Seventh-day Adventist Church

2003 NAD Offering Call

“Becoming Faithful Stewards”

TIME WARP

“Trekkies,” that is those aficionados of the hit television series “Star Trek” and its subsequent spin-offs, like to speak of “time warps.” These phenomena presumably permit humans and other extra-terrestrial humanoids to move, more or less at will, from distant past to present to distant future. There’s a warp alright, but it’s not as the shows’ creators have imagined it The real warp is what happens to the minds of our children (and dare we say adults?) as they feast on this and other drivel so attractively served up the the Master of Deceipt.

It has been estimated, based on the most recent data, that during a child’s first seventeen years of life, he or she will spend an average of 13,260 hours interacting with mom and dad., 12,000 engaged in school activities, and 22, hours in front of “the tube.” These figures do not include countless hours glued to a video or computer gave screen, where, in a recent examination of the “Top 20,” 18 best-selling titles had as their primary focus violence, sex, the occult, or all three. The implication is clear: Satan is going after the minds and hearts ofjour young people, and all too often he’s winning.

That’s why Adventist elementary education in the Southern new England Conference is so important. It serves to supplement the efforts of home and church to refocus our children’s attention on “whatsoever things are of good report” (Philippians 4:8, KJV). In the battle for the mind, time spent looking at the lively Jesus is time Satan cannot use to achieve his warped objectives. Your generous offerings today help assure that our children will see time — past, present, and future — as the Creator sees it.

Appeal text: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things” (Philippians 4:8, NIV).