SEVENTH Day Adventist (SDA) Church members in Guadalcanal Province want the church to reconsider the ‘One Mission program’.
Spokesman for the Guadalcanal Adventist Churches Neven Onorio said, since the church came up with the ‘One Mission program,’ there has been no efficiency on the service.
Previously, they have separate missions which were, the Eastern Solomon Mission, Western Solomon Mission, Central Solomon Province, Malaita Solomon Mission and Guadalcanal Solomon Mission.
But in 2007, most of these missions have come under one overall mission named as – Solomon Islands Mission (SIM).
“Things did not work out in a sense that the mission covers the whole country with only one office. As such, they have not visited us for a very long time.
“We are not happy and not satisfied with the services rendered by the SDA head office at Lungga.
“We want them to return to the initial program where there are separate missions.
“Separate missions work better than one mission.
“During the separate mission days, each mission has their own president and run independently.
“But since they turned us and joined us into the one mission, we only have one president who has not visited us.
“Even the planned university at the Betikama Adventist College (BAC) is not yet built and nothing has been done to build the SDA health centre at Burnscreek since its ground breaking in 2014.
“We feel this is a setback in God’s service.”
He said, on Sunday (July 19), 50 church leaders of churches in Guadalcanal from the Highlands, Weathercoast and Tasimate districts met and agreed they want the initial set-up of having separate missions.
He said, a taskforce or a working committee has been formed during the meeting and they will meet again today.
He said, during the meeting, the taskforce will draft a letter that will be distributed to various SDA churches in Guadalcanal to sign.
“We will then lodge our submission to the SDA head office for consideration.”
He said this will be done before the one mission meeting in October.
“We are leaving it open for other provinces to join us if they wish but for us in Guadalcanal, we support the initial separate mission set-up.”
One mission meets after every five years.
BY ASSUMPTA BUCHANAN
