A call for prayer and fasting on Wednesday, February 18th, 2026.
The Lake Union was requested by Michigan SDA Conference in Fall 2025 to investigate whether or not the MI SDA Conference acted within the terms of the Church Manual when Elder Jim Micheff banned Dr. Vine from preaching in all MI SDA Conference pulpits, including at his own local congregation (Village SDA Church) in September 2024.
The core question is this: can a local conference Executive Committee or President override the duly-taken votes of a local congregation in a duly-called constituency (business) meeting and unilaterally ban a local elder from carrying out the biblical responsibilities of a local elder?
Elder Micheff, the MI SDA Conference President, believes that the Church Manual gives him the right to override the votes of any MI SDA Congregation and prevent a duly-elected local elder from serving and fulfilling his biblical responsibilities of preaching and teaching within their local congregation.
When the current clause on page 132 for “Authorized Speakers” was voted in the GC Session, 2022, the GC Secretariat proposed the new wording because it “clarifies” the existing clause entitled “Unathorized Speakers” on pages 121-121 of the Church Manual. That original clause read as follows:
“Unauthorized speakers - Under no circumstances should a pastor, elder or other officer invite strangers or unauthorized persons to conduct services. Individuals who have been removed from the ministry or who have been removed from membership in other places, or designing persons who have no authority from the church, should not be given access to the pulpit. Those worthy of confidence will be able to identify themselves by producing proper credentials.”
This original clause said nothing about elders needing additional permission or approval from the conference to preach. Rather, elders have the inherent and standing right to preach in their local congregations because they have been elected as elders by the local congregation. The use of “church” instead of “Church” in this clause indicates the authority for elders to preached teach comes from the local congregation, not from the Conference, Union, Division or General Conference.
In 2022, when the new clause was presented, the GC Secretariat posted the following text as explanation on the screen at the Session:
“Rationale: This item clarifies who may be invited to speak in the church and addresses confusion caused by the implication that a layperson could not preach because they do not have credentials.”
Thus, the intent of the new clause (see below) was to clarify who can be invited to speak to a local congregation in addition to the local elders, because elders already have the inherent authority to preach and teach by virtue of their election as elders by the local congregation (1 Timothy 3:2).
The new clause, voted at the June 2022 General Conference Session, which Elder Micheff believes gives a new-found authority to conferences to ban local elders within their own congregations, reads as follows:
“Authorized speakers: Only speakers worthy of confidence will be invited to the pulpit by the local church pastor, in harmony with guidelines given by the conference. The local elders or church board may also invite speakers, in consultation with the pastor, and in harmony with conference guidelines. Individuals who are no longer members, or who are under discipline, should not be given access to the pulpit.”
The new clause requires conferences to provide voted guidelines to local pastors and elders and boards regarding who they can invite to preach to their congregation. Notice, however, that pastors and elders already have the standing right to preach (the pastors by virtue of their appointment by the conference, and the elders by virtue of their election by the local constituency to a preaching and teaching role). The “guidelines" apply to visiting speakers, i.e. those invited to speak to the congregation, not to the existing elders or the pastor. The right to “ban” was not included in the pre-2022 clause, it was never mentioned in the explanation at the GC 2022 Session for the updated clause, and is not mentioned in the new 2022 clause.
Pastors and local elders are those who invite, and they have to be careful who they invite, yet they themselves have the standing right in Scripture to preach and teach. The new clause, on page 132, which Micheff is using for justification for his authority to ban a local elder, was presented by the GC Secretariat as that which “clarifies” the pre-existing clause. NOTHING was said in the GC Session that the “clarification” vote would transfer vast new powers to Conferences to ban local elders. That right wasn’t in the original clause, it wasn’t in the explanation or the discussion at the 2022 Session, and it isn’t in the new clause.
The Lake Union has now established a sub-committee, chaired by the Lake Union Ministerial Secretary, to investigate the matters, and make a recommendation to the Lake Union Executive Committee, which meets in early March 2026.
On Wednesday, February 18th, at 5pm, the members of the Lake Union sub-committee, together with Elder Micheff and one other representative from the MISDA Conference, together with the Village SDA Church Head elder, Bro. John Dronen, together with another Village SDA Church elder, will meet to discuss these matters. Elder Micheff will make his presentation with an allowed time of 45 minutes, and then Bro. Dronen will make his presentation for up to 45 minutes. The sub-committee will ask questions of both sides, before reflecting on these matters and making a recommendation to the full Lake Union Executive Committee before their next scheduled meeting in early March.
Should the Lake Union Executive Committee affirm the right of the MISDA Conference leadership to ban a local elder from performing their biblical duties of preaching and teaching in their local congregation, this represents an unprecedented and massive power-shift in Adventism. No longer will the highest authority in the life of the local congregation be the local congregation in constituency session, i.e. local business meeting.
From now on, all local elders will only serve at the pleasure of their local Conference leadership. Conference leaders will have the effective right to veto the election of a local member to the role of elder within their local congregation. The voice of conscience will be stilled across Adventist pulpits nationwide as Conferences use their new-found powers to shut down any voices calling for reform, or rebuking the abuse of power, moral or financial corruption within the Church structure.
What is Michigan’s Gripe?
Elder Micheff has made it abundantly clear to the Village SDA Church elders that there is nothing theologically between the SDA Church and Dr. Conrad Vine. He has told them so, explicitly, before many witnesses. At the December 4th, 2024, meeting in the Village SDA Church basement between Elder Micheff and the Village SDA Church elders, Elder Micheff revealed the real reason for the ban. If Dr. Conrad Vine were to stop ‘attacking’ the GC leadership, “we can all go home right now.” The audio recordings exist, held among the Village elders. Elder Micheff is not protecting doctrinal purity, but the unquestionable power, untouchable position, and Federal income flows for the North American Division and the General Conference leadership.
The ban in Michigan is not to promote truth, to protect doctrinal integrity, to work for unity in the Body of Christ, or to advance the Gospel. It is a raw exercise in administrative power to shut down any voice that calls for reform among the leaders of the SDA Church. In shutting down the voice of Dr. Vine, Elder Micheff is seeking to establish a precedent that will allow any Conference worldwide to ban any local elder from serving within their local congregation. This is a shift to monarchical power, - and some might even say papal power within God’s remnant movement.
The example of Elijah, Ahab and Jezebel is enough to warn of us of the significance of what is happening. When voice of prophetic preaching is silenced, rebuking the popular sins of the time, evil sweeps the land. Ahab and Jezebel not only imported 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah, and paid for them from the public purse, but they set about the extermination of the prophets of God. Other than Elijah, only 100 prophets remained, and they were hidden in two caves by a royal official, Obadiah (1 Kings 18.4).
With Elijah driven into hiding by the Brook Cherith and with the Widow of Zarephath, there was no public bulwark against the onrush of idolatry and demon-worship. Gross sexual immorality flooded the nation, involving all kinds of perversion and cruelty, including rape, homosexuality, temple and ritual prostitution, pedophilia, child sacrifice and murder.
Today, in the NAD, we live in a world of cancel culture, dominant but godless narratives, vested corporate financial and legal interests, and spiritual Laodiceanism. Attorneys, risk managers, communications experts, Federal healthcare contracts, retirement investment accounts, money-market accounts, corporate wealth managers, culturally Marxist professors, politically woke administrators, and the formal subjugation of the Advent movement to the goals and objectives of the God-rejecting UN are all conspiring to silence Bible-faithful Adventist preachers.
In January 2026, for two consecutive Sabbaths we witnessed the public promotion of the reinterpretation of LGBTQ ideology intended to move the SDA movement to accept the sexual and gender revolutions. In February 2026, the Pacific Union Recorder published an article promoting theistic evolution, which effectively denies, Creation, the Fall, the wages of sin being death, and our need for a Savior. These are but two examples in our recent past of the evils sweeping the NAD while Bible-faithful preachers are silenced in MI and also in other conferences.
Ezek. 22.30,
“And I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.”
If Elder Micheff had his way, God will never find a preacher, whether it be a pastor or an elder, in a Michigan SDA pulpit to repair the wall, to stand in the breach, to rebuke popular sin, or to raise up the standard of truth. The SOP speaks thus:
“So men who should be standing as faithful guardians of God’s law have argued, till policy has taken the place of faithfulness, and sin is allowed to go unreproved. When will the voice of faithful rebuke be heard once more in the church?” (EGW, PK, p. 141).
When religious authorities silence Bible-faithful preachers who preach against popular sins among God’s people, they are removing a bulwark to even greater spiritual decline, and hastening God’s judgment upon God’s people.
Please be praying and fasting throughout Wednesday, February 18th 2026, that God’s perfect will be done.
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