President Edmond's Final GC Notes07/06/10

President Edmond's Final GC Notes07/06/10


Elder D. C. Edmond, President, South Central Conference

Final General Conference Session Report

The 59th Session of the General Conference (GC) of Seventh-day Adventists has ended. Here is my final report, on the final two days (Friday and Sabbath):

Friday was different in that I did not get to attend any portion of the business session. Mrs. Edmond and I attended a farewell breakfast given by the North American Division (NAD) Conference Presidents for the outgoing NAD Conference President, Elder Don Schneider. Elder Schneider was not re-elected last week.

He and Mrs. Schneider seemed to take the decision of the delegates very well. People who do not have to face an election are very good at saying, "If you are not re-elected, you should not take it personally, and your feelings should not get hurt."

Well, the first part is true; often, not getting re-elected is not personal. People have the right to say to someone who is holding an elected position, "We appreciated your service, but we think that it is best to go in a different direction." Each of us who accepts being elected, also accepts the possibility of not being re-elected. It is the right of the constituents to make whatever changes they deem necessary. Not only that, but this is the Lord’s work, we are all soldiers in the Lord’s army and He can assign or reassign any of us according to His will and divine plan.

But that does not mean that it does not hurt. It is roughly the secular equivalent of losing one’s job; and I do not believe that most people who lose their job feel completely happy about it.

But Elder and Mrs. Schneider took what happened with grace and humor. There seemed to be a genuine affection for them, and an appreciation for their ministry. A number of the conference presidents knew the Schneiders over the years, had worked with them; a few had even gotten their starts in ministry under their leadership.


Elder Schneider apparently was noted for his sense of humor. When he was president of a conference out west, one of his all-time pranks was to stage a scene where one of the pastors pretended to shoot another pastor as a result of an argument. The "shooting victim" went all out, even secreting a ketchup packet, which he managed to open without being noticed, to make it look as though he was "bleeding" from being "shot."

What the pranksters did not count on was the "victim’s" wife showing up, unexpectedly, and fainting at the sight of her husband being "shot." Elder Schneider said he did not pull that particular prank again after that.

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Just before Elder Wilson preached, he read a letter from President Barak Obama to the delegates of the General Conference. That letter, from the first black President in the history of the United States, written to a church that is now, "majority minority," is evidence of how much things have changed since I attended my first GC in Detroit many years ago.

We greeted people after church (I saw someone I hadn’t seen in 40 years) and waited for a shuttle. After waiting 45 minutes, we realized that we were better off walking back to our hotel, even though it was 90 plus degrees and virtually none of my wife’s 11 pairs of shoes were suited for walking 6 blocks. But my wife was a good solider and walked (albeit, very slowly) back to our hotel. By the time we finished eating, it was 5:30 p.m., and almost time to go back to the Dome for the famous "Parade of Nations" program.

I walked back to the Dome, leaving my wife to catch the shuttle while I saved seats once more. I had cut my morning walk short this morning to get to church on time, but I am making up for it!

The legendary Parade of Nations featured representatives from every country in the world that has a Seventh-day Adventist presence. The representative(s) carry the flag of their particular country and come attired in their native dress. Once again, the Inter American Division electrified the crowd.

The United States was represented by someone from SOUTH CENTRAL, one of our church school principals, Mrs. Queen Robinson, of F.H. Jenkins, in Nashville, Tennessee. We were very proud.

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Source: http://www.scc-adventist.org/news-press-releases-detail.cfm?id=780