The Southeastern California Conference will have its quinquennial Constituency Session on October 1 (this coming Sunday).

Among their proposed bylaw changes is limiting called constituency sessions to once every 30-months. What does that mean?

Twenty percent of the churches (one fifth) in that Conference can call for a special constituency meeting to address various issues that arise between regular sessions (which only occur every five years). This provision provides a healthy check & balance for Seventh-day Adventist church members, fostering greater accountability. There is currently no limit to the number of these ‘special sessions’ that can be convened. The SECC is seeking to place a limit on them.

In our opinion, this proposed ‘change’ reduces the willingness of the SECC administrators to be accountable to their constituents. And we live in an age where more accountability is needed, not less.

This is a bad authoritarian idea. Gavin Newsom and Putin would probably like it, but you won’t. Don’t give away your authority, friends—if you do, you will never get it back. Don’t squander the healthy checks and balances that keep Adventism from being despotism.

Our advice?—Don’t vote for this bylaws change. Absolutely not.

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“But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles have absolute power and lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them [tyrannizing them]” (Matthew 20:25).