General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

How about we open the fundamental belief number 22? Is that official teaching of our church? Yes or no? It says...

We also have annual general conference statements.

God is waiting for a generation of Adventists who will demonstrate that Christ's way of life can truly be lived.

That Jesus did not set an example beyond the reach of his followers.

To him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne.

So he wants to give us the same victory like that.

And this is also reaffirmed by several general conference annual councils.

In 1973 and 1974, General Conference Annual Council discussed this teaching of perfection.

What is Annual Council, Justin? Just in case.

For those of you who may not know what Annual Council is, the General Conference Executive Committee, which is representatives from all over the world chosen by their local divisions and unions and conferences and your churches, all come together here.

And there's about, I forget how many members, between 400 and 500 individuals.

Yeah, somewhere

And it was Tuesdays that, I mean, I like them all, but there was Tuesday.

He raised this point, and you can find these.

These are all on the General Conference YouTube site.

Make sure you look for General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, though, when you're going, because there are other entities that call their meetings a General Conference.

Here we stand.

Our guest today is Pastor Ted Wilson, who served as his ministry began in 1974 as a pastor in New York and grew to include leadership roles in Africa, the Euro-Asia Division, and the Review and Herald Publishing Association before he went on to serve as president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for 15 years, from 2010 to 2025.

He currently also serves as a member of the Weimar University Board of Trustees.

Pastor Wilson, thank you so much for taking time to join us here today.

You don't own that money.

It's not your money, and God has set up a very specific understanding of what the storehouse is.

It is for the support of the ministry, the proclamation of the gospel, and I have to tell you that the general conference and the world field all over the world, they're very careful in how they use tithe.

Tithe is not to be used for construction of churches, for capital improvements, uh, that kind of thing.

I'll, I'll tell you this specifically.

I went to, uh, uh, Pastor Doug Bachelor when he was at the General Conference headquarters many years ago, and I told him I wanted to do the same thing that he was doing with his life.

I wanted to do that with my life.

And, uh, to make a long story short, um, my sister told me to go and speak to a few people, and, uh, it didn't go as well as I had hoped.

And it says in Philippians 3, 10, that I may know him, that I may know Christ, and the power of his resurrection, that I may know Christ, and the power of his resurrection to resurrect new life in us.

My wife and I, not long ago, a few years back now, were sent by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists to China.

We visited the largest Adventist church in the world.

It has about 6,000 members.

But while we were there, and I was to speak in that, and it was very interesting to speak in that afternoon service, I applied to the Chinese government, the Communist government, to speak, sent him my sermon, my material ahead of time, And, you know, it's rather disheartening for a preacher when they send you a rejection slip.

So the Chinese government said, no, you can't speak.

Pastor Finley, we don't have time enough to prepare an official visit for you, and because at that time I was vice president of the General Conference, we'd want to prepare an official visit, so you can't speak.

But you can give greetings.