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my cousin, who is a Methodist pastor, wrote this on his Facebook page today:

"The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of[a]Meshek and Tubal; prophesy against him 3 and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against you, Gog, chief prince of[b] Meshek and Tubal. 4 I will turn you around, put hooks in your jaws and bring you out with your whole army—your horses, your horsemen fully armed, and a great horde with large and small shields, all of them brandishing their swords. 5 Persia, Cush[c] and Put will be with them, all with shields and helmets, 6 also Gomer with all its troops, and Beth Togarmah from the far north with all its troops—the many nations with you." (Ezek 38:1-6) All of the underlined nations except Persia were located in/around modern day Turkey back in Zeke's time. Persia is modern-day Iran; so I think Iran will be involved in end-time events - possibly with the U.S. if there is still a U.S when the end occurs.

That figure seems consistent with the long recognized statistic that 50% or less of members still listed on any given church's books attend that church regularly. If memory serves me correctly, "regularly" has been generously defined as low as only either once or twice a month. The question that should be focused on with serious intent is how inflated/reliable are our current membership numbers. Perhaps we should be somewhat more modest in our claims that we are a church with 19.5 million members worldwide. Realistically, could it be as low as 9 million? The more disheartening reality is that because of this disturbing statistic, the number of former Adventists far outnumber those that we claim are members by our own statistics. In NAD the estimates are that there are 4-10 times as many former Adventists. If we could miraculously reclaimed all of those that have left us, NAD membership would swell to 5-11 million members! There is reason to believe that the reality may not be substantially different worldwide.

You understand it correctly. Also, how much would a $23 and change check cover in the purchase of something that was energy saving. In a locally subsidized program, some common style light bulbs sold for $3. But, under most other circumstances, $23 would not purchase two bulbs. We also replaced many of our light switches with a dimmer switch. We did this for the few lights that are not LED and also for many of our LED lights. Those dimmer switches cost more than $23 each.

That is a question that is being asked by many of people today. It should be noted that these people may distinguish between religion and spirituality. Perhaps, we SDAs should pay more attention to the difference in meaning between these two words?

no....the quote came from my cousin in Minnesota. But Bryan Fulwider is also his cousin, as well. LOL.. lots of ministers of all denominations in my family!

It's not just Americans, the SdA Church is born of and steeped in a culture of independence, free-thinking and rebellion. The Seventh-day Adventists pioneers often rebelled against the leadership of their previous congregations and churches, which were often Methodist. The Methodists had arisen in rebellion against the established Church of England. The Church of England was the result of Henry VIII's rebellion, and Henry VIII had been encouraged and emboldened by Martin Luther's and Jean Calvin's respective rebellions against Rome. The Roman Catholic Church arguably arose in rebellion against the Eastern bishops who insisted upon equality with the Bishop of Rome. And the Apostolic and early churches themselves were in rebellion against the civil and religious authorities of antiquity. Week after week SdA pastors exhort their membership "don't take my word for it - read the Bible for yourselves". But when people take this advice to heart and read the Bible for themselves, don't be surprised that some will come to conclusions that differ from those of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. And people will not easily abandon contrarian beliefs which came about through personal study. The 16th Century Catholic Bishops correctly predicted what would happen to ecclesiatic authority once the Bible were to be held up as having greater authority than counsels of bishops. In this respect we are the intellectual heirs of Luther. The SdA hierarchy may attempt to counter our heritage and try to shoehorn this unruly and independent-minded people into a culture of deference to episcopal office on matters of faith, morals and ecclesiology, but the effort is doomed to fail, for this is not who we are.