Pastor Bland Reports On Visit To Sydney

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 36, 22 December 1950, Page 5

Pastor Bland Reports On Visit To Sydney

At the Adventist service in the Red Cross Hall, Pastor M. Blandsaid: "“We. are living in the hour that * every great man of God right through the centuries has looked forward to. Time is short. We have Very little time remaining.” Pastor Bland was reporting on the work of the Quadrennial Council of the Trans-Tasman Union Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, and its planning for advance work in all fields, in fulfilment of the command in Revelations 14:6 to preach the everlasting gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue and people. The council was held at the Australasian College, Avondale, 80 miles north of Sydney, and Pastor Bland was one of the 300 delegates present. He said outstanding delegates were Pastor Olsen, v who ministered in Europe during depression, war and political suppression; Dr Hargreaves, medical missionary controlled the work there through the ' difficult war years; and the Australian Aboriginal minister, Pastor Shepherd, with years of successful foreign mission experience, v “The progress of the church,” said Pastor Bland, “is evident in all aspects of its work.” He told of a •strong church in Sydney where not .ia word of English is spoken, the recently organised Russian S.D.A. •church there, whose members have •escaped from Soviet Russia, their ' pastor being a Russian S.D.A. minister. “The church is missionary mind- , ed,” said Pastor Bland, as shown by over half a million pounds given for the advance of the gospel, and the one and three-quarter million units of home missionary work carried out by the lay members. Pastor Bland closed with Romans 13:11: “And that, knowing the time, x that now it is high time to awake Xput of sleep; for now is our salvation .nearer than when we believed.”