Schedule of events and speakers at the London Seventh-day Adventist church in May 805 Shelborne Street, London, ON

Date Speaker/Facilitator Event

May 7 Alex Golovenko Radical Health 11 am May 7 Alex Golovenko Mission 316 “Mission Europe: for secular atheists” 6 pm

May 14 Fred Stele Sarnia pastor speaks for worship hour 11 am May 21 Edwin Onyango Worship Hour message 11 am May 28 Abner Lopez Youth pastor from Windsor speaks at the Youth Rally 11 am May 28 Abner Lopez “Sex in the city”- youth living holy in today’s urban jungle 2:30 pm

Where there is a will...

Do not pass-over the importance of writing a will,

Did you know that if you or your family die without a will, the province in which you live will decide what to do with your estate and belongings? If you have children who are still minors, the provincial government through the Public Trustee will decide who will raise and care for them. Children might even be taken into public custody until their legal guardians are determined.

The provincial government has its own impersonal formula for the distribution of your estate, placing the government as the first receiver of taxes. Money or assets end up going to place and persons you would never wish for.

Under government regulations each child will receive a proportion of the estate created by the pre-established formula, regardless of how well established or need each may be, regardless of what their age maturity is, regardless if they have a secure income or are still in school.

Without a will there will be no special gifts to a lifelong friend, or bequest to your favourite charity, or church. To put it short – without a will no concerns for your thoughts would be addressed.

One reason many people never get around to writing a will is thinking that it is costly. Our family had a will done last month and it was completely FREE! Ontario Conference trust services has a free service to all members, no obligations, no “guilt tripping” to give tithe to the church. Sitting down with elder Vernon Langdon was very educational and comfortable experience. Adventist Trust services do Wills, Power of Attorney & Annuities - all for FREE! All you have to do is contact the Conference office at 905-571-1022 and ask for Vernon Langdon or Alvin Ram.

Welcome to worship God with us

805 Shelborne St. • London, ON • N5Z 5C6

(519) 680-1965 • www.adventistlondon.ca

Read inside:

Adventist Education Challenge

Global Tithe Index

Women Elders

Ordained

Why are we on the web When you Google two words

“Adventist” and “London” the very top of the page comes our church! And NO! We did not pay Google for that, such an advertisement cost us nothing. Even if you are in England, the moment you type those two words our site pops up.

The reason – traffic of visitors that had checked our site over the past 6 years has generated such a number of hits that we become “known.” It is an accumulated result of efforts thanks to earlier developers: Jean Kaleb, Nathan Dowdell, George Perez.

Ritchi Pandaleke, our current webmaster, who brought the latest site update, shared this past Wednesday that we had visitors from Germany, England, Seychelles, Columbia. When I checked stats later few more countries were listed – Brazil, and England. And that’s with 83% of visitors having “masked” servers. I got an email from England last week asking if we would broadcast Mission 316 seminar, of which they read in our on-line bulletin. There are emails of gratitude for notes of Adventism 101 lectures from 2008-2009. And this is just a beginning of our church influence.

Internet church exists 24x7, where visitors could listen sermons, lectures, seminars, and communicate on forums with church members. Live broadcast of our worship hour, and video-loop of reruns is also available.

Why are we doing it? Consider our church history with media in 1920-1950: In 1920s as radio came into homes of people in 1920s In 1926H.M.S. Richards, Sr., made his debut in radio in central California by broadcasting on the local stations of Fresno and Bakersfield.

On May 1, 1934, the General Conference Committee voted that “we encourage a more extensive use of the radio and public press by our evangelists, pastors, and conference officials, thus making these important inventions serve more definitely as vehicles for the carrying of the message into the very homes of the people.” In 1937 Richards continued his radio ministry with donations, his broadcast became known as the Voice of Prophecy. The Pacific Union Conference assumed sponsorship of the broadcast, and in 1941 the General Conference Autumn Council made the Voice of Prophecy a national broadcast sponsoring it financially by the union conferences of North America. Just as TV began to enter into households in 1950s, already in 1950—Faith for Today began broadcasting its television program in New York City for the purpose of reaching a potential audience of “millions.” In 1955 George Vandeman developed a plan of evangelism to produce 30-minute films in color for television release. The idea was to “combine mass communication with public evangelism and personal contacts made by laymen.”

There are “watersheds” moments in human development. Just as Radio, and Television had its era, today we are in the Internet era. How do you get information today? Most of families are on the internet for news, for mail. Especially young generation. It’s the world of “bits” today. And you can be sure that one day our Lord will ask “What did you do with bits I gave you?”

Internet is our way of Evangelism.

as Adventist education goes, so goes the denomination

Will we be growing in North America, in Canada, in London a few years from now?

Dr. Ella Simmons, Adventist Church vice president, is positioning the denomination to hold formal conversations on Adventist Education.

In an interview with Adventist

news the challenge: “We must be committed to

education as internal evangelism as we are to external evangelism. The Lord holds us accountable for both. There must emerge a renewed understanding of true education as redemption as the future of our church through the salvation of our children, youth and their families.

“It's just time in our history, especially at the rates at which the church is growing in membership and simultaneously losing young people at alarming rates that we need to reengage ourselves with the foundations of Adventist education and articulate the definitions and expectations to new and grounded members as well. ...We certainly need to make it possible for Adventist education to be understood and operated within the realities of our myriad cultural and geographic contexts.

Network Dr. Simmons shared

www.lacaschool.com

http://www.aiias.edu/gti/reports.html

Women-elders Ordained On April 30th 2011 the London Seventh-

day Adventist Church celebrated ordination to eldership of two hard working ladies, Lucy Simoes and Teresa Ferreira

Both had been elected by the Church for

this service in December of 2009. They have

been examined for knowledge, the

congregation witnessed their gifts, they

confirmed their commitment to Jesus Christ

and the Seventh-day Adventist Mission.

On the Sabbath morning the congregation

affirmed them through liturgy expressing their

trust and promising to uphold them in their

service.

Both of them are doing Evangelism at its

best, mingling with people, serving their

needs, building their confidence in Christ.

Sister Lucy Simoes has capably led as the

Clerk, building archives and now has been

leading and developing the Children’s Ministry,

coordinating Children’s Church, Adventurers,

VBS, Family Network and planning for more.

Teresa Ferreira has led this church as

servant organizing deaconesses, and deacons,

social events, modeling hospitality,

representing the church with the Elementary

School. Under her leadership our Community

Services made our church to be an Open House

for people in need.

They join on our leadership team two other

ladies who had been ordained as elders in the

past, Clara Baptiste and Kathy Rayner.

1st Timothy 5:1-2 in the original Greek

speaks on the role of both male and female

presbythers, which is not a term of old age, but

of influence and leadership. King James

translation renders “elder women.”

When one understands that New

Testamental leadership is not about lordship

but about service, not about supremacy, but

about ministering, the whole argument about

leadership takes a new direction.

We believe in the priesthood of ALL

believers (1st Peter 2:9). It was the loud cry of

Reformation, that did not get fulfilled in time.

Our chruch is steadfast and devoted to fulfil the

Vision of Jesus for his people to be the royal

priesthood, indiscriminately of gender, race,

age, and qualified by the Holy Spirit and by

personal relationship with God.

May God pour his blessing on the ministry

of our new elders, that the work He began

through them will be brought to perfection.

Since 2004 Claude Richli compiles a country by country

global tithing index showing trends of contributions and comparisons of tithe returns on a basis that factors out the country’s’ economic standard specific to those nations. Here’s the formula that is used:

GDP per Capita ÷ (Tithe/capita x 10) = GTI His latest report is analyzing the 2009

giving pattern. Following are portions of his report:

“You wouldn't know there's a global recession by the increase in tithe that some countries have experienced lately. God’s people continued to respond faithfully to the biblical command to "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse" (Malachi 3:10).

“Seventh-day Adventists in the tiny Central American nation of Belize and the country of Papua New Guinea have boosted their tithing by 41 percent. In Asia, the nation of Bangladesh recorded a nearly 36 percent increase in tithe.

“A country is emerging as a local financial powerhouse in Africa. After years of civil war, normalcy has returned to this particular country, rich in natural resources. Angola is positioning itself for a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity and the tithing skyrocketed 489% in the past five years. This African country has the potential to become the equivalent of Brazil for Latin America, Korea for Asia, and Germany for Europe.

The Adventist population in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru “lost” a significant number of members due to membership audits, yet all three South American countries shown a marked increase in tithe compared to the year before. Faithful members, though much smaller in number, have become even more faithful.

There is also evidence that as the global crisis came to bear on God’s people, a number of wealthy individuals were able to liquidate some assets or decided to renew their commitment to God and show their faithfulness.

Richli’s 48 pages report is available online for all to read.

As I looked through the index I thought of

our multicultural congregation, where people from over 50 countries gather together to encourage one another in faith.

Many recent immigrants still support their countries of origin financially, contributing with what they can to the growth in their homeland. I wonder if some of those patterns and worldviews are affecting our local giving too.

Country of Zimbabwe has had the worst inflation ever, with the GDP of $100 per capita, yet their giving ratio is the highest! The church has over 620,000 people and the giving in proportion to their income is the greatest! Another not so wealthy country of Eritrea with membership of just over 500 people also shows strong commitment to the cause, listed 3rd in percentage of giving.

The rest in the top 10 of givers are European countries: Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Portugal, Slovenia, France, Italy.

Our Canada takes 23rd place in consistency and generosity of giving. My home-country of Ukraine is 29th right behind Poland (28). Central American countries are trailing last, even though their GDP rates are better than some European countries. India closes the list with huge discrepancy between membership and giving. Some explain it that the growth there occurs only among the lowest cast and poorest in the nation.

Regions where the church is adding members the fastest need to follow up with a discipleship program, teaching people stewardship, connecting people to the Mission, inviting to be participants, to bless others, to contribute for the common cause.

Global

Tithe

Index