Leaderboard

I think this happened with the Harris Pine Mills but I see it also in my workplace. It is hiring people who are not qualified to do the job. There are things that I see where I am that make our outfit look unprofessional and it bothers me. I take care to always be learning something, even if it's only to advance my persoal knowledge. But when I recently took it upon myself to research merchandising did it hit me how little emphasis on this has been placed.

Person of the Year: What should be the qualifications? I go back in time to TIME magazine and also current selections by the media. Their criteria did not include either positive or negative judgements of the individual. Rather, they chose based upon the decision as to who had the most impact upon society during the year. From that perspective, I think that President Ted Wilson stands head and shoulders above everyone else. People can debate whether his impact upon the SDA denomination has been positive or negative. that is a debate that I do not wish to engage in. Probably everyone is fixed in their opinion. Regardless I will suggest that his impact upon this denomination has been head and shoulders above that of anyone else. Therefore, I would have selected him.

Samie: Yes the "glorious land" in Daniel 11:16 is Israel. The problem is that the exact details of Daniel 9-12 is what would have happened had the Hebrews been faithful as they returned and accepted Christ when he came. Something very similar will happen in our last days, but we have to be careful to not confuse our last days with the last days that they could have had. As we learn what could have happened we can understand better what went wrong to correct those mistakes, and we can understand what we will be facing.

The current issue of Spectrum has a number articles that are of interest and speak to current issues. Probably tomorrow, I will post a more detailed comment on this issue. However, an article by David Thomas suggests that we as a denomination have moved from a community of believers to an organization that is following the path of what is called in business the Organizational Life Cycle. These stages are listed as: Start Up Entrepreneurial Growth (Early & Middle) Mature Decline Crisis The Crisis Stage leads to either Renewal or Demise. Which happens depends on: Leadership: And how leaders foresee and plan for the crisis. Infrastructure: This is developed in the article and is more complex than I want to simplify here. But, it has a lot to do with administrative power and how it is exercised.

I think our organization has become top-heavy, with too many dollars being spent on "officers" who have desk jobs, and not enough being spent at the grass roots level, where the actual message is going out. Do any of the Seminary graduates really realize that our wonderful message of Christ's soon return is more valuable than any number of miles of airline travel, or hours of preaching, in this country or abroad. Jesus reached people by personal contact, one-on-one. That's the best way to live our message. We don't need so many people telling us how to do everything. Just more people out in the hinterlands, working with people themselves.

Such a large .org certainly needs some organization planning. But...I think Pam has an interesting question. Such a large .org needs a lot of funds such to even design long range plans and to employ the people who implement and carry out those plans. For me, the question is have we become so large that that support for the 'outreach' has become a burden to the accomplishment of such.