May 23, 2018
By Rob Appel
Last month, there was an article in the “Sabbath Recorder” paying tribute to my good friend Jonas Sommer. Jonas and his family were tragically taken from us on February 15th in an automobile accident. Jonas was the President of the SDB World Federation. He had sent out a correspondence to all the members of the World Federation giving them a five-year vision that he had for the member Conferences. However, I just received this in late April because my email address was inadvertently omitted from the original list used. And so, now I am able to pass this on to Seventh Day Baptists in North America. I am sorry for the lateness.
Here is that communication from Pastor Jonas from January 2017:
To members of Seventh Day Baptist
World Federation
Dear Co-Workers on God’s Fields,
The apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says we are God’s co-workers (1 Co 3: 9). The cooperator is one who works together with another to complete some work. In our case, God has chosen us to be His co-workers in the World’s evangelization. A teacher of mine once said, “God could have delegated this sublime mission to the angels, and they would have done this with passion and joyfully, but He did not. He wants us, as human beings, in cooperation with Him, to proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation”.
Our Heavenly Father wants to use our mouths, our hands and our feet to carry the message to the whole human creation. We can’t forget that He is the one who convicts of sin, of justice and of judgment.
However, our Lord wants us to be committed to Proclaim the Gospel. We are called to be fully dedicated to do our part, in the certainty that God, who cannot deny Himself, is already doing His part.
The Seventh Day Baptist World Federation will be, in the next five years, raising the banner of commitment to God, to Christ, and consequently to the Proclamation of the Gospel around the world. Our central theme will be: Committed to Proclaim the Gospel around the World. And we are going to focus on the following sub-topics:
2018 – Proclaiming the Gospel around the World Through Personal Relationships.
2019 – Proclaiming the Gospel around the World Through Evangelism.
2020 – Proclaiming the Gospel around the World Through Discipleship.
2021 – Proclaiming the Gospel around the World Through Our Gifts.
2022 – Proclaiming the Gospel around the World Through Planting Churches.
We would like to invite you to join us on this journey and be committed to Proclaiming the Gospel in every possible way. Pray! Intercede! Contribute! Share! Be an instrument in God’s hands!
May God bless us in His service.
Jonas Sommer
So the theme for this year—and I apologize for its lateness in getting to you— is “Proclaiming the Gospel around the World Through Personal Relationships. “
I just saw a post on Facebook of friends seeing each other (some of them for the first time in 20 years) and thinking, it is through these personal relationships, our memories with each other, that we continue to strive and work together to champion Jesus here in this world. May we continue to work together in love and forgiveness, and with a passion to proclaim the Gospel daily through our personal relationships; so they will spill out onto others to bring them into the family.