Who Are Seventh-day Adventists?

A Seventh-day Adventist is one who, having accepted Christ as his personal Savior, walks in humble obedience to the will of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. A Bible-loving Christian, he seeks to pattern his life according to the teachings of this book, while looking for the imminent return of his Lord. He lives under a sense of destiny, believing it his duty to warn man kind that the end of the world is at hand.

Quoted from Arthur S. Maxwell in A Handbook of Denominations

Press Release Fall 2000

As one of the fastest growing Christian denominations, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, founded more than 150 years ago in the United States, currently has 11 million members in 205 countries. Adventists are known for operating the largest unified Protestant school system in the world, educating more than one million students in 5,590 schools. The church, deeply committed to improving quality of life, provides humanitarian and development aid in 120 countries; runs a unique youth mentoring program, called Pathfinders, for 975,000 youth; and operates 27 health food companies and 600 health care facilities around the world.

An overpowering love for the gospel of Jesus Christ, together with the optimistic hope of His soon return, and a sense of urgency to evangelize the entire world--such are the outstanding characteristics of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination . . . . It can be seen that Seventh-day Adventists did not originate , as many persuasions have, in a split within a denomination or as the result of the magnetic leadership of one man. Seventh-day Adventists came out of all the evangelical churches in response to a call for a thorough preparation of body and soul for the coming of Jesus Christ. They brought with them the precious heritage of a profound belief in the basic truths first given to the Christian church by Christ and the apostles and perpetuated by loyal believers in all ages. The denomination arose at a time when the religious world had renewed its interest in a study of the Bible; hence Seventh-day Adventists from that day to this have been diligent students of the Word of God, and have accepted it as their one authority and standard in religion.

Great Churches of America, Kenneth J. Holland