After the heat of daily events and constant news and commentary, let me devote one more blog to reflections on the General Conference Session. Will it, in the long sweep of history, be seen as a significant turning point or just an average business meeting? Of course the new administration--any new administration--hopes that they are making history, but before they can know that for sure it is too late; history will have passed them by.

Some of the most interesting news from the session did not actually get widely published or released at all during the last week. The most obvious public events are often not the really significant ones.

A full accounting of the statistics for gender and age was published in a relatively obscure periodical, 411 News, the electronic newsletter published by the Center for Youth Evangelism based at Andrews University for youth workers in North America. These appear to be from registration information collected by the GC Secretariat as delegates arrived. Why no one else of the many journalists present at the session picked up on these, I cannot surmise. (Kudos to the young reporters at the CYE!

There were a total of 2,240 delegates present, or which 2,033 reported their gender and age when they registered. Of these 1,701 were male [83.7 percent] and 322 were female [15.8 percent]. This is very close to the estimates that Adventist Today reported.

The median age of delegates was somewhere in the early 50s. We cannot be more precise from the available data: 43 delegates under 30 [2.1 percent], 226 delegates ages 30 through 39 [11.1 percent], 580 delegates ages 40 through 49 [28.6 percent], 800 delegates ages 50 through 59 [39.4 percent], 321 delegates ages 60 through 69 [15.8 percent], and 38 delegates age 70 and older [1.9 percent].

The most under-represented segment of the church is actually senior citizens 70 and older! So the idea that the Adventist Church is in the hands of senile oligarchs is false. It is really under the control of middle-aged Baby Boomers. Maybe that is our worst fear after all.

The delegates to General Conference clearly do not represent the majority of the people in the pews, either the majority of teens and young adults in the developing countries of the global south, or the majority of senior citizens in the global north. And, of course, not the majority of women, which is everywhere. When you add in the fact that most of delegates are denominational employees, the GC represents the ecclesiastical bureaucracy and institutional machinery more than it represents the people of God.

Another interesting development: On the Tuesday (July 6) after his sermon during the closing Sabbath of the session, GC President Ted Wilson met at the denomination's world headquarters in Silver Spring with four delegates from the China Christian Council. This the only Protestant organization recognized by the government in China and Adventists there operate within it. This was the first GC Session to which this ecumenical organization sent a delegation.

An Adventist News Network news release dated July 9 states that "Wilson will maintain a cooperative relationship" with the organization and "accepted an invitation to meet with China Christian Council officials in China." He is quoted as stating, "We are certainly open to cooperating with fellow Christians who are lifting up Christ."

1975 was the year that first delegation from the former Soviet Union came to a General Conference session. This year the president of the Adventist Church in that part of the world,  Artur Stele, was elected one of the nine general vice presidents of the GC. What kind of relationship might the GC have with the Adventists in China 35 years from now at the 2045 session?

The tides of history and the hand of God are larger than the opinions of individuals, no matter how influential, and the heated rhetoric of a big meeting. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that a large, important meeting such as a GC Session, is an optical illusion. Things don't really happen at the big meetings; they happen between the meetings.

The most important things happening in the Adventist movement right now is beyond the reach of journalists and TV cameras. It is a small group of young adults somewhere deciding to plant a church. It is a handful of women deciding to launch a community-based ministry with the poor, or the homeless or the unemployed. It is three or four senior citizens deciding to sponsor a student missionary at a nearby public university. It is a church outreach committee developing a proposal for a café ministry downtown or an afterschool program for neighborhood children.

Adventist faith has always been about demonstrating the compassion of Jesus, communicating the hope that is in Jesus, not arguing endlessly about the nature of Jesus or creating creedal documents. Matthew 25 clearly states, in Christ's own words, that when He returns the people He will recognize as His remnant are those with their hands full.