Aunt Sevvy, the Adventist churches near me aren’t at all helpful to my faith. What can I do?
12 May 2025 |
Dear Aunt Sevvy,
I live in a semi-rural area. There are a few Adventist churches within a drivable distance, but they are all very traditional, and all more or less on life-support. Attending these churches is counterproductive to my walk with Jesus—and trying to be a change agent in these congregations is pointless. I’ve attended a “Sunday church” that is more in line with my walk with God, but I’m an Adventist at heart, and I love the Sabbath. What can I do, Aunty?
Signed, Searching for a Church Home
Dear Searching
Aunty wishes all Adventists could worship with a happy Adventist congregation. But some of our congregations are hard to love. Sometimes the people are well-intentioned, but you have little in common with them. A few congregations are cold, critical, or legalistic: they drain your faith, and you go home less happy than you were before.
And unless you’re near an Adventist institution, you probably don’t have a plethora of choices.
Too often the response to “I don’t like my local church” is “You should get involved and make it better.” But if the people there seem to like what they have, who are you to come in and try to change it? It seems unkind to tell you to beat your head against that wall, when it rarely works anyway.
There isn’t an ideal answer for the Adventist “church orphan.” A Methodist can go to a Presbyterian church, and though it’s a different denomination it’s not as different as Adventism is from Sunday churches. Yet switching to a Sunday church could be tough for some of us: not only is there the day of worship, but also the unique Adventist culture and language.
The burgeoning world of online Adventist classes and church services has been a blessing for us church orphans. Online classes don’t offer in-person friends, but online Adventist friends who are thoughtful and see their faith through the lens of God’s grace can be a big encouragement.
But what if you want to sing and pray with real live people? Aunty’s suggestion: perhaps you can be a Seventh-day Adventist who keeps Sabbath for yourself, but just happens to worship God with others on Sunday morning. Is there, after all, any day when you can’t worship God? (A few Sunday churches do, in fact, have Saturday evening worship.) It would take some adjustment, but it might be an alternative to sitting home alone all weekend.
Aunt Sevvy
Aunt Sevvy has collected her answers into a book! You can get it from Amazon by clicking here.
You can write to Aunt Sevvy at DearAuntSevvy@gmail.com. Your real identity will never be revealed.
