Working Policy presently states that “a conference/mission president should be an ordained minister of experience.”
Ms. Roberts does not meet this requirement. Nevertheless, the NAD now has what they wanted—a woman in an executive position of leadership.
But, as much as some NAD officers might like to, the NAD—even president Jackson—cannot with impunity include Mrs. Roberts as a voting participant in the 2013 Year-end meeting in contradiction to NAD and GC Working Policy.
The NAD, already on precarious ground, claiming to respect and stand in harmony with the Church, now has opportunity to show itself part of the world church—by upholding the authorized practices of the world church.
The crisis which has been caused by the NAD has now landed again on their own door step. The global Adventist Church will have evidence whether or not the NAD officers shall demonstrate true respect for the sisterhood of Adventist churches round the world very soon now. On October 31, NAD shall either respect the world church and disallow Ms. Roberts’ participation in the Year-end Meeting, or, they will include her, in demonstration of a spirit of opposition to the world church.

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Ad Hoc Committee on Women in Leadership Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity E-60 General Conference Headship Insubordination North American Division (NAD) North Pacific Union Conference (NPUC) NPUC Executive Committee NPUC Supporting Pastors Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Sandra Roberts Sandy Roberts SECC Seventh-day Adventist Church Southeastern California Conference Unilateral Action Unity Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

Announcing the Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP)

NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP)
PO Box 19424
Spokane, WA 99219
OrdinationTruth.com
cap-contact@runbox.com
NPUC, October 25, 2013: Seventh-day Adventist Church members, especially within the North American Division (NAD) territory, continue to be subjected to a misguided and disunifying drive for the ordination of women to pastoral and administrative headship positions. Actions continue to be taken by conferences, unions, and the Division itself attempting to force this change. Consider briefly recent developments demonstrating what appears an attitude of rebellion toward the General Conference.
One decisive step came on January 31, 2012, when the North American Division president wrote to officers, telling them that

“The North American Division and its Unions and Conferences (as local circumstances permit) must become more intentional in the development of pathways to ministry for female pastors. We must also develop intentional methods of mentoring women who can take on executive leadership positions within our conferences. . . . We must continue to move this matter forward throughout the North American Division. . .” (See E-60 Letter, Dan Jackson, http://ordinationtruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/nadletterdanjackson-e60.pdf).

Action was swift after NAD president Jackson’s encouragement that NAD Unions be more “intentional.” Just 36 days later, the Mid-America Union Conference Executive Committee voted to ordain “without regard to gender.” Attempt was made to move the NPUC “forward” similarly (but delayed in this Union’s case by the creation of an ad hoc study committee).
Nevertheless, by summer, constituency sessions of the Columbia Union Conference on July 29, 2012 and the Pacific Union Conference on August 19, 2012 engaged in actions clearly defying General Conference session actions. These Unions voted to ordain persons to the gospel ministry “without regard to gender.” They voted to place women in positions biblical principle has reserved to males.
In contrast, another group of pastors, church officers, and laity within the territory of the North American Division, insist that unity be maintained with the world church. Seventh-day Adventists said “No” to women in men’s roles initiatives in 1990 and 1995 General Conference sessions. No unit is independent. All church members and organizational units are bound to respect those decisions until the General Conference in world session votes a change in policy.
But the spirit of independence has continued and is intensifying. On October 27, 2013, the Southeastern California Conference (SECC) constituency may vote a woman president of that conference. Therefore, the church workers who operate OrdinationTruth.com have been led to promote unification with the world church and discourage insubordination and disunifying activities in the NAD and its unions.
The “North Pacific Union Conference Supporting Pastors” (NPUC-SP) came into being in December 2012 and launched the website OrdinationTruth.com on February 4, 2013 after the NPUC Executive Committee had announced that they would “educate” church members in respect to “ordination without regard to gender,” then, as Columbia and Pacific Unions, hold a special constituency meeting centered on the topic.
NPUC pastors have been contacted by those who take a similar anti-insubordination position in other unions within the North American field. The pastors are ready to work with others wishing to organize. This news release announces their new identity collectively as the “Council of Adventist Pastors” (CAP).
Sections may further organize themselves by Union territories into union-region based “chapters.” The name “Council of Adventist Pastors” (CAP) now becomes the main designation for this group and potential subgroups crossing the North American Division.
A conscious decision has been made that OrdinationTruth.com not limit itself to issues in the North Pacific Union Conference only but also to address questions being asked throughout the Division. Because the Union monthly magazines (Recorder, Gleaner, Messenger, Outlook, etc.) have been presenting only one side of the question, OrdinationTruth.com exists to provide a different perspective—especially from the excluded voices of Seventh-day Adventist Pastors and members opposing WO. CAP participants state that all sides of a question should be made available, and that the presentation only of a pro-Women’s Ordination position is unsatisfactory; the Church deserves better.
To this end, the group has, since the launch of OrdinationTruth.com on February 4, 2013, published numerous pages of opinion, analysis, news, theology, and commentary on Women’s Ordination, Unity, and kindred topics. Henceforth, the name of NPUC-SP is changed to “Council of Adventist Pastors, NPUC Chapter.” OrdinationTruth.com is operated on behalf of all CAP and shall continue to function in consultation with other CAP chapters.
CAP invites interested church members worldwide to peruse the materials published on OrdinationTruth.com. Those materials are presented in support of the perspective widely held by church members and many workers throughout the NAD and the world church, insisting the Church search out God’s design in these matters together as a body, and stand united together in practice. For the sake then of the membership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church worldwide, the Council of Adventist Pastors takes up this mantle.
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Church governance Church Manual Congregationalism Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity Ellen G. White General Conference Insubordination OrdinationTruth.com Polity Repentance Seventh-day Adventist Church Unilateral Action United Methodist Church Utrecht General Conference Session 1995 Wayne Kablanow Women's Ordination

Congregationalism—How will it end?

Pastor Wayne Kablanow has been observing trends, and identifies an important part of what is going on behind the drive for Women’s Ordination. Hint: It is a different form of church governance. Curious about his article? FIND IT HERE.

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Church Manual Columbia Union Conference (CUC) D 10 delegated authority Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity E-60 General Conference General Conference Working Policy Headship Insubordination Ohio Conference OrdinationTruth.com Oregon Conference Pacific Union Conference (PUC) SECC Seventh-day Adventist Church Southeastern California Conference Unity Upper Columbia Conference Women's Ordination

Required Church Manual and Bylaws president text

The NPUC Supporting Pastors/CAP (name explanation forthcoming) sat down and checked what several years of Church Manuals as well as the current governing documents of the Seventh-day Adventist Church say about the requirements for the leader of a conference or union. Perhaps readers as constituents of our conferences and unions are interested in the results? Then read Required Church Manual and Bylaws President Text.

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1 Timothy Attitude Church Manual General Conference Insubordination North American Division (NAD) OrdinationTruth.com Pacific Union Conference (PUC) Sandra Roberts Sandy Roberts SECC Seventh-day Adventist Church Southeastern California Conference Unilateral Action Women's Ordination

SECC defies world church, nominates Roberts president

The Southeastern California Conference (SECC) has nominated Sandra Roberts to serve as president of that conference (http://seccsession.org/nominating-committee-report, accessed 2013-09-18). The nominating committee recommendation to delegates is that the constituency session to be held on October 27, 2013 vote to appoint Ms. Roberts to this position. Roberts is currently executive secretary of SECC. However, the Seventh-day Adentist Church, in harmony with biblical principle, throughout its history has ordained only males to this leadership role. The current edition of the Church Manual, states that:

“The conference president should be an ordained pastor of experience and good report. He stands at the head of the gospel ministry in the conference and is the chief elder, or overseer, of all the churches” (Seventh-day Adventist Church Manual, 2010 ed., p. 32).

The position of conference president is one of male headship. The Adventist Church has nothing against any particular “she,” but the church has indicated that this is a “he” position. The pastor who functions as president “stands at the head of the gospel ministry in the conference.” The apostle Paul stated the authority principle clearly in 2 Timothy 2:12:

“I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet” (ESV).

The highest position involving the exercise of authority in a conference is that of its president. No unit which is part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church has authority to appoint a female person to this male-specific office. Two General Conference sessions (1990, 1995) forbade any such innovation. If, on October 27 constituents vote as their nominating committee recommends, by this act they shall place Southeastern California Conference in an unambiguous position of voted rebellion against the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

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Church Manual Culturally driven Doctrine of Unity Gender General Conference Homosexuality Insubordination Queer Theology United Methodist Church

UMC 2012 GC Session: Division over homosexuality and aftermath


In May 2012, delegates of the United Methodist Church gathered for their General Conference Session in Tampa, Florida. A key item in the meeting was the question of whether or not to retain language in their Book of Discipline (their Church Manual) stating that homosexual practice is sin. When the main attempt to remove this language failed to pass final committee, the pro-homosexuality group turned to plan B, a compromise position. On that, the vote was… Well, you’ll know the answer if you watch this short video. The Methodist Church in General Conference voted to ordain women as pastors in 1956. Theology has consequences, and what paves the way for one practice also paves the way for future changes when cultural trends are ripe.