AN INVITATION TO FELLOWSHIP AND PARTNERSHIP
Welcome to the Central Louisiana Seventh-day Adventist Church Website! However, we want to even more so welcome you to the services and ministries of the Seventh-day Adventist Church! Our mission is to share the good news of hope found in Jesus Christ as our Redeemer and in the blessed hope of His second coming. We invite you to fellowship with us in the study of God’s Word and in worship and praise; and partner with us in our Christian journey as we seek to live lives of service for Christ and be a blessing to others.
My church – your church – is an incredible organization of ordinary people called to do extraordinary things in the power of the Spirit of God. Church is not a building. Church is people! The New Testament word for “church” comes from a word that literally means, “the called out ones”. Thus the Church is people who have been called out of the darkness of this world to the marvelous light of the gospel of Jesus. This has been the mission of the Church. It is what Christ directed the early Church to do. As members of the Church, we have endeavored to invite men and women from every walk of life, from every culture and language group to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.
It is easy to see how God has blessed His Church when you consider the remarkable growth it has had from its very beginnings. From a membership of 3,500 in 1863 in the northeastern part of the United States, to a membership today approaching 21 million world-wide, it is evident that the Spirit of God is using the vehicle of His Church to bring men and women to a knowledge of God’s saving grace.
Along with the addition of members, the Church has seen the growth of an educational system that has become the second largest parochial education system in the world, and a medical work that encircles the globe with clinics and hospitals. How has all this come about? Is it because of good planning, good fortune, or just coincidence? I believe the answer is no, no, and no.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church has grown, first of all, because God has blessed it. But it has also grown because of its divine blueprint of organizational structure. It is not just a matter of happenstance that today congregations are organized into a sisterhood of churches called conferences; and that conferences are united together into unions; and unions make up 14 divisions of the world field that are all under the umbrella of the General Conference. This divinely ordained structure has brought unity to the global diversity of race, language and culture. Faithfulness among the members of the Church in the returning of tithes and offerings has brought about the strength and ability to operate the universities, publishing houses, and hospitals which no one congregation could do on its own.
So, once again, I invite you to fellowship and partner with us – a Church that loves Jesus, loves people, and loves to be engaged in service for Him and others.
Pastor Stephen Orian