Ohio Conference Delegates Vote to Close Mount Vernon Academy
By AT News Team, Jan. 15, 2015: On Sunday (Jan. 11) delegates to a special constituency meeting of the Adventist denomination’s Ohio Conference voted 257 to 82 to close Mount Vernon Academy (MVA) unless $3 million is raised by March 10. MVA is the oldest Adventist boarding secondary school. It began operations in 1893. Only the day academy in Battle Creek, Michigan, has operated longer.
If the $3 million in donations does not come in, MVA will cease operations at the end of the 2014-15 school year. The deadline was recommended by the conference’s executive committee after a special commission took a hard look at the financial condition and enrollment possibilities of the school.
Although the delegates voted to place “great value on providing long-term Adventist secondary education for the constituents,” it insisted on fiscal responsibility. The $3 million must be raised without sale of real estate or other assets and if it comes in a plan must developed by March 15 “a sustainable future” for the school.
If MVA is closed down, the conference executive committee was assigned to “develop alternative options for secondary education for current and future Ohio Conference students including funding options and scholarships.”
“It takes $3 million to operate Mount Vernon Academy annually” said a statement from the Ohio Conference. “If that money can be raised by March 10 … the school would enter the 2015-16 school year debt free with the necessary working capital.”
“Whatever happens, secondary education remains a priority in the Ohio Conference, and we will continue to seek ways to provide the opportunity for our young people to access quality, Adventist Christian education,” the statement continued. “The situation … has precipitated a conversation about Adventist education that we will continue to pursue—with union and division leadership and locally within the Ohio Conference family. Together we need to figure out how to make Adventist education viable—now and in the future.”
Enrollment in Adventist schools across North America is in decline simply because of the aging of the Adventist membership. A smaller and smaller percentage of Adventist families have school-age children with the majority of members now over 50 years of age. Although some have ascribed this decrease to a decline in dedication to Christian education, surveys taken in 1985 and 2004 show the same level of support among Adventist parents for sending their children to Adventist schools.
Surveys have shown that fewer Adventist parents are now willing to send children to a boarding school during their early teen years. The market for boarding school for teenagers has nearly disappeared among Adventists in North America.
Readers who would like to give financial support to MVA may contact Ohio Conference interim treasurer Lyle Litzenberger at (740) 397-4665, or by Email at treasurer@ohioadventist.org or by paper mail at Box 1230, Mount Vernon, OH 43050. Donations can also be made online at www.ohioadventist.org (earmarked for “secondary education—special”).
OH NOOO!!! I said it before and I’ll say it again–if we still had our businesses for kids to work in, bringing money INTO THE SCHOOL, we could have made a go of it. But the fact is, times change, people change, families change. I’m sure it was a complex decision, and I trust all who participated gave it their best.
My college, Atlantic Union, already closed. If MVA closes, too, will I become obsolete?…Or am I already…? (laughing, but not necessarily out loud)
Yes, it WAS a heart-breaking decision! There are not enough students to keep that big beautiful plant running. And OSHA and such governmental controls have long since made work/school schedules impossible. This has been long in coming. Just 10 yrs. ago, Dale Twomley, Mel Hatch, Raj Attiken, Stu Behner and the whole MVA board and alumni poured $3 mill into the plant and revamped the program. It was a real serious attempt to bring in all possible students. But they didn’t come, or at least paying students didn’t come. Just not sustainable. A real sad day for me and my husband. But change brings opportunities. We’ll see what God has in mind.
Polly, I just read your January 16th comment on the closing of MVA at the end of this school year. I have a lot of memories of many generations in my family who have attended that school. But memories can’t pay the bills and a social change among the SDA community. Even while I was teaching at the academy I was aware that this couldn’t continue for many more years. Just too few paying clients to sustain this kind of program. Thanks for your responses. It painted a realistic, though sad, picture to help folks better understand, who are at a distance from this problem. Best wishes to you and your family.
I hope the school does close. Perhaps it will make a few more within the system realise that to survive you need to adapt. Adventist schools cannot rely on Adventists to keep them going.
Rigid observance of Sabbath is the hallmark of pure Adventism. Could the slow death of the Adventist post-grade school educational system be symptomatic of the sun-setting of strict Sabbath observance and the demise of purity? Does it signal the unwillingness of hard-pressed families to fund and protect a practice no longer highly valued? After all, the educational system was created as the guardian of the young as a protection from worldly influences such as Sabbath breaking, and perhaps it no longer plays that role. Cynical, perhaps.
There is still strong support for Adventist education, but the definition of “strong” must be understood differently than in days past, when many of us Baby Boomers were in academies. Back then our parents were still rising socioeconomically at a fast clip, and though the cost of a boarding-school education was rising, it was still affordable (provided Mom was willing to take a part-time job to supplement blue-collar-dad’s income).
Add to this the diminishing number of children being born into Adventist families and an apparent slowing of socioeconomic rise in some sectors of Adventism, and it becomes apparent that there’s more to the equation than simple lack of philosophical appreciation for Adventist education.We are finding as well that those families that value simple, separate living (often without a great deal of income) for a number of decades have been opting for some variant of home school.
Personally I find a great deal of support, philosophically, for Adventist institutional education; I see economic and demographic reality as more highly implicated in the slow waning of attendance…..
You’ve said what I was thinking. Until now, why hasn’t anyone looked at it from a financial standpoint of the families. I have generations of families who have attended MV, this included my sister who was the elder of my brother and me. When my brother and I came of age to attend, it was simply more economical to send us to an institution with a lesser financial obligation. The institution wasn’t the only one struggling maintain itself
A sign of the nearness of the Second Coming. We must get our house in order. sin is not acceptable in any form…..get ready, get ready!
And we each know, the Holy Spirit is working in the lives of the believers, and is being removed from the rest of the world.
Get your Bible in hand, memorize as much as you can, Jesus is coming soon!
Good thinking. It has always been “near.” Apparently always will be.
You are right Paul. I have only been back to MVA once since being expelled in ’66. They held the standard high back then and I deserved what happened to me. High standards, high enrollment; low standards, low enrollment. Granted, demographics have changed, the available student pool is very shallow, and I have no idea what the moral and spiritual atmosphere is there now, but some of the self-supporting academies seem not to be languishing for want of enrollment or funds. And Bugs, “Insulating the young with the goal of indoctrination is now a defunct proposition,” is wrong thinking on so many levels. Let it be said, when I arrived on the yellow footprints at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, I was totally insulated from every civilian influence and thoroughly indoctrinated in Corps-think. That thinking has never left me nearly five decades later. Paul said, “Let this mind me in you…” and he said to Timothy, “Flee also youthful lusts…” I shutter for those in the totally humanistic indoctrination system of worldly education. Our youth will be indoctrinated one way or another; we should be able to choose which indoctrination that will be.
Since the SDA vision of Christian education is not working, SDA educators should learn from the Jesuits, who run a number of successful schools. It’s not as if the denomination really cares what EGW said. Her counsels have been ignored for decades.
Loma Linda hospital took some lessons in hospital management from Cedars Sinai Medical Center in L.A. I’m sure the Society of Jesus would be willing to help. They are a charitable group, in many respects.
Adventist education, AKA Christian education, is actually just a private educational system with no appeal to other Christians. As I posited above, Adventist education was created to maintain a source of members insulated from exposure to “outside” influences. If it was a actually a Christian enterprise it might have drawn from a much larger demographic without the result of the present crisis. It will never be known.
Insulating the young with the goal of indoctrination is now a defunct proposition. As a student at Campion Academy in the fifties, being held incommunicado resulting in controlled comportment was easily achieved simply by keeping us locked on campus. No cell phones then, no internet, no TV, radios confiscated (including my secreted crystal version). Sabbath behavior offered few violation options. We had religious instruction (brainwashing I call it, Catholics call it catechism) seven days a week, multiple times per day. Now the ideal of Adventist cloistering, the “Christian Education” wall has been permanently breached. The “world” has invaded every Adventist school and home, captured every teen (adults as well), and introduced the young to options outside the purview of schools, their parents and any loco parentis.
As future Adventist kids head off to public or other types of private schools they will participate in weekend activities. The worst fears of the patriarchs of Adventism will be realized. Strict Sabbath observance will continue to fade and the internal feeder of membership will wane as many of the students will find other outlets for their spiritual interests. For many of those remaining, Saturday will be observed as Sunday is.
Evolution of religious systems leaves the orthodox screeching in horror. In this case they have found emissaries to get them back to the future, the Glorious Guardians of Good (GGG, rushing off to San Antonio in July) in their quest to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Time moves forward. Sadly for them, there is no reverse time button. Only pretensions.
“It’s not as if the denomination really cares what EGW said. Her counsels have been ignored for decades.”
I agree. Also, have there been too many efforts to make a boarding academy so much like a public high school? It appears to some of us that the church is trying to attract young people with a concept of fun and games that is antithetical to true SDA educational principles.
Listen to and watch some of GYC available and note that fun and games have no part in their agenda.
Maranatha
Right on.
Here we are looking for Jesus to come soon and the conference is willing to sacrifice Christian education for our young people to hang on to assets. Shame on them.
Contribute 3 mil and you can save the day and “Christian” education, too!
Here’s an idea; make GC this summer a virtual event which is very possible in this electronic age, and use the savings to shore up the schools that are most closely following the “blueprint.” Read the book “Broken Blueprint.” “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Learn from the Jesuits? Why not just say why don’t we learn from the devil just how to properly run our school….
i find it interesting that the naysayers of SDA education talk about the sky’s falling. Perhaps they should take a lesson from South Lanaster Academy whose demise was predicted with close of AUC. Before the college closed the leadership of the academy made changes and began to adapt. 2010 there was a 15 percent enrollment increase followed by the year of the college closing, another 15 percent (the college closing actually took 9 students from the academy yet a net of 15 percent still occurred) that translates to 30 percent enrollment increase during a deep recession. Maybe it is time to look forward instead of what it used to be. Education must change to stay viable, the core beliefs of Adventists never change, how the youth and young parents are engaged in church is the question.
I think you’re making a good point about our schools needing to adapt. The world around us is changing, so why should we imagine that an old education model will remain effective? Boarding academies are the most expensive private schools. They also are very limited in their impact. In contrast, local church schools are typically much less expensive per student, serve larger populations and are preferred for the simple reason that they are more accessible. So I think we should be broadening our concepts about how to make christian education more accessible and available to more people.
Just an off-issue historical note: South Lancaster Academy in South Lancaster, MA is still functioning and doing well as “System worker” noted! It was started by Stephen Haskell in 1882 and is still on its original site.
Continued existence raises a lot of questions about how it is that way. How much has it cost to sustain through its’ history as compared to revenue it has produced from tuition? Is it financially stable and self-sustaining? Or, does it exist only because it receives a major portion of operating costs from the conference budget? Does it operate as a community school admitting non-SDA students? What percentage of the students graduate and go on to college? How do they perform on standardized tests?
It is not directly supported from the conference but is part of a five church constituency. All
Grads go on to college and overall do fine on tests. Lots of docs and lawyers as alums. The school has no outstanding debts
China has been open for ~30 years; however, I’m unaware of any effort by any SDA organization to prepare people to work in China. Schools could offer specialized ESL majors, including teaching credential, Chinese language, history, and cultural studies. Of course, China isn’t welcoming “missionaries” but they have numerous jobs for ESL teachers.
They are interested in reliable people with a moral compass to work in a variety of ESL environments. Any effort on the part of any SDA educational facility to prepare people to do that?
Hansen,
I agree. The church has operated language schools in a number of countries since around 1970. I spend 1975 in Korea teaching conversational English and have many friends who have spent a year or more in the country since then. I don’t have recent data, but prior to around the year 2000 it was the language schools that produced more baptisms each year than the combined total of all the evangelistic campaigns in the country! From time to time I see reports from inside China about how the language schools there are very effective at growing the church.
William, Never heard of SDA language schools in China but I’d be interested in learning about them.
I don’t have much detail about them. I have met several people who have worked in the schools as teachers and I had a friend in graduate school who learned to speak English at one of them.
The list of academies forced to close due to high operating costs is long and MVA will not be the final victim. If our objective actually was delivering quality education to the maximum number of students then we would be focusing our funds on the building and operation of local day schools instead of boarding schools.
Of the three academies I attended, one has ceased operation. Of my classmates, a high percentage no longer consider themselves adventists.
I attribute those two things primarily to three factors.
Money that should have been invested in students’ accounts based on citizenship and GPA spent, instead, on tuition for students based only on one parent being a “regular” member of the denomination and living (on paper at least) close to or below the poverty line.
Students who should have been taught to be thinkers (problem solving “outside the box”) being taught (catechised), instead, to be mere reflectors of other men’s thoughts.
Students who should have been taught the basic principles of the protestant reformation being encouraged, instead, to think of adventism as an alternative to protestantism.
Note to AT: Please give my email address to anyone who would like me to expand or clarify these points.
Roger, one of the intended consequences of the Adventist educational system is mediocrity.
Expanding on your phrase “problem solving ‘outside the box,'” a frightening precept, never intended by Adventism. Here is what I mean in three steps. The first is intention, the second is results. Third, thinking is anathema to group-think.
The primary intention of “Adventist” (AKA Christian) education was indoctrination and insulation. The premise was that Christ was on his way back. Soon, a man sized hand would appear overhead with Christ riding in it, so time left was to be spent, not on getting smarter, but in getting ready to welcome him. Keeping the “Welcomers” insulated, requiring their strict attention was the primary goal, indoctrination was the methodology. With earth time surely short, preparing for heaven made some kind of sense. There would be plenty of time in heaven to get smarter.
The second Is the results. Even now with the “little hand cloud” fading into the sunset, because boosting the brightest to be the best they could be runs into Sabbath boundaries there is no internal system willing to urge the violation of those walls. So there are very few bright Adventist leaders in industry, politics, government, business, academia and science. (Yes, there are exceptions, but a tiny fraction compared to the representation of Sunday keeping denominations). Adventism has no internal demographic influence (except in the medical field where Sabbath breaking has always been legal) in culture. It has cultivated mediocrity. Where are the Adventists award recipients for achievements alongside others? Are they dumber as a group? I don’t thinks so. Maybe just taught too well to be reflectors.
Third, the central story line of Adventism was the concept of “present truth,” in reality, group-think. The educational system was designed by cloistering to properly channel thought as present truth. It was defined as “The Truth,” but only as it toed the party line starting with 2300 day prophecy and as long as it stayed with the Adventist narrative growing from it. “Present truth(s)” were additions along the way that contributed favorably to the elevation of the church in its esteem of its role. Thinking “outside the box” is an act of heresy in this play.
I was schooled in it, taught in it, bailed out at age 32. Gladly rescued my 2 kids from church school and Adventism, put them in public school where they learned to swim successfully with the sharks, one is an airline pilot, the other mother of a national gymnastic champion (meets are often on Saturday) and she at 50 is schooling to be a dental hygienist. Both married to the same spouse. Me? I’m mediocre, (married for 25 years to a Catholic wife) but don’t blame church schools for either or! I started thinking “outside the box” while still in college, just took a few years to digest and act on it all.
PS I know a Roger Metzger. Could you be him?
Lemon blew it when he made this statement:
“The worst Adventist schools are better than the best public schools.”
How many parents would choose to send their most precious children to a bad SdA school than a good, close public school just so they could be indoctrinated in a specific religion?
Never was it mentioned that there are many excellent schools that are Christian (not Catholic). In my city there is a large Christian university begun by the Mennonites. And there are several large Christian academies. Why send your child to an inferior school merely because it is Adventist? Does the denomination or parents not value excellence?
Surely, that wouldn’t be said about Adventist health centers and universities. When Adventists settle for mediocrity or worse, it’s very shameful.
“The worst Adventist schools are better than the best public schools.”
Elaine, this is code language for “better to deliver the helpless, impressionable young from the temptation of Sabbath breaking than to risk a good education.”
Fifty years ago when I was still a pastor I saw church members literally in tears because they were sure their children, who were no longer Adventist members, wouldn’t be “saved.” That mindset, seemingly reflected here in a sort of way, still has me scratching my head in disbelief that a view of life can be so narrow. I always wondered: Does Adventism attract and collect people like that or does it convert them into that? Hmmmm. Maybe both or neither. Still don’t know
You are so right Elaine. I have often advised students to attend a local community college while still living at home, for the first two years. Then, once their vision is more set and they are the “peer influence”, they can take the plunge into degrees. The problem with a mediocre Adventist school is students let their guards down, thinking they are safe. I did, even back in MVA’s heyday. I was introduced to novel reading at MVA (1984, Catcher in the Rye). A roommate had a suitcase full of dime novels of the most salacious nature. The boys dean had two seniors literally kick two of us down the hall for making too much noise. But God’s grace He has led me back into His straitness.
“Students who should have been taught the basic principles of the protestant reformation being encouraged, instead, to think of adventism as an alternative to protestantism.”
Excellent observation, Roger. Adventism as an alternative to Protestantism. It’s frightening but would explain a lot. There is much excellent Christian theology in the Augsburg Confession and its Apology. Resolves a lot of confusion around 1888, J+W, etc.
Financially boarding academies are priced out of reach of the vast majority of Seventh-day Adventist families while demographically there is already almost no need for them.
A close look at Georgia-Cumberland Academy, elsewhere cited as an example of a successful Seventh-day Adventist academy, is informative.
The open-rate charges to attend GCA are $20,000 annually. With two children in academy at the same time, that is $40,000 annually for a family. Medical care for a family of four will be $25,000 annually. So we are looking at $65,000 out-of-pocket, after-tax costs to a family enterprise to handle their medical and educational care with two children. To this must be added housing, transportation, food, clothing, communication, and other associated costs of living. And, of course, there is the matter of taxes required on the income that will support these needs.
To come close to avoiding devolving into ever deeper debt a family with two children at GCA will have to be reporting pretax income in the $125,000 to $150,000 range, which is double or closing in on nearly triple the median US family income. GCA is clearly a school for financially elite families, as not 1 in 10 US families earn enough to send two children to GCA, and very likely not 1 in 20 US Seventh-day Adventist families can afford to send two children to GCA. And GCA is by comparison to other Seventh-day Adventist academies by no means a surprisingly costly school to attend.
Beyond the financial limitations, demographically the average age of Seventh-day Adventist members in the North American Division is increasing and already puts them beyond having children even in college. This means there is a much lower and declining need for Seventh-day Adventist schools, especially academies.
Despite finger pointing directed at people attempting to operate Mount Vernon Academy, it is simply not their fault that the school is now receiving hospice care.
Around the world, Seventh-day Adventist education has grown dramatically by nearly doubling enrollment in the past decade. It is a much different set of circumstances elsewhere in the world.
Great opportunites for SDA to operate schools of all kind in China. Since education became “for profit” in recent years, many people have gotten involved, including mobster types who simply attach a foreign name to their company, hire some half baked university students, and rake in the money. Strange thing is that people are willing to pay.
It is entirely possible for people to privately operate high schools, primary schools, and so forth. If a school like Loma Linda University got involved, the wealthiest students would attend, as well as the brightest and most promising.
Great opportunity!
Let me spell it out for you. If Loma Linda Academy opened a branch in China and guaranteed the top students admission to, say La Sierra or PUC for pre med studies, the brightest and wealthiest students from all over China would attend. They would pay cash for admission. Those who legitimately earned a spot in medical school could attend LLU.
Lot of work but potential rewards significant.
I am sorry to hear about the possible closing of Mt Vernon Academy.
I hate to hear of their closing, I graduated from there in 1977. I will say two things: they do not hire competent business office staff, for sure, have had many problems with my own donations and it’s been for years, yet they continue to employ the same unqualified personnel. Also, lack of oversight on behalf of the ‘higher ups’, too many financial debacles to go over, if you’re an Ohio Adventist you already know them.
Two, I enjoyed my time there, made many good friends and felt the teachers were truly caring and qualified. But, in the 70s anyway, it was somewhat like a prison. I understand they had 240 students, age 14 to 18, to be responsible for, but really? No radios except on Sundays, forget about TV, no cars of your own, couldn’t wear jeans except on Sundays, just ridiculous.
I know it is different now, but even 40 some years ago it was ridiculously restrictive.
What need does a student have for a car when he is in an academy?
You deplore the restrictions, many of us deplore now the almost unbridled freedom.
Actually, is the academy the ideal place for a 14 year old with all the pressures of his peers? I sincerely doubt it; I believe home is the best place for 14 and 15 year olds. But the rub is this — where to send them to school. No easy answer although some SDAS are homeschooling at the high school level.
You write that: “MVA is the oldest Adventist boarding secondary school. It began operations in 1893. Only the day academy in Battle Creek, Michigan, has operated longer.”
What about South Lancaster Academy which opened in 1883 (South Lancaster, MA)?
I am a graduate of MVA and the thought of it closing is very sad. Adventist Education needs to continue and the roll MVA plays needs to continue.
I am disturbed by some of the comments written here. But I am also encouraged by the comment of Alan Richardson, “Here we are looking for Jesus to come soon and the conference is willing to sacrifice Christian education for our young people to hang on to assets. Shame on them.” This is very true.
It pains me to think of the Academy being sold off as just property. It is consecrated ground that should be used to train our kids in the way they should go.
Shame on the Ohio Conference and the Executive Committee for not having the faith to save Mount Vernon Academy. It can be a light on a hill, again.
Perhaps it would be timely to reconsider our Adventist education model. Academies were started in a period of American history when few people went to school beyond the 5th or 8th grades and a majority of the population could neither read or write. So they offered real advantages to whomever attended. They were affordable because they were less expensive to operate than today, students had industries where they could work and earn a larger portion of their cost, etc. There was real advantage to be gained by “going away to school.”
The counsel we were given by EGW about boarding schools fit the need of the day. Society has changed greatly since then, but our educational model has not so the academies are becoming victims of the refusal to adapt and change with the times. Has the concept of the boarding school become outdated? To a very large degree, yes. Yet we lack some critical elements if Adventist education in general is not to suffer the same demise. Where is the distinctiveness, the advantage to students and families, that makes Adventist education different and worth the cost? Where is the access to Adventist schools offering those qualities making them desirable? I think we need to be thinking locally for K-12 Adventist schools and leaving boarding schools to the pages of history.
Why have children when you substitute their home life with that of a secondary boarding school? Moreover, why would any teenager want to attend a SDA boarding academy after reading their online rule book? In this information age, teenagers today are not willing to forfeit access to radio, television and the Internet. Why volunteer to go to prison when no crimes committed? Why be threatened endlessly for money in order to continue your education? Why delay your college education and your career because your parents will not or cannot pay the expensive tuition bill?
My parents, each gone for many years, graduated from Mount Vernon Academy. They met the Lord in practical education and experience there. They met each other there and appreciated the life-long friends they made at MVA. Their telling of their experience was always forward-looking. Their education at MVA influenced how they raised their family, how Mother interacted with the community wherever we lived, what we ate, how we observed Sabbath, and more … very long ago.
Many factors contribute to low enrollment in Adventist academies, including MVA. Undoubtedly some schools need to be closed, and I know nothing of MVA’s present situation, but when I heard Ohio constituency had voted to close MVA, I looked at the MVA website, Facebook, and other online sites. I live in the Midwest, but the website looked dated to me, not of interest as a parent and of low appeal to the high school and academy students I know.
Has MVA become so mired in history that it is irrelevant to the present and the future? Books are not everything. Verbal skills are increasingly vital. Computers are here to stay. Are students learning how to create a school website that appeals to academic minded students, to those with diverse recreational interests, to diverse employment skills, and to other real-world interests of their age group? The legal guidance essential to website production would be invaluable. Could students learn how to effectively appeal to parents through a website? Sensitivity to the viewpoints of others–especially their parents–might strengthen many a family. It would seem current students could effectively appeal to prospective students through Facebook, if every page indicated acceptable diversity at each scroll through the site.
I see pleas for money. Don’t people put their money where their treasure is? If their children, their “treasure”, are not at MVA, what are youth getting elsewhere that parents and youth find appealing? What would it take for parents and treasured youth to integrate the “good” they find elsewhere into the safeguards MVA already undoubtedly offers?
My parents never spoke of anything amiss at MVA, though surely there must have been some. The “good” made a stronger impression. May it continue to be so.
May each participant be blessed in considering the opportunities and the actions essential to make occur whatever is best for MVA.
Very sad to hear of any SDA closings, especially schools.I have taken some time to read most of the remarks and I didn’t see any one have any solutions. The 3 million talked about won’t be saved closing MVA. The conference employees children benefit. will be paid to any SDA school they attend. I would not be surprised that 1/3 of the 3 million is for conference employees children. Maybe we need to rethink how we pay the conference employees. The benefits the conference pays each employee is what is the REAL problem. Starting wages are way to high, most preachers really only work part time but receive $55,000 + benefits. Just stop and think two small churches generating $10,000 to $15,000 per year in tithes and offerings just doesn’t warrant a full time preacher. Maybe the Baptist have a good idea with there rural churches. The Baptist have a part time preacher and he is paid by a percentage of the plate, he or she also have a full time job. Sure sounds like good economics to me My Wife and I are very much in favor of our church schools. We have 9 children and 8 have graduated from SDA Academy, we worked hard took advantage of the discounts paying early when we could. We decided to put this in to encourage you parents out there it can be done. We did it! NOTHING beats a christian education, Lets stop closing schools and start making other economic decisions to save money. I suggested a few, I’m sure their are many more.
We had over 350 students per year during some of the 16 years I enjoyed teaching there. It hurts to see the death of a great school. Some of my former students are leaders now in our denomination. But far too many have left the church to live life in the “fast lane.”
I’m coming late to this because I didn’t know of the closure until my brother asked if I wanted to attend the final Alumni Weekend with him. 44 years after graduating from MVA, I am one who left the church as Mr. Gutman mentioned but living life in the ‘fast lane’ was not why I left and I suspect I am not the only person who is no longer a Seventh-day Adventist for other reasons than the ‘fast lane’ comment. I learned a great deal of religious doctrine while attending MVA and I can honestly say doctrine appeared far more important than a spiritual awakening all 4 years I attended. Had I felt a spiritual connection I would have stayed connected to my alma mater but religious dogma only led me away from the organization that kept me from looking to Christ for my salvation. After years of working within the SDA system I found the freedom that a loving relationship with Christ brings outside the SDA walls. Had I found that relationship at MVA I would be within the system today and my child and grandchildren would have continued the legacy my mother started by graduating from the school. I believe MVA closed because, although I made friends there and have many fond memories, the cost is too high unless the spiritual aspect is strong enough to warrant the financial sacrifice. My child accepted Christ as his personal Savior while attending public schools and is spiritually strong today. Please open your eyes to the reality of what happened at MVA and take responsibility for the outcome. Also, don’t lament its closure but trust God still has the world in His hands and your children will learn to live for Christ thru other Christian means. After all, it is more important to know Christ than to be a Seventh-day Adventist.
Renee, I, too, left the SDA church many years ago. There is much secrecy surrounding the fathers past; the upholding of traditions; the blatant disregard of *new light*. Commitment to Yahuah, and Him alone will always blow the cover off religious dogmas people except without true scriptural studies.
I remember you from a Revelation Seminar in Reynoldsbug, Ohio in the 80’s. I’m the one who made you the little picture with the misspelled word *meant*! Maybe you remember. I was mortified when I realized, but the sentiment will always be true. Thank you for your contribution to my life. You exuded Jesus, (whom I know call by His rightful name, Yahusha.) There was no religious dogmas in your testimony – just pure, heartfelt LOVE. Be blessed Renee!
bev
Bev, of course I remember you and the picture you made. It was not often I received such heartfelt gifts. It has always been my desire to point to Jesus Christ in the ministry He gave me to do. Thank you for remembering me my friend. Bless you as you continue living for Him. Friends, Renee
Well according to my Bible, God intends to preserve People, not Places or Institutions or Organizations or Churches.
All of these latter are doomed to destruction when Jesus Christ returns to claim us as His own, if not sooner.
Every time I have bought a house or helped to build or buy a church or school, I have reminded myself that someday it is going to burn. Why must we cling to that which is destined to pass away?