So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. (Revelation 12:17)
In the Spring of 2017, I met Pastor Ron Kelly. My wife and I had begun to attend the Village SDA Church in Berrien Springs. After just a few Sabbaths of listening to what I would describe as real “meat and potatoes” Adventism (yes, I see the irony in my description) spoken from the pulpit, we decided to transfer our membership. Upon submission of a membership transfer request, Pastor Kelly graciously visited our home to learn of his two new members. I don’t recall much about the conversation that day. But I do remember making this comment to him,
“I will be Adventist till the day I die. However, I am not convinced, the SDA denomination, as an organization, will serve in the biblical role of the Remnant Church.”
For me, a then fifty-year-old lifelong SDA, I had no time to pretend wrong was right and that which I had seen and experienced within the SDA denomination was indicative of a ‘Remnancy.’ My sentiment was not motivated by ecumenical reasons — quite the opposite. It was for the purity in pursuit and advancement of the truth. And to be clear, I believe wholeheartedly that the SDA denomination holds the truth and I desire membership to no other faith. But holding the truth and effectively advancing it are vastly different things.
Intelligentsia
Prior to that time in my life, for several years my spiritual journey had been stationary. I was 50 years old. I had lived the majority of my life at the foothills of Andrews University and had been in attendance of Pioneer Memorial Church since age 7. Arguably, I had the privilege of spiritual character development within the community of the flagship SDA educational institution. And yet, at this midpoint in my life I was more uncertain about the ‘Remnancy’ of the SDA denomination than ever.
In my youth, my family had immigrated from Italy where my father had received his PhD in Church History. In the US, he was a religion professor at Andrews University, a prolific author of theological topics (predominantly the Sabbath), and a vibrant speaker; often invited to speak 50 out of 52 Sabbaths a year. As a family we were members of the AU SDA community, where I attended all of the educational institutions on its campus.
Thinking back, I have very fond memories during my elementary and secondary education. Though I suffered with undiagnosed learning disabilities, I felt part of a supporting community. Teachers, principals, pastors, administrators were all loving and encouraging. Life was easily understood. Morality was readily defined. Spiritual biblical principles were clear. The Bible was truth, and no one had to defer to a biblical scientist to systemically excise truth from spiritual passages.
Yet, as I concluded secondary education and entered my college years, it seemed as if I had passed through a portal into an alternative universe. This was the mid 1980’s and postmodernism had fully arrived onto the SDA educational and theological scene. During the General Conference Annual Council, the president of AU had been arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover male police officer. Theologically, a debate was raging between whether the Bible teaches that women may not hold positions of leadership in the Church. Of several passages under scrutiny was:
A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a wrongdoer. (1 Timothy 2:11–14)
The Biblical headship of men, a long-held Biblical and SDA position was eroding with the advancement of liberalism, feminism, and ecumenism. The Apostle Paul was dismissed as a patriarchal chauvinist. The Bible which had been God-inspired and to be read in its most simple and direct meaning was now a complex cypher to be translated only by ideologically credentialed intelligentsia. As constituent sheep we could only wait until the truth was dissected and revealed to us.
The truths most plainly revealed in the Bible have been involved in doubt and darkness by learned men, who, with a pretense of great wisdom, teach that the Scriptures have a mystical, a secret, spiritual meaning… The language of the Bible should be explained according to its obvious meaning, unless a symbol or figure is employed (GC 598.3).
Racial tensions that were nonexistent in my culturally diverse prepubescent and teenage educational years, were now front and center. College introduced issues that had eluded our naïve minds and drove many former classmates to social identification that ran along racial and ideological lines. Parents had sent their children to college for the purpose of pursuing a career advancing degree, but college endeavored to awaken our impressionable minds to the knowledge of good and evil.
Adventism Redefined
For the next 27 years I watched as battle lines were drawn within the SDA denomination and witnessed ideological wars centered on social progressive ideology, requiring reverse engineering of the Bible or simply defrocking E.G. White from her prophetess status in order to substantiate the newfound enlightenment. God had evolved—from giving life with supernatural breath—to requiring a non-definable evolutionary process to create our world.
Western Adventism had redefined our SDA faith to a point where it was no longer recognizable or existent. In Europe non-immigrant SDA congregations could hardly be found and when you did, they bordered on new age, post modernism, and all out social progressivism.
I felt as if the faith I had ascribed my membership to, where I found spiritual identity, had gotten up and left me behind. Conference after Conference and Union after Union, chose to independently define their version of SDA beliefs. In order to preserve the illusion of their presumed forthright ideology, bans and censures developed to silence opposing thoughts. Administrators quickly learned that the desire for self-preservation among the employed ranks was greater than the willingness to pursue truth.
Most local churches evolved into faith maintenance organizations, where members could visit one to three times a week. Top off their spiritual fuel tank, then return to their purpose-filled lives of being a good Christians, raising their families and returning their tithe to a denominational hierarchy entrusted with advancing the Gospel message. We didn’t have to mission—our “Church” was doing it for us.
During those years, the number of members on the books grew by 20%, but the active attendance dropped by 20%. In reality, over nearly 30 years the NAD achieved a zero net gain. National economic growth, resulting in more tithe giving, masked the losses we were experiencing in membership engagement. With each successive generation, a smaller percentage of our youth was being retained in the denomination. Too few asked the question; “How do we advance the truth in hostile environments when we struggle to keep the souls we have already won?”
Schools struggled to stay open because SDA families could ill afford the rising SDA tuition—in spite of experiencing global advancement in social engagement and technology. The growth in tithe and offerings did not proportionally corelate to educational access and retention.
Increased money resulted in more organizational hiring, not better outcomes. While SDA primary and secondary schools were closing across the US, conferences, unions, divisions, and the GC labored to construct a robust administrative hierarchy to administer the ever-reducing programs. Although, over these thirty years, roughly 35% of SDA Primary and Secondary schools closed, educational conference employment grew.
Surprisingly, in spite of the organizational inefficiencies and loss of Western world denominational share, SDA Gospel work was increasing in developing countries. How could that be? Was the SDA corporation effectively employing its organizationalism to effectuate the spreading of the Gospel? Sadly, not really.
There are numerous Godly and dedicated individuals within the SDA corporate hierarchy who have committed their lives to serving God and seeking the expansion of Christendom. But their success has come largely due to ministries that were independent of SDA organizational employment. Arguably, the greatest success to date has been at the hands of self-supporting ministries: It Is Written, Faith for Today, Voice of Prophecy, 3ABN, Amazing Facts, Secrets Unsealed, ASI, OCI, ARISE, GYC, Hyve, Maranatha Volunteers, Adventist World Aviation, Adventist Frontier Missions, Light Bearers, Remnant Publications, Weimar, and ADRA (yes, it was once independent).
This list is but a small sample of the capacity, vision, and passion that resonates in Spirit-filled warriors working to finish the Gospel work. It does not require complex organizationalism, UN alignments, NGO status or multi-level hierarchical administrative oversight.
It simply takes people willing to go into the unknown and put their trust in God. To forgo gamesmanship, not seeking perpetuity or self-preservation. It takes willingness of vulnerability, ridicule and persecution as was modeled by the disciples.
Since that 2017 conversation with Pastor Kelly, I have not found increased preparedness within the SDA organization to complete the Gospel work. I see efforts to close access to mission fields under the guise of reducing competition. Competition? This term was recently explained to me by a southern conference president as concern over tithe money. The discussion of appropriate stewardship (application of tithe money) is beyond the scope of this article; however, it can’t be insubordinate to ask our SDA leaders? Why do you appear more focused on perpetuating organizationalism than mission effectiveness? Cutting off mission field access to effective ministries because of competition? The very fact that there is still work within a particular mission field indicates the complete lack of competition and the demand for greater saturation.
During the last 8 years I’ve had a front row seat within a microcosm of denominational efforts. I have witnessed the contrast between the desire for organizational control versus Gospel mission. I see many of the SDA constituents as Clydesdale horses, penned up by a faith maintenance system of predictable and submissive religiosity, looking for the leaders or organization that will unleash the missional resources restrained within the dedicated work horses.
Yet the search for missional effectiveness runs into corporate organizationalism far too often. The difficult question we are all faced with: is the SDA corporate organization poised to complete the gospel work? Has history shown its ability to effectuate outcomes greater than independent ministries? Clearly not. So why the Us against Them recent messaging from corporate leadership? The rhetoric claims the desire for Unity, but the actions are indicative of authoritarian control, not missional outcomes.
The Summer of Love
The July 2025 GC session did little to foster confidence in upper SDA organizational leadership. In its lead up, stalwarts of SDA ministry and mission were deplatformed in an attempt to limit their voices. How did that turn out? During the GC session, under the guise of correcting the heretics, the 2015 immunization statement was stipulated to have never elevated peer reviewed science. It then miraculously changed overnight to reflect the prior day’s stipulation, under the pretense that the prior version had been erroneously published. We were asked to believe it was simply an error that stood for 10 years; that caused so many SDA to question the Adventism within our own leaders.
And yet for me, the issue that saddened me the most was marching SDA leaders, now many years removed from the missional front lines, before the session podium to define ministries that were deemed contributors to the SDA cause versus those that were detractors (Wheat vs Tares). Interestingly, the traits selected as indicative of ministerial success were not proven outcomes, or evidence of Fruits of the Spirit. But criteria that supporting ministries did not criticize the shortcomings of the SDA organizational leadership or appear to receive tithe monies supporting their ministries.
As for tithe, it is on the conscience of the donors supporting various ministries to determine what monies they will forward. I don’t know of a single ministry both within and outside the GC circle of love that offers a portal for receiving tithe monies. The donor sending money must choose what the source of their funds is, not the ministry. The hypocrisy of supporting vs independent ministries sorting exercise, is that the likelihood that every single ministry identified as a supporting ministry has a 100% chance of unknowingly received tithe monies. There is no likelihood that they didn’t.
In Brazil, prior to the GC session, we simultaneously had the closing off of mission regions to various high profile supporting ministries, while an over $6 million dollar tithe embezzlement scandal was being cleaned up. To date, the only unity, we have witnessed is the effort to centralize the receipt of all donations.
The Mission Ahead
Today we find the SDA denomination with 22 million members “on the books”, and 6-10 million active at any point in time. And yet the world has 8.2 billion inhabitants. How can anyone straight-faced make the argument that independent ministries competitively threaten any SDA corporate presence? It’s not about competition; it’s about the donor money. Simply put, donors seeking to see the Gospel work advance, are funneling donations to organizations that are being effective stewards of the funds.
While the GC is embroiled in UN membership controversy, the watchmen on the wall are being funded to do the work that is vacated. Where the need for educational, health, and spiritual reform is paramount, SDA organizationalism is focused on protecting employment. The time is ripe for reformation and renewal.
We have great work to do, and it will not get done within a bureaucratical structure focused on maintaining control of constituent support and effort. To be a remnant we must be relevant, and to be relevant we must have purpose. That purpose most certainly must focus all resources and priorities on mission advancement.
For the SDA Organization to play a significant role in the run out of earth’s history the following reforms are paramount:
First and foremost, the Bible must unquestionably be the inspired word of God, and every SDA institution should reinforce this position.
We must recognize a literal six-day creation otherwise the Sabbath is only symbolic, not Holy as God indicated.
Ellen G. White must be regarded as more than a prolific writer and founding member of the SDA movement, she must be recognized as a prophet.
Morality must be defined by Biblical precepts, not societal.
Our local churches must return to being mission units not faith maintenance social clubs.
SDA denominational authority must be returned to the constituents as it was originally designed.
Organizational hierarchy must be streamlined to achieve one purpose: Advancing the mission. If it doesn’t significantly add value, use the resources where they do.
Banning and Censuring credentialed pastors must be viewed as a last resort for only extreme circumstances. In order for faith in administrators to be restored, their actions must be beyond reproach.
The Fruits of the Spirit must return as the measure from which ministries are determined to be in His service.
And lastly, humility must be the foundational trait of every denominational candidate prior to employment. Our mission must harmonize as a choir, not a military command.
I have a work to do, and I am now making decisions. I must remain away from Conference meetings. I must not attend camp-meetings. The spirit of drawing apart, as the result of judging one another, has become so common, and the churches are becoming so leavened with this spirit that I have no desire to attend these meetings. After returning from them, it is often weeks before I am able to take up my neglected work. (17LtMs, Lt186, 1902, par 4)
The Gospel work ahead is greater than any fully-funded SDA corporate organization can operationalize. It can only be accomplished with the additional compounding efforts of missional lay members and independent ministries.
For the SDA organization to be remnantly relevant, it needs everyone, it needs reformation, and it needs it now.
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Daniel Bacchiocchi is an architect and builder. Today he operates an architectural and construction business in Michigan as well as a non-profit building mission organization, Master’s Builders, Inc., supporting SDA efforts in financially depressed communities around the world. Daniel is also on the board of Advent Mission Institute, a startup ministry in Michigan focused on leadership training and outreach.