Testimony—Vicki Gillham

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Vicki Gillham
October 7, 2015
United States
A candid, unedited letter sent by a visitor: "This seems to be a worldwide body of people unified in purpose. . . . In their services they always have a handshake line coming out of the sanctuary—if there are 20 people who came that day you will shake nearly 20 hands—if there are 100 people there you will shake nearly 100 hands . . . .

Testimony originally sent to our Facebook Page.

 

Dear SDARM representatives,

 

I shared your post about the interview with a young man named Jaime from Australia at the 2015 GC session and wrote the following comments about the SDARM church in the post.  I thought it would only be fair to share the thoughts with you all as well, so that you have a chance to see a review coming from someone who has no history of being acquainted with this organization (myself).  Thanks and God bless!

 

Notice this young man's smile.... it's is an amazing phenomenon that you see this beautiful smile over and over with the people of the SDARM church. I'm starting to call it the “SDARM smile.” Recently I have been attending the SDARM, which is basically the same as the SDA church but has remained very faithful to the original message of truth since the original European group was disfellowshipped from the SDA church not long after the turn of the century because they wanted to remain faithful to our message about military combat (conscientious objector status).

 

This seems to be a church full of moderate, happy, friendly people who follow the SDA teachings without moral compromise. They are not extremist, "off-shoot" or cult-like in any way (in contrast to almost all other groups that have left SDA church). This seems to be a worldwide body of people unified in purpose—there are no obvious extremes of liberal or conservative ideology warring against each other. In their services they always have a handshake line coming out of the sanctuary—if there are 20 people who came that day you will shake nearly 20 hands—if there are 100 people there you will shake nearly 100 hands (lots of hugging going on with that too, actually), such as with the area conferences they have several times a year. The churches are small, but area churches communicate and get together for activities, share speakers back and forth, and seem to know each other.

 

They have a very active and interesting youth program with meetings that get kids involved. The kids and children themselves are very active and friendly—and have greeted me repeatedly and openly befriended me from the time I walked in the door, even though I'm much older than they are!

 

While I believe that there are many sincere SDA members, I feel that somewhere along the way the church has lost touch with the original purpose and begun chasing after the glitter and glamour of the world—and because of this you also have a lack of the Holy Spirit which has been grieved away. SDARM members have not lost the spirit of friendliness—you don't walk out of their churches feeling like no one noticed you. Instead you might get several hugs and handshakes and a lot of new friends, as well as getting to witness many beautiful smiles. It seems evident that the Spirit of God is truly blessing this organization.

 

I also love the SDA church, but in all honesty I'm getting a little weary of a lifelong struggle to try to get people to understand how Christianity could be (moderate, friendly, faithful) instead of having either worldliness/liberalism or conservative extremism that seem to be the only two options for SDA services. I have dearly enjoyed the refreshing blessing of becoming involved with a group of people so unified in purpose in following after Christ.