Here’s a look back at the 10 most popular stories that were published on the Adventist Review’s website in 2015.
The stories are ranked by the number of reader views and listed in descending order, with No. 1 being the most popular. Click on the headline (in blue) to read the full story.
Jamaica Union is represented at number 6 on this list.
Delegates voting on the issue of ordination at the General Conference Session on July 8. (Dominik Zeh)
10. Delegates Vote ‘No’ on Issue of Women’s Ordination
Delegates turned down a motion that would have allowed each division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to decide for itself whether to ordain women to the gospel ministry in its territory.
By a margin of 1,381-977, with five abstentions, delegates by secret ballot ended a five-year process characterized by vigorous and sometimes acrimonious debate on July 8.
General Conference president Ted N.C. Wilson appealed to church members to unite in the mission of the church after the vote at the 2015 General Conference Session in San Antonio, Texas.
“Now is the time to unify under the bloodstained banner of Jesus Christ and His power, not our power,” Wilson said after the ballots were counted on tables at the front of the Alamodome stadium. “Now is the time to unify in our mission as Christ’s church.”
Related story:
Adventist Leaders Appeal for Church Entities to Respect Ordination Vote
9. Adventist Mother Among Those Slain in U.S. College Shooting
A Seventh-day Adventist mother was among those killed in a shooting rampage that targeted Christians at a community college in the U.S. state of Oregon.
Sarena Moore, 44, a college student and member of the Grants Pass Seventh-day Adventist Church, died along with at least eight other people in the attack by a lone gunman on Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, on Oct. 1.
Moore decided to give her heart to Jesus during an evangelistic series in the Hayfork Seventh-day Adventist Church in the church’s Northern California Conference in 2005, said Christian Martin, pastor of the Grants Pass church. She was baptized by pastor Rob Kearbey.
“She was loved right into the family of God,” Martin said.
Moore later moved to Oregon and joined the Grants Pass church. She was in her third semester studying business at Umpqua Community College.
“She was thrilled to enroll,” Martin said. “She counted it as a direct answer to prayer. She praised the Lord for opening doors for her to pursue a degree in business.”
Pergerson sitting in his kit-built One Easy plane at the Battle Creek airport. (Juanita Staten)
8. Adventist Evangelist, 48, Killed in U.S. Plane Crash
William Pergerson, a Seventh-day Adventist evangelist who once refused to share a pulpit with a woman wearing a ring but went on to make Christ and His righteousness the centerpiece of powerful, soul-winning sermons, died in a fiery airplane crash as he prepared for an evangelistic series. He was 48.
Pergerson, a longtime pilot, had just taken off from the airport in Battle Creek, Michigan, for the 20-minute flight to his home in Berrien Springs when his kit-built One Easy plane experienced suspected engine trouble on Aug. 27.
The plane came down in a grassy field near one of the runways during a second attempt to land, exploding in a ball of fire.
Related story:
Evangelist’s Plane Was Bouncing Before Crash, Investigators Say
Filmmaker Christopher Hudson speaking in an image from “Leopard Vision (Vol. 1).” (Courtesy of Christopher Hudson)
7. Young Adventist Filmmaker Turns Bible Prophecy Into YouTube Hit
Seventh-day Adventist filmmaker Christopher Hudson crafted an exploration of the Roman Catholic Church and Revelation 13 into a hip, fast-paced film that went viral on YouTube and even won accolades from some unlikely quarters in pop culture.
The film, “Leopard Vision (Vol. 1),” traces the history of the Roman Catholic Church while underscoring what Hudson sees as the central theme of the last book of the Bible: that the book is a revelation of Jesus Christ, not of political powers or false systems of worship.
“It is my earnest desire that this film will help millions to realize that the events that are now taking place on planet Earth are sure indicators that the word of God is true and that Jesus Christ is coming back to this world very soon,” the 38-year-old Hudson told the Adventist Review.
“Leopard Vision,” which was financed with a $20,000 budget raised on a crowd-funding website, quickly topped 10,000 views within a day of its Sept. 7 release on YouTube. The film had more than 156,000 views only 10 days later, an unusual amount for an independent documentary about biblical prophecy whose main source of promotion was word of mouth. It had more than 271,000 views by Dec. 28.
George Johnson before and after his haircut. (IAD)
6. A Jamaican Gives Up His Dreadlocks — His All — for Jesus
Going more than 30 years without a haircut did not disqualify a 66-year-old Jamaican man from baptism. But his decision to dart out of an evangelistic meeting and find a barbershop convinced the pastor that he was willing to sacrifice all for Jesus.
George Johnson, a Rastafarian adherent who had taken a Nazarite vow not to cut his hair, told an astonished audience at a Seventh-day Adventist tent meeting in northern Jamaica in April that he once believed in the divinity of Haile Selassie, the former emperor of Ethiopia, and had made plans to move to Africa.
But now, he said, his loyalty was to the Creator God and he longed to go to heaven.
“Even if I had to cut off my hand to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I would do it,” Johnson, freshly trimmed and shaved, said at his baptism.
Because of Johnson’s testimony, several people decided to accept Jesus and get baptized during the four-week “Prepare to Meet Thy God” evangelistic series last month. A total of 15 people were baptized.
