Quo Vadimus: An Invitation to a Dialogue
Quo vadimus . . . a Latin phrase that simply means: Where are we going? I recognize that there is a certain level of pretention in naming your blog in Latin. I am not sure what that says about me, personally, or what this title may signal to others about the intentions of this blog. What I do know is that this is an important question that we all need to be asking as it relates to the future of our movement.
I grew up in the Advent Christian Church and have been serving as an Advent Christian leader for the last eighteen years. I served as a youth pastor and lead pastor. For the last eight years, I have been serving as part of the staff at the Advent Christian General Conference offices. My most recent role with ACGC has been in the area of leadership development, serving emerging leaders, particularly those sensing a call to pastoral ministry, church planting or missionary service. In this role, I find myself pondering three key questions on a regular basis.
Where have we been?
Where are we now?
Where are we going?
It is the latter of these three questions that probably dominates the majority of my thinking, as my job, by its very nature, is concerned with the future. However, if we are being honest, our past and present very much inform our future in a variety of ways, both noticeable and hidden and both good and bad. As such, all three of these questions must be on our mind as we seek to follow the Lord toward the future He intends for us.
With this in mind, I want this little corner of the ministry of Advent Christian Voices to serve as a forum. It will be my goal to use this space to post informed thoughts and opinions that seek to address these important questions. My posts will not necessarily reflect the views of Advent Christian General Conference, but will be my own. I will not be seeking to promote a particular agenda so much as to promote discussion and debate around the issue of where God may be leading us as an international network of churches and ministries. We have a long history of this kind of robust dialogue, and this history has served as the inspiration for this site.
I want to invite you, now, to be part of this dialogue. My hope is that the comment section for this blog will be used liberally. Feel free to use it not just to share words of encouragement (though those are welcome), but also to add context and detail, or even to constructively share your own informed points of disagreement. I only ask that our dialogue be offered in the spirit of koinonia. Such dialogue will only aid the discussion as we seek to answer this question . . . Quo vadimus? Where are we going?