Questions to Ask a Seventh-day Adventist
These questions are for anyone with a Seventh-day Adventist friend, neighbor, coworker or relative, and for Sunday churchgoers who would like to hear about the Saturday Sabbath from someone who keeps it. They start with five openers, give the Sabbath a group of its own, then cover beliefs (the second coming, death, Ellen White, 1844), food, health and church life, the harder subjects members are pressed on most, and a few ways to finish. The notes say what the church generally teaches on each point, where members differ among themselves, and when to leave a subject for another day.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Openers
Did you grow up Adventist, or did you join later on?
Why ask it
A person raised in the church has Sabbath School, Pathfinders and perhaps a church school to tell you about, sometimes with grandparents who were members before them. Someone who joined usually came in through a series of Bible studies and had a week to rearrange, so ask a convert what Saturday used to be for.
How do you explain what a Seventh-day Adventist is to someone who has never met one?
Why ask it
The name carries most of it: seventh-day for the Saturday Sabbath, Adventist for the expected return of Jesus. Notice which half they spend longer on, because that is the group of questions to go to next.
What do people usually get wrong about Adventists?
Why ask it
The usual mix-ups are being taken for Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, being assumed to refuse doctors or blood transfusions when the church runs hospitals, and being told they think a day of the week saves them. Have them give you the reply they use for the one they name. They have had practice, and the short version is often funny.
Is there a large Adventist community where you live, or are you one of only a few?
Why ask it
Near a church hospital or university a person can go through school, work and worship among members, and in other towns a family may be the only one for miles. Which of those they know colors nearly every answer further down, so place them before you go on.
What do you like best about being an Adventist?
Why ask it
Answers tend to be small and concrete: the quiet after Friday sunset, the lunch after church, friends from summer camp they still see. Get the story behind whichever one they name, because it is often also the thing they would miss most.
Sabbath
Why do you keep the Sabbath on Saturday and not on Sunday?
Why ask it
Expect the fourth commandment and the creation week: God rested on the seventh day, and members hold that Scripture never moved it. A good answer sounds like someone describing a gift more than a rule. If you go to church on Sunday, hear it through before you answer for your own day.
When does your Sabbath begin and end, and how do you get ready for it on Friday?
Why ask it
It runs from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, so the hours move with the season. Friday is called the preparation day, and the details are the interesting part: food cooked ahead, the house cleaned, the car filled with gas before the sun goes down.
What did last Sabbath look like at your house, from start to finish?
Why ask it
Asking about last week gets the real one, not the ideal. Church in the morning, a long shared lunch and an afternoon walk or nap are common, and whatever they describe tells you which hours of their Saturday are open to a friend.
What happens at your church on a Saturday morning?
Why ask it
There are two parts. Sabbath School comes first, with classes by age and a discussion of the week's lesson, and a worship service with a sermon follows. In a small church the speaker is often a lay elder, because one pastor may look after several congregations.
What will you not do on the Sabbath, and where is your own line?
Why ask it
Paid work and shopping are the usual ones. Past that, households differ on restaurants, sports, television and travel, and members know they differ. Take the answer as one family's practice, and do not hold up another Adventist you know as a counterexample.
What was the Sabbath like for you as a child?
Why ask it
One for someone raised in the church. Some remember nature walks, Bible story books and a special Friday supper, and others remember a long list of things that had to wait until sunset. Which memory comes first tells you a good deal about the home, and parents will often add what they do differently with their own children.
What happens when a shift, an exam or a game falls on a Saturday?
Why ask it
Many members have a story about asking a manager or a professor to move something, and some have given up a job or a place on a team. What an employer or a school has to allow differs by country and workplace, so ask how it went for them there and assume nothing.
What does a full day of rest give you that an ordinary day off does not?
Why ask it
Here they get to make the case for the day instead of defending it. Listen for the specifics, such as no email, no errands and a family that is all in one room. Worth asking if you are worn out yourself.
How do you see Christians who worship on Sunday?
Why ask it
Sunday churchgoers ask this most, and often with an edge. Most members will say that sincere Sunday keepers are fellow Christians, while holding that the seventh day is still the one God set apart. If the answer moves on to prophecy about Sunday, that belongs to a later question, so note it and come back.
If I wanted to invite you to something on a Friday night or a Saturday, what would work?
Why ask it
A walk, a meal at home or a visit usually fits the day, and a ticketed concert or a shopping trip often does not. Asking once spares them a string of awkward refusals, and for a neighbor or coworker it is the most practical question on the page.
Beliefs
Do Adventists count themselves as Protestant Christians, and what do you share with other churches?
Why ask it
The answer is yes, and the shared ground is wide: the Trinity, the Bible as the final authority, salvation by grace through faith and baptism by immersion. Starting with it makes the differences easier to place when you reach them.
Do you have to keep the Sabbath to be saved, and where does grace come in?
Why ask it
Other Christians put this to Adventists more than anything else, often as a charge of legalism. The church teaches that salvation is by grace through faith and that keeping the commandments is the response to it, not the price. A person who sounds anxious about measuring up is telling you about the home they grew up in as much as about doctrine.
What does the second coming mean to you, and how often is it on your mind?
Why ask it
It is in the name. Members expect Jesus to return literally and visibly, and the church sets no date. The follow-up is whether it feels like hope or like pressure, and people raised on vivid end-time preaching sometimes answer both.
Where do you believe people who have died are now?
Why ask it
Adventists teach that death is an unconscious sleep until the resurrection at Christ's return, so you will not hear that a grandmother is watching from heaven. Many members call this a comfort. Leave it for another day if either of you has had a recent loss.
What do you believe about hell?
Why ask it
The church teaches that the lost are destroyed in the end and do not suffer forever, which sets it apart from most denominations. The reason members usually give is about God's character, so that is the follow-up: what would eternal torment say about him?
Who was Ellen White, and what place do her books have in your own faith?
Why ask it
She was one of the church's founders in the 1800s, and members regard her visions and writings as a prophetic gift. The official position is that the Bible is the standard and her work is tested by it. In practice members range from reading her daily to hardly at all, so find out which they are and which book they would lend you.
Which Bible do you read, and how do you study it during the week?
Why ask it
There is no Adventist translation of the Bible, which clears up a common mix-up with other groups. Many members follow a quarterly study guide that their class discusses at church on Saturday. Ask what this week's lesson is about and you will hear how closely they keep up.
Why do the books of Daniel and Revelation matter so much in your church?
Why ask it
The movement grew out of prophecy study in the nineteenth century, and prophecy seminars are still a common first contact. Charts and beasts can swallow an afternoon. Asking what they find hopeful in those books keeps the answer personal.
What happened in 1844, and what is the investigative judgment?
Why ask it
Followers of the preacher William Miller expected Christ to return that October, and the day is remembered as the Great Disappointment. The Adventists who came out of it concluded that the date marked the start of a judgment in heaven, called the investigative judgment, and it is the teaching most particular to their church. Plenty of members find it hard to explain, and saying so is an honest answer.
What does it mean when Adventists call themselves the remnant church?
Why ask it
It is the belief that the church has a particular message to carry before the end, drawn from the three angels of Revelation 14 that its logo refers to. To an outsider it can sound like a claim to be the only true church. Ask plainly whether they think that. The usual reply is that God has people in every church.
I have heard that Adventists say the archangel Michael is Jesus. What do you mean by that?
Why ask it
Many Adventists do read Michael as a name for Christ in his role as leader of the angels, a reading some older Protestant commentators shared. They do not mean that he is an angel or a created being: the church teaches that Jesus is fully God. This is the point where Adventists are most often confused with Jehovah's Witnesses, so let them spell out the difference.
How do you read the creation story in Genesis?
Why ask it
A recent creation in six days is church teaching, and the Sabbath is kept as its memorial, so Genesis carries more weight here than in many denominations. Members who work in science hold a range of views. A thoughtful answer explains how they keep the two together and does not wave one of them away.
What was your baptism like, and what did you promise?
Why ask it
Baptism is by immersion at an age when a person can choose it, normally after a course of Bible studies, and it includes vows about belief and way of life. People raised in the church were often baptized young, so ask whether it felt like their decision then and whether it does now.
Health and church life
Are you vegetarian, and is that a church rule or your own choice?
Why ask it
A vegetarian diet is recommended and not required. What members are expected to avoid is the meat Leviticus calls unclean, which includes pork and shellfish. Ask this before you cook for them. They would much rather be asked than pick around a plate.
Why does your church put so much weight on health?
Why ask it
Members call it the health message: the body is treated as something entrusted to you, and the teaching goes back to the church's first decades. It is why the church runs hospitals in many countries, and the Kellogg brothers developed their cereal at an Adventist sanitarium in Michigan. Which parts they actually live by differs from person to person.
Is it true that Adventists live longer than most people?
Why ask it
The claim comes from health studies that Loma Linda University, an Adventist school in California, has run on church members for decades, and it is why writers on long life keep visiting that town. See whether they would credit the diet, the weekly day of rest or the close community, and whether the picture matches the Adventists they actually know.
What is the teaching on alcohol, tobacco and caffeine, and what do you do yourself?
Why ask it
Alcohol and tobacco are out for members. Caffeine is discouraged, and a good many drink coffee anyway and will say so with a grin. Good to know before you order for the table or hand someone a glass for a toast.
What would I find on the table at an Adventist potluck?
Why ask it
The shared lunch after church is an institution, and in North America the famous dish is the haystack, a pile of corn chips, beans, lettuce and whatever else is on the table. Elsewhere the food is different, so ask what it was where they grew up. An easy one for a lull, and it often ends in an invitation.
Why do some Adventists wear no jewelry, sometimes not even a wedding ring?
Why ask it
It comes from an older teaching on plain dress, and practice now differs widely by country and generation. Some congregations think nothing of a wedding ring and others would notice one. Ask how it is in theirs, and whether their grandparents would say the same.
How does your family handle Christmas and Easter?
Why ask it
Most Adventists keep Christmas much as their neighbors do, and many churches put on a program for it. Easter gets less ceremony in a lot of congregations, the church calendar has no required feast days, and a few stricter members skip both. Settle it before you send a card or plan the office party.
How does communion work at your church, and what is the foot washing like?
Why ask it
Many congregations hold it about once a quarter. Members pair off to wash each other's feet first, then share bread and unfermented grape juice. The story to ask for is the first time they washed someone's feet, or had theirs washed, and who it was.
Were you a Pathfinder, and what do you remember of it?
Why ask it
Pathfinders is the church's club for older children and young teens, with uniforms, badges, camping and big gatherings called camporees. Save it for someone who grew up in the church or has children in it. The stories usually involve rain, a tent and a badge on an unlikely subject.
Did you go to Adventist schools, and what was that like?
Why ask it
Adventist schools run from the first grade to universities in many countries. Whether a family lives near one or can pay for it depends on where they are, so ask and do not assume. Former students describe small classes and the same faces at school and church, and they disagree about whether that was a shelter or a bubble.
How does tithe work, and where does the money go?
Why ask it
Members are asked to return a tenth of their income. It goes through the local church to a regional office called the conference, which pays the pastors, and gifts for the congregation's own costs are given separately. The system is the interesting part of this one. What they give is not your business.
How do Adventists think about serving in the military?
Why ask it
The church's historic position is noncombatancy, meaning service without carrying a weapon, often as a medic. The best-known example is Desmond Doss, whose story was told in the film Hacksaw Ridge. Today it is left to each member's conscience, and the rules on service differ by country, so ask what people in their own family did.
How different is one Adventist church from another?
Why ask it
Very, by most accounts: a university congregation and a small rural one can differ on music, dress and how often Ellen White is quoted, and countries differ again. Ask where theirs sits and whether they have ever changed churches over it. The answer tells you which Adventism you have been hearing about all along.
Harder topics
What do you find hardest about being an Adventist?
Why ask it
Common answers are missing Saturday games and weddings, always being the one with the different plate, a small pool of people to date and the weight of family expectation. Whatever they name, leave it unfixed. Suggesting a way around the Sabbath is the fastest way to end the answer.
Is it true that Adventists connect Sunday worship with the mark of the beast?
Why ask it
The traditional teaching is that near the end Sunday worship will be enforced by law, and the day a person keeps will then become a test of loyalty. It places that in the future, so it is not a verdict on anyone who goes to church on Sunday today. Some members follow the news with this in mind and others have quietly set it down, and it is one reason the church has long campaigned for religious liberty for every faith.
I have read that older Adventist books are hard on the Catholic Church. How do you see Catholics?
Why ask it
Traditional Adventist readings of prophecy say severe things about the papacy as an institution, and a Catholic friend may have come across them already. Most members separate the system from the people in it. Whether they do that easily or with some embarrassment tells you how much of the older material they still hold to.
What is it like to hear your church called a cult or mixed up with other groups?
Why ask it
Adventists are often filed with Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses because all three began in America in the 1800s, though their beliefs differ a great deal. Some people also remember that the Branch Davidians at Waco descended from a group that broke away decades earlier, and the church has no tie to them. Put as a question about what it is like, this gets a story. Put as a charge, it gets a rehearsed reply.
What do you make of the criticisms of Ellen White, such as her borrowing from other authors?
Why ask it
Members who have read on the subject know the charges, and the church has published its own replies. Do not arrive with a website open on your phone. Hearing what they think themselves, and whether it changed how they read her, is the whole value of the question.
Where does your church stand on ordaining women as pastors, and where do you stand?
Why ask it
The world church has voted on this more than once and has not approved it, while women serve as pastors in a number of regions under a different credential. Feelings run strong and differ sharply by region. Their own congregation's practice is the place to start, and the wider argument can wait.
How does your church look on marrying someone who is not Adventist?
Why ask it
Members are advised to marry within the faith, and how firmly a family or a pastor holds to that differs a good deal. The practical side is the part worth hearing: a shared Sabbath, what gets cooked, where the children go to church and school. Someone in a mixed marriage, or raised in one, will have more to say than any policy does.
What happens when a member stops coming or no longer keeps the church's standards?
Why ask it
There is no teaching that tells families to cut off someone who leaves, and many people simply stop attending. A congregation can vote to discipline a member or remove a name from its books, and how often that happens varies widely. A worrying answer is one where they clearly fear being talked about more than they fear being wrong.
Is there a teaching you hold more loosely than your church does?
Why ask it
Plenty of members have one, often the 1844 doctrine, the age of the earth, the standing of Ellen White or the old dress standards. A quick no may be true, or it may mean the conversation has not earned the answer yet. Do not push. Whether they could say it out loud at church is a kinder follow-up.
Do you have relatives who are no longer Adventist, and what is a Friday night or Saturday like when you are all together?
Why ask it
Mixed families work it out in small things: who cooks, whether the television goes on, what is planned for Saturday afternoon. The strain is usually quiet. When the relative is a husband, a wife or a grown child, a short answer is a complete one, and the kind thing is to take it.
Closers
Could I come to church with you one Saturday, and what should I expect?
Why ask it
Visitors are welcome, and in many congregations someone will ask you to stay for lunch. Check how long the morning runs, since the class and the service together can take most of it, and what people wear. If it turns out to be a communion week, you are free to sit out the foot washing and watch.
If I wanted to try one Sabbath the way you keep it, what would you tell me to do?
Why ask it
A good answer is short and practical: finish the errands on Friday, put the phone in a drawer at sunset, eat with people, go outside. Notice whether they describe a list of things to stop or a list of things to start. Then try it, and tell them how your Saturday went.
What would you like to ask me about my own church, or about what I do with my weekend?
Why ask it
By now you have had most of an hour of their answers, and members are often curious about Sunday churches, or about life with no set day of rest at all. Answer as plainly as you asked. If they want to know why your church meets on Sunday and you are not sure, say so.
What do you wish people would ask you about, other than Saturday and food?
Why ask it
Those two subjects take up so much room that the thing a member cares about most can go unasked. Leave a real silence after this one. The first reply is often a polite nothing, and the second is the one worth hearing.
Asking an Adventist about their faith
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you start
The words members use
The name is Seventh-day Adventist, with a hyphen and a small d, and Adventist for short. The weekly class is Sabbath School, a regional office is a conference and the world body is the General Conference. Say Saturday for the calendar and Sabbath for what they keep, and you will be understood.
Which Adventist you are talking to
Practice differs by country, congregation, generation and family: on diet, jewelry, Sabbath habits and how much Ellen White is read. A member of a university church and a member of a small conservative one may answer half this page differently. Hold each answer as that person's, and do not correct it with something another Adventist told you.
Say that you are only curious
Adventists run Bible studies and prophecy seminars for people who are thinking of joining, so a run of questions can look like the start of that. If you are only curious, say so at the outset. It lets them relax and answer as a friend.
If you keep Sunday
The same words carry different loads here: Sabbath, judgment, prophet, remnant, even death. Find out what a word means to them before you respond to it. When your turn comes, say where your own church differs without making it a ruling on theirs.
Choosing what to ask
Match the group to the setting
Openers fit a lunch break or a car ride. The Sabbath group is the one for someone you see on weekdays, because the answers change what you invite them to. Beliefs needs an unhurried hour, Health and church life goes well over food, and Harder topics should wait until you have talked at least once before. Take one or two of those, not the whole group.
A twenty-minute version
Ask whether they grew up in the church, why Saturday, what last Sabbath looked like, what happens when work or an exam lands on a Saturday, who Ellen White was, whether they are vegetarian, what they find hardest, and whether you could come along one week. That is eight questions, and between them they reach most of what people are curious about.
Pick the moment
A Friday afternoon at work, when they are trying to leave before sunset, is the wrong time. A Saturday lunch or a walk is the right one: the day is meant for unhurried talk, and many members are glad to spend it on exactly this.
Being a good host, neighbor or coworker
Food
Ask before you cook. A vegetarian dish with no alcohol in the sauce suits nearly everyone, and if you serve meat, leave out pork and shellfish. Offer something besides coffee and wine, and make no remark when they decline either.
Friday night and Saturday
Invitations that fit the day are welcome: a meal, a hike, a visit. Events that involve buying, working or a loud night out may get a no that has nothing to do with you. Sunday or a weeknight solves most of it.
At work or school
Swapping a Saturday shift or sharing notes from a Saturday class is a real kindness. What an employer or a school must accommodate depends on where you are, so leave the formal request to them and simply be the colleague who makes it easy.
What tends to go wrong
Leading with the mark of the beast
A member who is asked about the mark of the beast, Ellen White's sources or the word cult before anything else will assume you have been reading a critical website, and will give you the careful answer. The same subjects raised after the Sabbath and potluck questions get a person thinking aloud.
Arguing the day
You asked why they keep Saturday. Turning the answer into a case for Sunday is another conversation, and one they have had many times. Hear it, thank them, and give your own view when they ask for it.
Making the diet a joke
They have heard every bacon joke there is. Curiosity about what they cook gets you a recipe, and teasing gets you a polite smile and a shorter lunch.
Mixing them up with another church
Refusing blood transfusions and skipping birthdays are Jehovah's Witness subjects, and temples and two-year missions are Latter-day Saint ones. Adventists get asked about all of them. When you are not sure a practice is theirs, find that out first and ask the why second.