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

Date Speaker/Facilitator Event

June 4 Alex Golovenko Radical Discipleship 11 am

June 4 Alex Golovenko Mission 316 “Identifying Spiritualistic Animism” 6 pm

June 11 Ray Thompson Worship Hour 11 am

June 12 Gord Rayner Men’s Ministry “Father’s Voice” from “Wild at heart” 8:30 am

June 17 Max Mantiri &

Cameron Munro Lord’s Supper Commemoration 7:30 pm

June 18 Alex Golovenko Radical Friendships 11 am

June 25 Kids preaching! Adventurers Investiture service 11 am

June 25 Alex Golovenko Mission 316 “The Challenge of Islam” 6 pm

June 26 5 pm LACA Graduation service, Michael Golovenko—valedictorian

and the l

ife

moves on..

.

Last month people around the world expected

the end of the world as we know it. Some people

sold all their belongings and invested into adver-

tising boards, others actually quit their job "to

spend more time with her family before the end."

A corporate executive sent out a company-wide

email linking to one of sites touting the end on

May 21.

A fleet of large RVs, vans and autos deco-

rated with advertising warning of ―the end‖ criss-

crossed the United States in the weeks leading up

to May 21. Overseas advertisements appeared in

Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Russia, Philip-

pines, Vietnam, and scores of other

countries. Most people I know just

laughed sarcastically at all the agita-

tion—we know these predictions are

false, because no one knows the day

or the hour!

Harold Camping now is correct-

ing the date for October 21 since no

rapture took place. As Seventh-day Adventist

Christians we should empathize, since our move-

ment was birthed out of Baptist’s William

Miller’s prophetic misunderstanding, expecting

the Judgment Day in 1844 to take place here on

earth. 19 years later our church was formed,

committed to proclaiming soon return of Jesus,

yet never setting a date for the end of

the world. The timing is God’s respon-

sibility, not hours. Ours is to be in lov-

ing relationships with people around us,

extending the blessing we receive to

others. No matter how strong our hope

is, it should not ignore the Word of God.

On July 9, all roads will lead to the International Centre at 6900 Airport Road, Mississauga. This year’s theme is ‘All In!’

Dr. Rex D. Edwards will be the speaker in the adult meetings. He is a renowned preacher who has served the church on three continents (Australia, Europe and North America) and continues to challenge congregations with his captivating sermons.

Dr. Edward’s ministry has been divided into periods when he worked as a pastor-evangelist, college professor, au-thor, editor, video producer, and university administrator. Presently working out of of-fices at the Biblical Research Institute at the General Confer-ence of Seventh-day Adventists, he offers professional growth experiences for clergy and lec-tures on Ecclesiology, Preach-ing, and Pastoral Leadership. He has three children, Janelle , Paul, and Shane.

Young Adult’s speaker, Pas-tor Ryan Simpson, is the Youth Ministries and Pathfinder Minis-tries director in the Bermuda Conference. He is a preacher, evangelist, church planter, moti-vational speaker, and youth leader.

Pastor Simpson is frequently invited to speak for various events in North America and the Caribbean. This will be his first visit to Ontario.

He is married to Jo-Ann Cous-ins with whom he has two chil-dren, five-year old Ryan Robert Simpson II (Sebastian), and one-year old Lylah-Elizabeth.

Pastor Simpson loves the

Lord, loves people and

enjoys his ministry. He is passion-driven, vision and mission moti-vated, and has an indomitable determination to excel. His phi-losophy is “The Lord empowers whom He calls.”

For the first time at camp meeting, there will be a sepa-rate service planned specifi-cally to meet the needs of teens. Pastor Ann Roda, often called ‘Pastor for Families’ will be the speaker. She is responsi-ble for families and children from birth through High School at the New Hope Seventh-day Adventist Church in Fulton, MD.

Pastor Roda has three goals in life. The first is to "be still and know God"; the second is to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ, and the third is to lose those last annoying 7 pounds.

God called her to pastoral ministry after she spent 15 years in a corporate career. Her hus-band Jose Hernandez is a chap-lain director with Adventist Health Care.

Children’s Programmes

Provisions are also available for children in Aviation Ball-rooms A, B, and C for Kindergar-ten to Juniors. Parents, please be aware that due to the risk of food allergies, no snacks will be pro-vided for the children. Parents are responsible to provide re-freshments for their own chil-dren.

Members attending camp meeting have found it useful to carry their own meals for lunch and supper. No meals will be provided at the International Centre.

What do Adventist say about cremation? With prices on everything going up, and

inflation looming, thinking about fragility of human life people are wondering if crema-tion is an option for a Biblical believer. I had a few people ask me recently “What does the Bible say?”

In response I would like to quote an arti-cle by George Reid, former director of the Biblical research Institute, penned in 1997.

Seventh-day Adventists have never taken a position on cremation because our biblical un-derstanding of death and resurrection makes the matter not significant (Job 19:27; Daniel 12:2; Luke 24:39).

Contrary to the idea of separable soul and body, we note that humans appear with a physical existence both before death and in resurrection.

The God who created us in the beginning is equally capable of re-creating us from ashes of incineration or from dust that results from slow decay. All things organic return to their basic elements, the real difference being only in how long it takes.

In fact, we do not hold that in the resurrec-tion the new person will be composed of the same cells and atoms of which the body was previously formed. Cells die and atoms dis-perse. And restoring the person is not a mat-ter of collection and reassembly of atoms, but of expressing the creative power of God, what-ever atoms are involved (Psalm 104:29, 30). We know that every living person is a conduit for new atoms entering and old ones dispers-ing, so to a large degree any person will be composed in 10 years of an almost entirely different set of atoms.

http://biblicalresearch.gc.adventist.org

...and the life moves on...

October 21 2011 will come

and go and more excuses will be

made why things did not hap-

pen, more people will be mock-

ing faith and church in general.

Among our own church mem-

bers and believers the Great

Cosmic Week‖ theory is ―alive‖

- suggesting the six thousand

years of toil on earth and the

seventh as the Millennium with

God. One particular DVD by

David Gates ―Converging Cri-

ses‖ from 2008 is circulating

around, authoritatively suggest-

ing that since our pioneers be-

lieved in the ―Cosmic week‖ we

must do so too.

It was James Ussher (1581–

1656), the archbishop of the

Church of Ireland, who pub-

lished a Biblical chronology

asserting to establish the time

and date of Creation as the night

preceding Sunday, 23 October

4004 BC. It implied that from

Creation to Christ’s birth 4000

years passed, and then until

Christ’s second coming human-

ity will have to endure another

2000, before the Millennium of

Peace. His calculations were

based on the Masoretic Hebrew

version of the Old Testament,

and these dates became attached

to the King James English Bible

in circulation for about 3 centu-

ries, becoming ―truth‖ in peo-

ples perception, no one ever

asking if this whole theory was

even Biblical, or had some Bib-

lical warrant.

When the date of Christ’s

birth became a matter of dispute

from 4 to 6 B.C. the dates were

adjusted to have the Millennium

begin between 1994 and 1996.

the Y2K (year 2000) had came

and gone, and now the ―6000

years‖ are taking another spin.

The new theory is that it

must be linked to the sacri-

ficial system. Since Christ

died in the year 31 AD, ending

the system of blood shedding

for sins, then the original sin of

Adam and Eve must have taken

place 4000 prior to that. It’s

funny that this theory does not

make earth ―younger,‖ but sug-

gests that the fall into sin hap-

pened 31 years after creation.

The logical projection says that

2031 is the last milepost for the

Millennium to begin.

As I reflect on these ideas

that are prompting fresh expec-

tations, it does more harm than

good. Young people hearing

this think ―I’ve got 20 years to

party and have fun‖ and leave

churches.

For us who keep the seventh-

day holy, the ―Cosmic Week‖ is

very attractive, since six days

the planet should labour, and

rest on the seventh—the Millen-

nium. Yet this ―heresy‖ of in-

terposing the Creation Week

and the timing of human history

is unbiblical and comes from the

2nd century Gnostic Epistle of

Barnabas (15:4), which allego-

rized the Old Testament.

The Greek translation of the

Old Testament which was in use

in Jesus time, the Septuagint

(LXX), which was used also by

Apostles in their writings gives

a different chronology, placing

Creation at about 5500 years

before Christ, and all early

church fathers, living prior to

the 500 AD, had agreed on it.

When the first expectation of

the Millennium failed at the end

of 5th century after Christ,

mathematical ―games‖ had be-

gan of adjusting chronologies.

I invite you to consider the

simple teachings of Jesus, re-

corder by Luke (19:13) - ―Do

business, be pragmatic, occupy

until I come.‖ And remember,

every one who claims to

―know‖ some secrets is just re-

peating ancient temptation of

―Gnosticism‖ - saved by a spe-

cial secret knowledge! For of

that day no one knows except

God Himself (Matthew 24:36).

The person who dies remains in the mind of God, and through His creative power, He will restore life as He wishes, even a new body untouched by the power of sin (1 Corinthians 15:52). The Creator is not dependent on previ-ously existing components in the resurrection.

Cremation, properly speaking, could be a pious act. 1 Samuel 31:11-13 relates how the Israelites took the body of Saul and his sons “from the wall of Beth Shan and went to Jabesh, where they burned them” (NIV). This was not an act of vengeance but a proper way of ending the humiliation of a human corpse, the remains of the first king of Israel.

For some Christians, the matter of bur-ial rather than cremation is i m p o r t a n t . They note that crema-tion is fol-lowed in countries such as India and China, whose pre-dominant worldview is not Christian. As a mat-ter of fact, these overpopulated countries long ago confronted the diversion of scarce fertile land to cemeteries, imbedding into their relig-ion a tradition of burning, understood in terms of the purifying power of fire. Scientifically, we see advantages in the prevention of infec-tion this method provides. It is true that in Jew-ish tradition, the dead consistently were bur-ied, a custom written into Catholic canon law and thus perpetuated in the Christian commu-nity. But when measured by our understanding of how God works, something like burning would create no problem.

Today approximately 50 percent of those who die in the United States are cremated, mostly because of the comparatively high ex-pense involved in burial. Cremation can cost only 10 percent of what a full burial funeral would require. Adventists allow members to follow their conscience in this matter, and for the reasons cited above are not likely to take an official church position on it.

http://biblicalresearch.gc.adventist.org

On May 26 the Adventist Review issue had a

cover story focusing on the dialogue needed with athe-

ists, engaging people with different worldviews.

What would you say to an atheist, or to a Muslim,

to a Buddhist? Do you know how to engage in turning

stumbling blocks into stepping stones?

Adventists around the world are praying for the

Revival of Mission. Often when people hear the word

―Mission‖ their first reaction is ―I cannot go far, I have

obligations here at home,‖ and they tune out. Yet to-

day we got mission field right at home. No need to go

overseas to find people with different way of life to

witness to. A person next door on your street in Lon-

don Ontario probably has a totally different outlook on

life.

Here at our church we are studying together about

how to engage missionally our neighbours, how to un-

derstand people who are immigrating into our commu-

nity. Partner with your church family in serving god

with all our mind, understanding how we can employ

Jesus incarnational method today.

Learn to be a missionary . Fulfill the Great Com-

mission of Christ to teach all people groups.

First Ever! South-Western Ontario Adventist Youth Camp Organized by Windsor Church pastors Marion Kossovan and Abner Lopez Guest speakers: Wanito Bernadin from St.Catharines, Ontario Massiel Davila from Andrews University For registration contact Stepan Golovenko bekorben@hotmail.com