New Life Seventh Day Adventist Church

I visited the New Life Seventh Day Adventist Church (now Abundant Life Seventh Day Adventist Church) at 2695 Petaluma Blvd. N. this Saturday (Feb. 5th). Their pastor, Timothy Judson, also serves as the pastor of the Sebastopol Seventh Day Adventist Church, and rotates every other week between both churches.

I say Saturday because, for those of you who don't know, Seventh Day Adventists meet for church on Saturday, not on Sunday. (That is partly why I have not made it there before - I tend not to think of going to church on Saturday.) They meet on Saturday because, for those not aware, the Sabbath actually falls on Saturday, the seventh day of the week. (They consider Saturday to start on Friday at sunset, and continue until Saturday at sunset.) They believe in observing the Sabbath as it was initially instituted in the Old Testament, and, as they believe, it continued in the early Church. (Christians began meeting on the first day of the week, Sunday, the Lord's Day, because this was the day of the week Jesus rose from the dead.) [Other denominations who observe the Sabbath on Saturday include Seventh Day Baptists, the True Jesus Church, the Church of God (7th Day) - Salem Conference, Seventh Day Remnant, and the Logos Apostolic Church of God.]

Adventist history traces back to William Miller (1782-1849) a Baptist layman/preacher. His followers in the 1830s and 1840s became known as Millerites. The service at an Adventist church is similar to the order of service at a Baptist Church.

Christians ask me from time to time if the Seventh Day Adventist ("SDA") denomination is a cult. Though they were often classified as a cult early in 20th Century, they clarified and modified some of their doctrines so that by the mid-20th Century, they were no longer considered a cult, and accepted as being within evangelicalism, though the majority of Christian churches worship on Sunday instead. The SDA has about 16 million members worldwide, with about 7% in America, and fast growing numbers in developing countries.

The New Life Seventh Day Adventist Church here in Petaluma currently has an average weekly attendance of about 25. In accord with Seventh Day Adventist tradtion, they held a potluck supper following their service, which they warmly invited me to share in, and so I enjoyed a healthy meal (they are into healthy foods) and a good conversation with them.