First Woman Appointed an Adventist Minister in Panama
From APD, June 23, 2016: On Monday the first woman was approved as a Seventh-day Adventist pastor in the Central American nation of Panama by vote of the governing body of the Panama Union Mission. Pastor Shesell Busby leads four local churches in the Los Andes area of Panama City.
“Welcome Pastor Busby!” said an announcement from the union mission leaders on its Facebook page. “We are pleased to be the first church leaders in Central America … to have opened the door.”
Busby completed her education in pastoral ministry at the Adventist Theological Seminary in Cuba. She has been issued credentials as a Licensed Minister which means she can conduct baptisms, communion services, weddings and funerals in the congregations that she has been assigned.
Panama is part of the denomination’s Inter-American Division where Adventist leaders have indicated an openness to women serving as clergy. Several women have been hired as commissioned ministers in charge of various departments in the division office in Miami and Spectrum, the journal of the leading association of Adventist academics, has quoted supportive comments by a division officer. None of the women working as ministers in the division have been ordained to avoid conflict with views of the majority of the delegates at the General Conference Session last summer.
There are about 100,000 Adventists in Panama in more than 400 congregations among a population of about 4 million. The denomination operates five secondary schools and two radio stations in the country.
APD is the news service for the Adventist faith in Europe. This story was translated from German. The featured photo with this story is Pastor Busby with denominational leaders in Panama.
Brothers and Sisters ,” the center cannot hold” or the wheels of the cart are coming off.
take stock of yourself then tend to your family and then tend to your local church. There is no more “them conference officials or them union officials and them GC officials” they make me sick!
This was never their church or our church, please listen I don’t tell you anything that you don’t already know, THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN GOD”S CHURCH… THE SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST / REMANENT CHURCH of REVELATION . the late elder brooks “I WANT MY CHURCH BACK!”
Brad,
Which “church” do you want back? The one that is so focused on doctrine that Righteousness by Faith is just a theory and growth is slow? Or, the Apostolic Church where the Holy Spirit fell on both men and women to empower them to minister in many ways and as a result grew explosively? Or, the one that denies that the Holy Spirit uses both men and women as He sees fit? My vote is for #2 because I want to see Jesus come.
Im not going to argue with you Bill I said my piece
The article states…
“None of the women working as ministers in the division have been ordained to avoid conflict with views of the majority of the delegates at the General Conference Session last summer.”
I focus on…
“…to avoid conflict with the views of the majority of the delegates at the General Conference Session last summer.”
How artfully worded, so as to leave the impression that its only “the views” of the majority of the 2015 GC delegates that guides them not to ordain, rather than “the vote” of the majority of the delegates. To phrase it as “the vote” would have been a tacit admission that the vote in San Antonio prohibited women’s ordination. So it’s about “the views” of the majority, not “the vote”. That makes no sense, as “the views of the majority of the delegates” are irrelevant; seeing that the actions of the Inter-American Division, most especially Panama, have taken place nearly a year after the GC Session. The delegates of the 2015 GC have been disbanded and have gone back to their countries around the world. I would hope that it’s not “the views” of the delegates of the 2015 GC that guide the Inter-American Division, but “the vote”. The “views” are not binding, “the vote” is!
I wonder if the claims of this news item are an accurate representation of the mindset of the Inter-American Division leaders or the slant of the reporter/s of this news item.
Congratulations to another mission union that decided to eliminate discrimination of women from their midst. Hope many more will follow soon. It’s time to remove this shameful discriminatory practice from a Church that claims to be Christian!
So you are saying that is OK to add to what the Bible doesn’t says?
My predictions:
Within a generation SDA women pastors will be found across much of Latin America.
Next will be Eastern Europe.
Africa will be the last to open the doors.
Another 40 years of wandering in the Wilderness? Far too long have we been going around and around this mountain. When will we be willing to follow where God’s Spirit is leading?
It will come about after this
That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions.
Even on the male and female servants (aka ministers)
I will pour out My Spirit in those days.
Sons and daughters will prophecy. ..
That doesn’t mean that they will be pastor leading the church.
Do you see any females as leaders in the sanctuary as a priest?
Everything has its own place like God the Father the song and the Holy Spirit they are 3 in one butt they act different.
Women has a special place in the Church of God but she cannot Be doing what God has not Commander to do and praise the Lord for the women.
Jim,
Amen!
As for me and my house, we choose to follow the Holy Spirit. Often that takes us into unfamiliar situations where we see God working in the most amazing of ways and we see God working in ways that “the defenders of the faith (AKA tradition)” think is the working of Satan.
I pray God’s richest blessings on Pastor Shesell Busby.
May her tribe increase!
Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord. Jeremiah 23;1-2.
There are some basic, irrefutable facts that bear repetition for the benefit of some people. So, here we go: According to Genesis 1:26-27, God made MAN, male and female ,created He them, and gave them dominion over the rest of created things. Somewhere, sometime the male began to dominate the female as well, and up to today we have the male, even among “converted” people, who revel in the privilege of male domination.
We must admit that this practice of male domination is evidenced throughout the Bible; but we now live in more enlightened times, and it is sad to realise that some of our so called converted church people still hold on to that antiquated concept of womanhood. Which commandment are such people observing by discriminating against women ?
No Estoy de acuerdo por que mientras que a un ministro le toca duro para alcanzar la Ordenación,a una mujer sin ordenar le dan la oportunidad de hacer todo como un Pastor ordenado
En la Biblia no se menciona la ordenacion ni para hombres ni para mujeres. es mas bien un asunto practico de conveniencias, como cuando se practicaba el tercer bautismo
la iglesia adventista esta tomando doctrinas de otras iglesias evangelicas.
Con estas atitudes doctrinales estamos dando razon a que estabamos equibicados.
En vez de sacalos de babilonia nos vamos con ellos a babilonia.
(Que tristeza lo que esta ocurriendo)
la iglesia adventista esta tomando doctrinas de otras iglesias evangelicas.
Con estas atitudes doctrinales estamos dando razon a que estabamos equibicados.
En vez de sacarlos de babilonia nos vamos con ellos a babilonifa.
(Que tristeza lo que esta ocurriendo)