Full Issue
1 May 2025
Current Issue
Volume 3, Issue 1 (2025)Read More
Current Articles
Most Popular Articles
Articles
1 May 2025
Losing My Religion: Young Adults and the Impact and Implications of Secularism on Their Religion
Young adults in North America are less religious and consider themselves unaffiliated with organized religion. There is a stark difference between Millennials and Baby Boomers within the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church when it comes to religious beliefs, behavior, and affiliation. The older generation is holding on to religious beliefs while Millennials slowly and quietly drift away from the church and religious ideology. As Millennials move away from religious institutions and take on more secular ideology, it would appear that there are specific reasons for the mass exodus of young adults from church. This paper seeks to discuss the challenges facing the church as Millennials lose religion, disaffiliate, and become more secular.Articles
1 January 2024
The Theology of the Book of Judges in the Second Generation: Giving Up is not an Option!
The tension between the first and second generation of immigrants in our churches is increasing. The large gap that should be closing continues to open. The Bible contains important biblical principles that leaders of the Church can use to help close the gap between the generations in immigrant churches.Articles
1 January 2024
A Vision for End Time Youth Ministries
God has entrusted Seventh-day Adventists with a special task of encircling the world with relevant streams of light, from the Bible, to prepare all people, everywhere on this planet, for his return. This means all people are to be solicited with our end-time message. Present truth is always particularly pertinent at a given time and place. Including youth in extracting and expressing present truth is critical to propelling it. This paper is a plea to re-vision and envision what transformative ministry to and with youth could look like in the time of the end.Articles
1 June 2023
A New Opportunity: Transforming Trauma
Researchers and church administrators have a long-term interest in the stresses experienced by clergy and how these stressors relate to the ability of the clergy to minister effectively. Many of these stressors occur in pastors’ families of origin prior to ministry. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are forms of trauma that have long-term negative effects on one’s physical, mental/emotional, spiritual/relational, and behavioral health. This article describes research on the effects of ACEs and reports the preliminary results of the first three years of a longitudinal study of ACEs on Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) seminary students. It makes recommendations designed to positively affect the state of pastoral ministry in the SDA Church. Trauma-informed pastors discover how to overcome the negative effects of trauma on themselves, which enables them to create trauma-informed congregations.Articles
1 January 2024
Divine Attachment as a Context for Discipleship Transformation in Youth
O ne of the most profound human lifespan needs, especially among youth, is to have a worthy purpose for living. A growing body of research has identified a serious discrepancy between a Christian’s doctrinal and experiential knowledge of God, leading to disengagement from the practice of discipleship. This may be related, in part, to an unfortunate null curriculum rooted in the assumption that believers understand God in such a way that predisposes them to a discipleship lifestyle. This paper suggests that the missing relational context and the discrepancy between doctrinal and experiential knowledge of God may be remedied by an intentional study of a biblical model of divine attachment that combines a positive doctrine about God that inherently supports a positive experience with him.Articles
1 May 2025