Delegates to the Southern Asia-Pacific Division (SSD) Year-End Meetings approved a recommendation calling for local churches, institutions and entities across the division to study the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s fundamental beliefs every other week throughout 2027.
Under the recommendation, unions and missions or conferences will encourage congregations and organizations to review Seventh-day Adventists Believe: An Exposition of the Fundamental Beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The sessions may take place during midweek prayer meetings, Vespers or other worship opportunities.
The initiative seeks to strengthen Adventist identity and nurture discipleship through prayerful study, biblical reflection, group discussion and practical application. It will form part of the continuing theological and biblical education offered by SSD, unions, conferences and missions to church members.
“It is high time for us to review what we believe in,” Dr. Ian Felicitas said, field secretary to SSD, urging members to move beyond assumptions about their faith and develop a clearer understanding of what Adventism teaches.
Each review session will last 60 minutes. The recommended program begins with a welcome and hymn, followed by prayer and Scripture reading. Participants will then recap the previous lesson and share how they applied it before spending 20 minutes reviewing an assigned chapter or section.
The schedule also provides 15 minutes for guided discussion and practical application, five minutes for key takeaways and the next reading assignment, and five minutes for prayer commitments and a closing prayer.
Suggested discussion questions ask participants to read the applicable fundamental belief aloud, identify the central message of the assigned material, examine supporting Bible passages and consider its personal, congregational and workplace applications. Each group will also identify a practical action to complete before its next meeting.
Every participating church, institution and entity will designate a coordinator to schedule a regular worship slot, distribute reading assignments in advance and encourage active participation throughout the year. Reviewers may rotate to involve more members. The final session will include an overall review, testimonies and commitments to continued spiritual growth.
The Office of the Union Field Secretary will coordinate implementation of the initiative.
During the discussion, delegates supported the proposal but raised concerns about access to the study book. One participant noted that the Seventh-day Adventist Church Manual contains only a short summary of each belief and said the full book was difficult or expensive for local congregations to obtain.
“If we don’t have printed or soft copies available, how do we review something that we don’t have?”, said Engr. Nyr Cabance, lay-elect for the Adventist Church in Northern Luzon. He said copies found online cost more than 4,000 Philippine pesos and were not readily available locally.
Felicitas responded that the Philippine Publishing House was preparing to reprint the book and make copies available through Adventist Book Center contacts and the unions. Leaders said they would work to distribute the materials by the first quarter.
Pastor Roger Caderma, SSD president, acknowledged that members in far-flung communities may not have computers or reliable internet connections.
“We will provide a hard copy,” Caderma said. Although subsidizing printed materials would present a financial challenge, he said the organization would make the effort so members could study the church’s beliefs in greater detail.
Caderma connected the initiative to the world church’s four strategic priorities: communion with God, identity in Jesus Christ, unity through the Holy Spirit and mission for all. Delegates approved the recommendation by a show-of-hands vote before proceeding to the next agenda item.