Welcome to Elder's Digest. Here you will find a variety of practical leadership resources. It is our desire that your ministry as pastor, elder, and deacon or deaconess be strengthened and blessed through it.
As you may know, any Seventh-day Adventist church worldwide receives its primary pastoral leadership from local church elders, supported by deacons, deaconesses, and other volunteer leaders in place of employed ministers. Therefore, the Ministerial Association is responsible for encouraging, equipping, and training this vital group of leaders.
This Training Ministry includes:
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Helping pastors, elders, deacons, and deaconesses understand the biblical function of their roles in the local congregation.
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Motivating ministerial secretaries to organize and conduct seminars for training pastors, elders, deacons and deaconesses.
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Encouraging unions and conferences to include these leaders in their resource distribution plans.
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Providing incentives for pastors to train elders, so they can become trainers of other church leaders
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Training these leaders for vital roles in local church administration, leadership, nurture, and evangelism.
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Providing resources to enhance the work of pastors, elders, deacons, and deaconesses.
As you navigate through the pages of this website, we hope you will enjoy it. Thanks for your ministry on behalf of the Seventh-day Adventist church. May God continue to bless you abundantly!
Why does the Seventh-day Adventist Church have a Church Manual?
God is a God of order as evidenced in His works of creation and redemption.
Consequently, order belongs to the essence of His church. Order is achieved
through principles and regulations that guide the Church in its internal
operations and in the fulfillment of its mission to the world. In order for it to
be a successful ecclesiastical organization at the service of the Lord and
humanity, it needs order, rule, and discipline. Scripture affirms that “all
things be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40).
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The month of October has been designated by Christians worldwide as Clergy Appreciation Month to honor pastors and those who perform ministerial work. The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists has set Sabbath, October 12, 2024, for this well-deserved tribute to our pastors.
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This completely new edition of the Elder’s Handbook has eight chapters dealing with everything from Biblical models of organization, job description, leadership in church, evangelism, church nurturing and special services. This handbook has been prepared to assist elders in understanding their calling, and to train them in their leadership role in the church.
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The ground is shifting. New research programs, and new discoveries, are constantly changing the landscape of our knowledge of "how it all began." And for those considering these matters from a position of biblical faith, there are new and promising frontiers to explore. Many of those remarkable recent changes are addressed in this fully updated third edition of this landmark work, now in its twentieth year of publication. With additional contributions from joint author Arthur Chadwick, Faith, Reason, and Earth History presents Leonard Brand's continuing argument for constructive thinking about origins and earth history in the context of Scripture, showing readers how to analyze available scientific data and approach unsolved problems. Faith does not need to fear the data but can contribute to progress in understanding earth history within the context of God's Word while still being honest about unanswered questions. In this patient explanation of the mission of science, and its application to questions about origins and earth history, the authors model their conviction that "above all, it is essential that we treat each other with respect, even if we disagree on fundamental issues." The original edition of this work (1997) was one of the first books on this topic written from the point of view of experienced research scientists. Brand and Chadwick, career researchers and teachers in biology and paleontology, bring to this well-illustrated book a rich assortment of practical scientific examples. This thoughtful, rigorous, and thoroughly up-to-date presentation makes this classic work highly useful both as a college-level text and as an easily accessible treatment for the educated lay person.
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