Leaders, let us talk!
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church Manual states that, “elders must be recognized by the church as strong spiritual leaders and must have good reputations both in church and community” (pg 73, 19th edition, 2016). “As spiritual leaders, elders are responsible for encouraging members to develop a personal relationship with Jesus by strengthening their habits of personal Bible study and prayer” ( pg 75). In light of this, it is highly imperative that church leaders gather together to brainstorm and come up with strategic ideas to assist the congregants in aiming and achieving a stronger relationship with their Maker.
To wrap up the church leadership meetings that had started on the 4th of March in Gokwe, followed by other ones held in Gweru, Kwekwe and Chiredzi, a meeting for the Masvingo church leadership which involves elders,treasurers and church clerks was held at Hillside Seventh day Adventist church under the theme: The Church at its best. In alignment with the 2023 mission statement “To make disciples of Jesus Christ who live as His loving witnesses and proclaim to all people the everlasting gospel of the Three Angels Messages in preparation for His soon return (Matt 28:18-20, Acts 1:8, Rev 14:6-12)” relevant lessons that make up the fundamentals beliefs of the SDA church were delivered and these were Adventist Evangelism , Adventist Camp Meeting, Adventist Funeral, Adventist Holy Communion, Closing the backdoor and Key Fundamentals.
To start off the event, ZCUC President, Pastor D Masikize listed the Key fundamentals that are expected in every church individual which include integrity, worship, time consciousness, to mention a few. He went on to speak about how the union had plans on reclaiming all Adventist schools that are under the control of the government council as well as the building of more Adventist schools so as to curb the high risk of drug abuse and to instill in the children integrity, uprightness and proper values.
After that, Ps L. P. Masaiti shed light on Adventist Evangelism, where he explained how the church should prepare before going for efforts so that they can win more souls for Jesus. To support his lesson Pastor Masaiti went on to quote, “A genius spends 90% of their time preparing and 10% implementing”. He also added that after the preparations and the efforts in distributing food hampers and clothes so as to soften the hearts of people, proclamation of souls should be included to make the whole efforts fruitful.
Furthermore, Ps T Rukuni gave lessons on Adventist Camp Meeting dating back to the times of the Israelites as they were travelling to Canaan. He gave emphasis on how God wanted us as His people to experience and adjust to leaving behind our belongings even just for a week, so that we practice faith and trust in Him as our ultimate provider as was done for the Israelites in the old days.
The Adventist funeral was the next lesson which was led by Ps R Maphuzukunotha. In this particular lesson, the servant of God highlighted how everyone who has lost a loved one goes through four stages which include denial, anger, acceptance and back to normalcy. To add on, he mentioned that in all the funeral stages the church should not override the wishes of the grieving family and it should be there to support and console the family.
The third lesson was on Adventist Holy Communion and it was led by Ps T Rukuni. He gave notes on how the communion should be eaten once in a quarter as well as how the ordinance of foot washing should be as it was done by Christ with his disciples as an expression of humility. Not only that, but he addressed the issue of the Good Samaritan offering done for the poor after the communion.
After him came Ps D Masikize with the lesson on Adventist Wedding, where he illuminated the procedures to be followed in an Adventist wedding which included the type of dressing, the marching and how the ceremony was run. He also came in with the lesson Closing the back door which was meant to show how to preserve all those who have been recently baptized in order to avoid back sliders by implementing a follow up on those newly baptized and enrolling them in Baptismal class.

ZCUC President Ps D Masikize
After the lessons a question and answer session was conducted in order to give clarity to those who had questions and after that the sermon for the day was given by Ps M Choga which was mainly about how God rebuked the church of Laodicea because of how lukewarm it was. This sermon was for us as the church of the last days and it aimed at showing us how we should change and move away from being in that Laodicean state.
To conclude,the Bible in Rev 3:14-22 suggests that the Laodicean church was obliged and instructed to be firm on its spiritual teachings, not lukewarm and this message is also being passed on to us as the church in the last days, for us to return to being The Church at its best.
job well done