News Articles

For members of the Adventist Church in North America, giving tithes and offerings on digital platforms — especially smartphones — recently got much easier with the launch of the Adventist Giving mobile apps for both Apple (iOS) and Android devices. Members can search “Adventist Giving” in the respective application stores to find the apps.

The church plays an important role in creating a safe community and an environment in which domestic violence, or intimate partner violence (IPV), is addressed, not covered up. An appropriate understanding of Scripture is also protective. Local churches must become aware of resources in their communities designed to help both victims and perpetrators.

Adventist Community Services (ACS) led its first emotional and spiritual care class outside of the North American Division in Kigali, Rwanda, on Aug. 13-15. The three-day program drew 35 people from six countries - Rwanda, South Sudan, Burundi, Congo, Kenya, and Tanzania.

"Walgreens doesn’t accommodate religious accommodations.” That’s how Darrell Patterson’s supervisor at Walgreens described the company’s policy. Despite that very frank (and honest) assessment, despite the fact that Walgreens violated its own policies by firing Patterson, and despite the fact that Walgreens suffered no hardship from his not working on Sabbath, four judges in two different courts decided that Walgreens didn’t violate the law. Now in 2018 the U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to set this injustice right and clarify the law for all people of faith for the first time in more than 30 years.

For three days in August, a room in the south building of McCormick Place was filled with reams of paper, five laminators, colored pencils, pairs of scissors — and 240 Adventist educators attending the NAD Teachers’ Convention. Multi-grade teachers of small schools had the opportunity to color, laminate, and trim all the resources for five units of the new Encounter Bible curriculum.

United States-based Adventist Health System (AHS) recently announced the organization will change its name to AdventHealth as of January 2019, a transition AHS leaders say connects the health care system closer to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. “The decision to identify our dynamic health system as AdventHealth emerged from a multi-year process of prayer, market research, and mission-focused thinking,” says Adventist Health System CEO Terry Shaw.

After a battle with cancer and short time in hospice care, Jere Wallack, former director of the North American Division’s (NAD) Church Resource Center (CRC, later known as “Vervent”), and co-founder of Sonscreen Film Festival, passed away on Aug. 17, 2018. Wallack was retired from denominational service and living in Arizona with his wife, Nancy, when he fell ill earlier this year.

Supporters of Seventh-day Adventist higher education now have additional opportunities to help students pay for tuition through two new scholarship funds established at La Sierra University in honor of noted alums Del Delker and Bailey Gillespie.

Maranatha Volunteers International’s annual mission trip for high-school teenagers, Ultimate Workout, recently finished its 28th generation in Bolivia. A total of 167 teens and adults served at four locations in the Entre Ríos area from July 18-30, 2018. Every day, volunteer teams spread out to four different sites, each almost an hour away.

On the final day of the 2018 NAD Teachers’ Convention, approximately 250 teachers met at 6:30 a.m. to participate in an anointing service. Attendees were encouraged to pray for the Holy Spirit to lead them and their colleagues during the upcoming school year.