Reflecting on the Global Mission of the Adventist Church

Ever since I became converted in college, I have believed that the Adventist Church, "was organized for missionary purposes."¹ Contrary to what others may think, the Adventist Church is not just a social club, nor is it an employment, development, educational or temperance club. It is, "a mighty mission movement, galvanized into action by the Lord Jesus Christ, for the express purpose of winning lost people to Jesus."² Now, I am thankful for the many good things the Seventh-day Adventist church does. The extensive medical, educational and community development programs of this church are a great contribution to making life better for the church, and citizens of the countries where the church works. But as one author I read decades ago wrote: "Compared to evangelism, everything else the church does is like rearranging the furniture while the house is on fire." I agree with Burrill that, "the church has no other reason for existence than the winning of the lost."³

The Seventh-day Adventist church earnestly believes in its mandate to bring the everlasting gospel to the whole world. The seriousness with which this church desires to finish the Lord's Great Commission is nowhere better shown than when the General Conference launched the Global Mission initiative in 1990. We seldom hear about the beginnings of this very important, paradigm-shifting initiative. Yet how we do things in Adventist mission, and what the church seeks to engage in today, has been strongly influenced by it.

I began my mission career the year before the historic launching of that initiative. The Church, in obedience to the Lord's desire, "to see the entire church devising ways and means whereby high and low, rich and poor, may hear the message of truth,"⁴ launched a very ambitious program called Global Mission during the General Confession session in 1990. It was ambitious, because its stated goal was, "to establish an Adventist presence in each of the 1,800 untouched groups of 1 million people, before A.D. 2000."⁵ Statistically speaking, this task would mean, "planting at least one new church, every other day, in these unreached areas" within 10 years.⁶ But such ambitious goals, developed into plans and actions, are why I am proud of this church. The goal of Global Mission was exciting and challenging. Young as I was then, I could sense a fresh exuberance among church members and leaders. There seemed to be an expectation that with such massive planning, reorganization, and mobilization, the church might be able to accomplish the impossibly huge task of preaching the everlasting gospel, to "every race, tribe, language, and nation," (Rev. 14:6, GNB), in ten years' time!

Currently, many of the young adults of our church probably think Global Mission was simply a department in their conference that oversaw mission projects. They do not realize the worldwide movement and shift of emphasis that the Global Mission initiative stood for. They have not seen the excitement, but only the waning interest. Perhaps that is why the General Conference decided to change the name of the department to Adventist Mission – to differentiate the department, from the pivotal, Adventist missiological movement called Global Mission. But I think we need to recapture what Global Mission really was all about, as well as the philosophy that pushed our leaders, as represented by Neal Wilson back in 1985, to call for a global strategy.

Historical Backdrop of Global Mission

From an Adventist perspective, the Global Mission initiative came in response to the challenge of GC President, Neal Wilson. He lent his political will to the massive Seventh-day Adventist organizational machinery, to begin initial research into the status of the church's work among the unreached. Five years later, the church launched the Global Mission initiative during the General Conference session in 1990.

There were several historical threads that merged to foment the interest and motivation to formulate a strategic global Adventist mission initiative in 1985-1990. The trickles that actually contributed to the big river called Global Mission, were the mission-movements and missiological thinking of the Protestant world. We owe the terms, "unreached peoples," or, "unreached people-groups," as well as the, "10/40 Window," to them. Let me briefly recount these sources before reflecting on what Global Mission should mean to us today.

Three Shifts in Protestant Mission Emphasis

Continental or Coastland Mission Era

The modern Protestant missionary movement, (1800s to 1910), began with an English shoemaker, who became an ordained Baptist minister and later a missionary, by the name of William Carey, (1761-1834). Back in those days, foreign missions were almost non-existent. He was convinced that the non-Christians in foreign lands also needed to hear the gospel. He was impressed with the dedication of early Moravian missionaries who sold themselves as slaves to a British planter, so they could share Christ to the 3,000 slaves on his West Indies plantation. Carey would go to bed with his Bible and a world map tucked under his pillow. He wrote a pamphlet to challenge the Protestants, entitled: An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. He was not only up against the indifference of common church members towards the plight of the unreached — even church officials were resistant to his plea. One of the higher clergy of his day actually scolded him saying: "Young man, sit down! You are an enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he'll do it without consulting you or me."

In 1792, he organized a missionary society which was instrumental in sending him and his family to India. Eventually, he saw in his lifetime the beginning of a small movement of British and American missionaries to different continents. We owe to William Carey the famous missionary slogan: "Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God." He is credited as the "Father of Modern Missions." He himself served in India for the rest of his life. He started a mission movement with the goal of going to every continent with the message of Chris. It was the continental, or coastland era of mission, (1800-1910). If they had one motto, it would probably be: Reaching Unreached Continents. Their goal was eventually reached. Today there is no continent without a Christian church.

How did the continental or coastland Protestant mission trends affect Adventist mission? The same rationale that Protestants had for leaving the shores of Christian Europe and America, to go to the non-Christian continents, the Adventists had. However, for Adventists, the target was predominantly to convert Protestants and Catholics who were living there. This was the case, even when Adventist missionaries went to non-Christian continents. The Adventist Church also launched not just its own mission board along the lines of Protestant American mission boards; we also started our own Missionary Volunteer Society. This is a carry-over of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Mission that had mobilized thousands of college graduates all over America and Britain.

Inland Territories or Country Mission Era

In 1865, a young missionary to China named Hudson Taylor, (1832-1905), felt a burden to bring the gospel to the interior provinces of China. Back then, mission agencies worked only in coastal cities like Shanghai. Going to the interior, far from the comforts of port cities, was not part of the mission strategy of the day. Hudson Taylor founded a mission agency with the intent of going to the interior of China. His mission organization called, China Inland Mission, founded on the "Faith Principle," which means that missionaries wait on God "to provide — not on a salary from their mission board,"⁷ succeeded in recruiting several hundred missionaries for the interior of China. Hudson Taylor began the so-called Inland Mission movement. His agency, (now called Overseas Missionary Fellowship or OMF), gave rise to "faith missions," such as, Sudan Inland Mission, Africa Inland Mission, Korea Inland Mission, etc. From 1865 to 1980, the inland mission mentality was very much the thrust of missions. Mission agencies, even those that were not "faith missions," aimed at penetrating every country on the map.

The strategic terminologies for this mentality are, "territories", "countries," and "inland." The goal was to establish a beach head, or "presence," in each country. The goal was geographically defined. If there was a slogan back then, it would be: Reaching Un-entered Countries. Again, as in the previous mission era, the second era of missions has pretty much accomplished its mission goal of reaching every country with the gospel. Except for the fact that new countries are born with the shifting of power in old countries, all the countries mission agencies targeted during this era eventually had a Christian presence, if not a church.

How did the inland missions movement affect Adventist mission? The faith mission principle encouraged many "supporting ministries," and "independent ministries," to launch out on their own, without the funding, or the blessing of the denomination. Many went out to work in countries and territories where the Seventh-day Adventist Church did not exist, doing the work that the denomination was either unable to do, or were not doing enough.

Unreached Peoples or Frontier Mission Era

In the late nineteen seventies, three evangelical missionaries came on the scene to redefine the emphasis in mission strategy. Cameron Townsend was a young Bible translator in Guatemala, who, like William Carey and Hudson Taylor, "saw that there were still unreached frontiers"⁸ for the Christian Church. He realized that while there had been many churches established in Guatemala, there were still hundreds of tribes in the Amazon jungle that were unreached. He also perceived that these tribes represented thousands of languages worldwide where the Bible had not yet been translated. He tried to encourage mission boards to target these overlooked tribal peoples of the world, but ended up starting his own mission agency, called Wycliffe Bible Translators, (which eventually led to the founding of the Summer Institute of Linguistics).

While Cameron Townsend was taking seriously the linguistic barrier to missions, a missionary in India by the name of Donald McGavran began highlighting the seriousness of social and cultural diversity. He began promoting the concept of working with what he called "homogenous units," (known today as "people groups.") He founded the school of world mission in Fuller Seminary, (Pasadena, California), and became the "Father of the Church Growth Movement."

A third person, who took up the concepts already being promoted since the 1980s by Townsend and McGavran, was Ralph D. Winter. He was a missionary professor who was instrumental in calling people's attention to thousands of people groups all over the world that were unreached. He promoted the concept of frontier missions.

This third era of mission has been ongoing up to the present. The watchword in Protestant mission today is, Reaching Unreached People Groups.⁹ A slogan shortened to Reaching the Unreached, is one the Adventist Church has been using since 1985, when Neal Wilson challenged the church to reach the unreached.

How did this third mission innovation affect the Seventh-day Adventist missiological thinking? We began to use terminologies like "unreached," "people groups", and slogans like "reaching the unreached." We also began to make use of Protestant resources to research the status of many of the unreached peoples in our territories.

The frontier mission emphasis also was foundational to the organization of lay Adventist mission agencies like Adventist Frontier Missions, and its sister organizations, (Philippine Frontier Missions and Myanmar Frontier Missions), which, while they are not a part of the denominational structure, they work closely with the SDA Church. It also influenced many of the leaders of the Church to restudy how missions were being done among the non-Christians. The Global Mission initiative was founded on the principle of reaching unreached people groups, (although Adventists decided to change their definition of unreached as being a population segment of 1 million without an Adventist presence, instead of the more realistic Protestant definition that is based on ethno-linguistic characteristics, rather than population size).

Early Adventist Mission History

The SDA Church came onto the mission scene right when the continental and inland mission mentality overlapped each other. On the one hand, there was still the colonial, continental, coastland drive of many Protestant mission boards. On the other hand, there was the prodding to go to the interiors of non-Christian continents. The impact of these competing missional thinking is more observable in later decades, than at the beginning of Adventist mission history. Strategic overseas issues and missional thinking were not even in the minds of the early Adventist pioneers. When the Church was organized in 1863, it did not have enough members and churches in the United States to sustain itself, let alone to think of sending missionaries to non-Christian continents and countries. It was to take nearly a decade more, before the Seventh-day Adventist Church would send its first denominational missionary overseas. And even when it sent its missionary, it was not to a non-Christian region, but to the Christian continent of Europe.

Actually, it was remarkable that the Seventh-day Adventist Church even began to send missionaries overseas, considering that right after the Great Disappointment on October 22, 1844, Sabbatarian Adventists, (as they were known then), were anti-mission. They believed that the door of mercy had closed on the world, and that they should limit their evangelistic outreach to other Millerites. Again, a little story would not hurt at this point.

George Knight tells us the story of how in 1863, right after the General Conference was organized, the Review reported that they were sending B.F. Snook as a missionary to Europe before the year was out. This did not happen, perhaps because the General Conference really did not have enough staff to allow them to send Snook overseas. But there was a minister who was very interested in going. His name was Michael Czechowski, an ex-Roman Catholic priest from Poland. Apparently the General Conference refused to send Czechowski as a missionary because he was relatively new in the faith, (he was converted in 1857), and he was perceived to have "personal instabilities."¹⁰ Czechowski found a way around this hindrance by applying for missionary sponsorship to the Sunday-keeping Advent Christian denomination. The following year, in 1864, Czechowski arrived in Europe, began public evangelism, published a periodical, and circulated tracts in Switzerland, Italy, Hungary, Romania, and other countries of Europe.

Even though he was supported by a Sunday-keeping denomination, he preached the Seventh-day Adventist message, and was successful in planting Sabbath-keeping congregations, (except that they did not know they were Seventh-day Adventists!). However, his congregation in Switzerland eventually discovered the existence of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in America. They wrote to the American Adventist leaders, and as a result, were invited to send a representative to the 1869 General Conference session, to the chagrin of Czechowski. The Swiss representative arrived too late for the GC session, but stayed on for more than a year to be grounded in Adventist doctrines. By the time he returned to Europe in 1870, he was already ordained as a Seventh-day Adventist minister. Thus, technically, the first official Seventh-day Adventist minister to travel from America to Europe was this unnamed Swiss minister. Providentially, this contact with Czechowski's Swiss congregation, and that Swiss minister's visit to the United States, moved the Church to seriously consider sending a missionary to Europe. It still took four more years before the General Conference was able to send J.N. Andrews and his family to Europe. Incidentally, the year 1874 was also the year the Battle Creek College, (which became Emmanuel Missionary College, and eventually Andrews University), was established for the primary purpose of training mission personnel for the home field, as well as for foreign fields.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church had indeed blossomed into a missionary and mission-sending organization. Reversing the trend of Europeans coming over to the United States to preach, the Seventh-day Adventist Church began to send missionaries to the former missionary-sending countries in Europe. Adventist missionaries successfully established congregations in countries with a majority of Christians in Europe, Australia and Africa. However, as Knight observes, the prevailing Adventist "view of missions was shortsighted."

At this stage Adventists believed that their purpose was to call other Christians (generally Protestants) out of their churches and into the third angel's message. As yet, Adventism had little or no vision of mission to the 'heathen' or to the great Roman Catholic fields in the New World.¹¹

As the Church moved to South and Central America, and to the Philippines, in the early 1900s, this sense of mission expanded to include the Roman Catholic fields. But the mission view of Adventists remained a mission to the Christian world, not to the non-Christian. This is not to say that the Church did not touch fields that were Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist. The fact that there are Adventist churches in a majority of the world's countries, prove that Adventist mission was a widely cast net. Yet the predominant understanding and thrust of Adventist missionary endeavors has always been to reach other Christians with the Adventist message.

Development of Adventist Mission Understanding

The Adventist understanding of mission has undergone several modifications in the past 169 years. There have been at least six major shifts in mission understanding. In the late 1840s, Adventists saw their mission as merely to other disappointed Millerites. Their mission was characterized by a shut-door, anti-mission orientation.

This changed in the 1850s. As Adventists saw many non-Millerites becoming converted to the gospel, they realized that the door of probation could not have been closed on the world. They began to work among other people in the United States. At this point, the Adventists saw their mission was to reach the various peoples of the United States. Some of them even suggested that by reaching all people in that country, they would have reached the world, "since America was composed of immigrants from everywhere."¹²

But in the 1860s, that mission understanding, (that the message should limit itself to American soil only), was seriously challenged by Czechowski's successes in Europe, and by contact with his Swiss congregation.

1874 was a pivotal time in Adventist mission understanding. From that time, until 1887, Adventists began sending missionaries to Protestant nations outside the United States. The mission and practice was to call out Protestants from their fallen churches. It was not until the 1890s that Adventists began to realize that the remnant message needed to go to all the world, and not just to Protestants.

From the 1890s into late 1950s, Adventists began to to include Roman Catholics and other Christian groups in their mission concerns. During this period, Adventists also began sending missionaries to non-Christian lands, but the standard procedure for work was always to go to the Protestants, or Catholics, in these countries first. Consequently, Adventist work has been established largely among the Christian population, even in non-Christian lands.

It wasn't until the 1960s, that Adventists began to seriously consider the many non-Christian peoples of the world. Missionaries were sent to pioneer the Adventist message among Muslim, Hindus, and Buddhists, as well as to animist tribal people. The Adventist Church began to hold conferences, and to set up study centers to find ways to more effectively reach these non-Christian people. Because their orientation and evangelistic resources were geared towards Protestant and Catholic audiences, these new religions were areas in which Adventism had not particularly excelled.

This most recent shift in Adventist mission understanding culminated in 1990 with the launching of the Global Mission program, which aimed to send missionaries to the most unreached people segments of the world – a majority, if not all of whom are non-Christian. This last shift in mission understanding has largely benefited from Adventist reflection on the same issues tackled by Protestants in the continental, inland, and frontier mission eras.

This shift from where Adventists were, in their mission understanding at the beginning of the century to the present, is rather remarkable. As Oosterwal points out:

The relationship of Adventism to the living world religions has only recently become a major theological challenge. The pioneers of Adventist mission were unconcerned with the issues involved in this challenge …. They worked under the assumption that the world was, in essence, a Christian world, with the few pockets of "heathenism" to be taken care of by other Christian organizations.¹³

This repeated broadening of Adventist understanding of The Three Angels' messages, and how such "ever-fuller comprehension" has progressed, that has provided the "motive power to push back its missiological frontiers," is nothing less than God-led.¹⁴ The "Copernican revolution in Adventist missionary thinking," from one that focused on Millerites, Protestants, and Catholics, to include Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and the non-Religious, is seen today in the tension "felt in our concepts of mission and methods of evangelism, in our self-understanding, and in our relationships with people of other faiths – Christians and people of other religions alike".¹⁵ This was ushered in by the "growing realization among Adventists that the living world religions were not just isolated pockets of heathenism," but were in fact, "perhaps the most formidable challenge to Adventist mission in the twenty-first century."¹⁶

Where Are We Today?

Needless to say, just as in the Protestant mission scene, there have always been tensions between the three mission emphases and their proponents. We find the same tension between the "old school" of Adventist mission, and the newer, Global Mission practitioners. With such a large body of believers that come from various backgrounds, or who were brought into the church by various means, there will perhaps not come a time when we will have only one emphasis in missions. For the moment though, I am thankful that the direction of Adventist mission is still towards identifying the unreached, and finding ways to reach them effectively.

Today, as Seventh-day Adventists, we have something to rejoice about. This Church is one of the world's fastest growing Protestant denominations. It has a presence in 209 out of 232 countries that are recognized by the United Nations.¹⁷ As of June 30, 2012, it has a membership total of 17,592,397.¹⁸ It has more than 73,526 churches, and 67,276 companies, and adds 6 new churches and 7 new companies each day.¹⁹ It gains an additional 3,120 new members per day, or an average of 1 million per year. But as we rejoice over these accomplishments, we need to be very careful. As Burrill observes, "the church has always tended to be content with what it has accomplished – and fail to keep on going".²⁰

The Adventist Challenge

Actually, the challenge is just as great, if not greater today, than when the Adventist pioneers first preached the remnant message. There are 7.13 billion persons in the world today, 4.32 billion of which are non-Christians.²¹ As we look at the 232 political entities, we realize that the 24 which do not have any known Adventist believer, and no organized Adventist work,²² are located in the 10/40 Window. This is the region between West Africa, the Middle East and East Asia. These countries are among the most difficult places to establish an Adventist presence, because of the absence of religious freedom.

24 Countries without an Established SDA Work²³

1. Afghanistan 13. Maruitania

2. Aland Islands 14. Morocco

3. Brunei 15. Monaco

4. Comoros 16. Occupied Palenstinian Territory

5. Falkland Islands (Malvinas) 17. St. Pierre & Miquelon

6. Gibraltar 18. San Marino

7. Gibraltar 19. Somalia

8. Greenland 20. Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands

9. Holy See 21. Syrian Arab Republic

10. Jersey (Channel Islands) 22. Tokelau

11. North Korea 23. Western Sahara

12. Maldives 24. Yemen

Religion-wise, Christians, the traditional Adventist target, form only one-third of the world's population. For every one Christian, two are non-Christian. The ratio of 1 Seventh-day Adventist for every 400 non-Seventh-day Adventists in the world²⁴ ²⁵ may sound good - until we realize that that means Adventists represent only 0.25% of the world's population.

Linguistically speaking, the Seventh-day Adventist Church is represented in over 924 languages and dialects.²⁶ Again that sounds like a great accomplishment - until we read that our planet has at least 13,000 ethnolinguistic groups. Thus, Adventists work in a mere 7% of all the ethnolinguistic groups of the world.²⁷

Is there Hope for the Future?

There is a saying in the Philippines: "As long as one has life, there is hope!" There is hope for the Adventist Church to eventually be united in reaching the unreached. Today, there are more Adventists who are studying Islam, Buddhism, and Chinese religions, for purposes of outreach, than at any other time in Adventist history. They do not only study mission history and theory, but they also merge missiological reflection with field practice. What brings me hope here is not the honing of human ability and intellect, but the seriousness and commitment with which many Adventists are tackling the task of reaching the last remaining unreached.

(Source: Joshua Project)

I am also hopeful of the results of the current emphasis on revival and reformation in our ranks. This is a painful, though necessary step, to receive the promised power of the Holy Spirit, who alone can carry us forward to the accomplishment of His mandate. If we as a Church will sincerely desire to receive the promised Spirit, we would soon be an awesome, undefeatable mission force.

Finally, I am hopeful that in spite of the many ills and shortcomings of this Church, we will eventually find the right direction in mission that will pull the larger Adventist body into united action. The Lord has shown us over and over, that He can steer us in the right direction, at the right time. As the Lord's messenger reminds us:

In reviewing our past history, having traveled over every step of advance to our present standing, I can say, Praise God! As I see what God has wrought, I am filled with astonishment, and with confidence in Christ as leader. We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.²⁸

Works Cited

(2003). 2003 Annual Council Statistical Report. Silver Spring, MD: GC Office of Archives, Statistics and Resarch.

(2013). 2013 Annual Statistical Report: 149th Report of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for Year Ending December 31, 2011. Silver Spring: Office of Archives, Statistics and Research.

Burrill, R. (2007). Reaping the Harvest. Fallbrook, CA: Hart Books.

General Conference - Adventist Organizational Directory. (2013). Retrieved September 13, 2013, from ASTR: http://www.adventistdirectory.org/ViewAdmField.aspx?AdmFieldID=GC

Knight, G. R. (1999). A Brief History of Seventh-day Adventists. Hagerstown: Review & Herald.

________. (1999). Remnant Theology and World Mission. In J. L. Dybdahl (Ed.), Adventist Mission in the 21st Century (pp. 88-95). Hagerstown, MD: Review & Herald.

Oosterwal, G. (1999). Adventism Faces the World Religions. In J. L. Dybdahl (Ed.), Adventist Mission in the 21st Century (pp. 45-53). Hagerstown, MD: Review & Herald.

SDA World Church Statistics. (2011). Retrieved September 12, 2013, from Adventist.Org: http://www.adventist.org/world-church/facts-and-figures/index.html

Trim, D. (2013). Supplement to the 2013 Annual Statistical Report. Silver Spring, MD: Office of the Archives, Statistics and Research.

Quick Statistics on the Seventh-day Adventist Church. (2012). Retrieved September 12, 2013, from Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research: http://www.adventistarchives.org/quick-statistics-on-the-seventh-day-adventist-church#.UjEM_z9kOpo

What is the 10/40 Window? (n.d.). Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Joshua Project: http://joshuaproject.net/10-40-window.php

White, E. G. (1922). Christian Experience and Teachings of Ellen White. In Ellen G. White Writings: Comprehensive Research Edition 2008. Ellen G. White Estate.

________. (1952). Welfare Ministry. In Ellen G. White Writings: Comprehensive Research Edition 2008. Ellen G. White Estate.

Winter, R. D. (2009). Three Mission Eras and the Loss and Recovery of Kingdom Mission, 1800-2000. In R. D. Winter, & S. C. Hawthorne (Eds.). Pasadena, CA: William Carey.

Winter, R. D., & Koch, B. A. (n.d.). Finishing the Task. Retrieved September 15, 2013, from Joshua Project: http://www.joshuaproject.net/assets/articles/finishing-the-task.pdf

Yost, F. (Ed.). (1990). 128th Statistical Report - 1990. Silver Spring, MD: Archives & Statistics Office.

Joshua Project. (n.d.). Joshua Project - World Religions of all Ethnic People Groups. Retrieved September 11, 2013, from Joshua Project: http://www.joshuaproject.net/

End Notes

¹ (White, 1952, p. 105.1).
² (Burrill, 2007, p. 11).
³ (Burrill, 2007, p. 11).
⁴ (White, 1952, p. 105.1).
⁵ (Knight, A Brief History of Seventh-day Adventists, 1999, p. 149).
⁶ (Knight, A Brief History of Seventh-day Adventists, 1999, p. 149).
⁷ (Winter, 2009, p. 271).
⁸ (Winter, 2009, p. 274).
⁹ A people group is defined as "significantly large grouping of individuals who perceive themselves to have a common affinity for one another because of their shared language, religion, ethnicity, residence, occupation, class or caste, situation, etc., or combinations of these" (Winter & Koch, p. 536). An unreached people group, therefore, is an ethnic or linguistic people group within which there is no indigenous church that is "able to evangelize this people group," (Winter & Koch, p. 536). Meaning, there are not enough indigenous Christians who can "communicate the gospel in a culturally relevant and understandable way" to this people group, (Ott, Strauss, & Tennent, 2010, p. xvii). From an Adventist perspective, that would mean, not having an organized Seventh-day Adventist congregation.
¹⁰ Knight, A Brief History, 1999, p. 82.
¹¹ Knight, A Brief History, p. 84 (emphasis supplied).
¹² Knight, Remnant Theology, 1999, p. 93.
¹³ Oosterwal, 1999, p. 45.
¹⁴ Knight, Remnant Theology, 1999, p. 94.
¹⁵ Oosterwal, 1999, p. 46.
¹⁶ Oosterwal, p. 46.
¹⁷ SDA World Church Statistics, 2011.
¹⁸ Quick Statistics, 2012.
¹⁹ Quick Statistics; 2003 Annual Council Statistical Report, 2003, p. 1.
²⁰ Burrill, 1996, p. 19.
²¹ Joshua Project.
²² SDA World Church Statistics, 2011.
²³ Annual Statistics, 2013, p. 77.
²⁴ Annual Statistics, 2013.
²⁵ GC Statistics, 2013.
²⁶ Quick Statistics, 2012.
²⁷ Annual Statistics, 2013, p. 83.
²⁸ White, 1922, p. 204.1.