What Seventh-day Adventists believe, and how they worship
Seventh-day Adventists are a worldwide Protestant church that worships on Saturday, the seventh-day Sabbath, looks for the soon return of Christ, and summarizes its Trinitarian faith in 28 Fundamental Beliefs.
Seventh-day Adventist churches near Elora
What Seventh-day Adventist Christians believe
The Seventh-day Adventist Church grew out of the Millerite revival of the 1840s, which expected Christ to return in 1844. After the “Great Disappointment” a group including James and Ellen White concluded that the date marked the beginning of Christ’s final work of judgment in the heavenly sanctuary, and that the fourth commandment still requires rest on the seventh day; the church was organized in 1863.
Their 28 Fundamental Beliefs are Trinitarian and evangelical: one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, “a unity of three coeternal Persons”; Christ truly God and truly man, whose life, death and resurrection are “the only means of atonement for human sin”; salvation by grace through faith; believers’ baptism by immersion; and the visible return of Christ. Distinctive beliefs sit alongside these: the seventh-day Sabbath, from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, as a memorial of creation; Christ’s ministry in the heavenly sanctuary since 1844; the gift of prophecy in Ellen G. White, whose writings are regarded as inspired guidance subordinate to Scripture; the unconscious state of the dead until the resurrection and the final destruction of the lost; and care for the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit, hence no alcohol or tobacco and often no meat.
Worship: what a service is like
Adventists gather on Saturday morning. Sabbath School, Bible study for all ages from a shared quarterly lesson, is followed by the divine service: hymns or contemporary songs, prayer, an offering, a children’s story and a sermon. Communion, about four times a year, is preceded by foot washing. The Sabbath is kept from sunset to sunset; a potluck lunch is common, and members avoid work and shopping until Saturday evening.
How Seventh-day Adventist churches are organized
Local churches elect elders and deacons and are served by pastors. Churches belong to conferences, conferences to unions, and unions to the General Conference in Silver Spring, Maryland. The church runs schools, universities and hospitals, and ADRA, its relief agency. Membership is more than twenty million worldwide; Guelph has an Adventist church on Lane Street.
Compared with Reformed churches
Adventists and Reformed Christians share the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the authority of Scripture, salvation by grace through faith, the visible return of Christ and respect for the Ten Commandments as the rule of Christian life. Adventists keep the seventh day as an unchanged creation ordinance, while Reformed churches keep the Sabbath on the Lord’s Day, the first day, on which Christ rose. They differ on baptism (believers only, against believers and their children), the state of the dead (sleep until the resurrection, against the soul with Christ), the fate of the lost, the heavenly sanctuary and investigative judgment, which Reformed churches do not teach, and the standing of Ellen White’s writings, which Reformed churches do not treat as inspired.