How it Used to Be

Bert B. Beach looks back at the past General Conference Sessions he attended.

Today, as it has over the years, his office communicates vital stories about the Church's past with a tour de force vision. Dr. Bert B. Beach, one of the most colorful personalities in modern Adventism, is ready to take you into his rich collection of facts and narratives. Though formally retired from the Public Affairs and Religious Liberty post he held at the Church World Headquarters until 1995, he looks forward to attending the Session in Toronto, his thirteenth in a career of 50 years as an Adventist Church leader. He is always ready to compare and interpret, and his excitement today does not change, though, as he often says, "today things ain't the same as they used to be."

"I have attended all 12 General Conference Sessions since 1946. Now, one of the differences is that in the early days we had a General Conference Session every four years. Since 1975, it's every five years," he comments.

It was a matter of finance, Dr. Beach says without hesitation. "It was felt that it was cheaper to hold them every five years, and a better way of operating a big church. In the early days of our Church, of course, Sessions were held every year. But then that was a small group, maybe 150-200 people meeting. Now, when you have several thousand delegates and tens of thousands of people coming to the meeting, it is a big meeting. In fact, some people might call it even a big jamboree."

His contact with the General Conference Sessions brings memories of being a "page" boy. "I think I made $150-200 at the 1946 Session because I was one of the 'page' boys with Secretariat. My task was to deliver messages also for the Nominating Committee, calling people in who had been chosen to tell them that they had been elected, or maybe telling them they hadn't been elected, or whatever the message was." Beach draws a lesson which proved to be important to him during the years in the Church's leadership. He explains: "I would recommend working as a 'page' to anyone, any young person in their late teens or in college. It's a great experience because not only do you find out how the Church operates, but you get to know so many people. My knowledge of the leadership of the Church worldwide comes from the fact that I was a 'page' at the General Conference Session in 1946. There, I got acquainted with just about all the leaders of the Church." Today, Bert Beach is a delegate.

Differences abound when one compares the earlier General Conference Sessions such as 1946 and those organized these days. According to Beach, "one obvious difference is that the Session in 1946 was a much smaller event. It was the first Session right after World War II-the war had ended in 1945-and this was the first time that leaders of the Church came together in a big way from around the world."

"It may surprise you to know that that meeting took place in the Sligo Church. It was not in a big convention center such as the one coming up in the Toronto SkyDome, with tens of thousands participating. It was actually held in the Sligo Church, which had recently been completed in Takoma Park, Maryland. It was a newly built church. It was the biggest church we had in the denomination, and we had, as I recall, less than 1,000 delegates in attendance there. It fitted very well for the meeting to take place in the Sligo Church. On the Sabbaths, however, we went down to the National Armory. It wasn't the most suitable place, but it was the best available in the Washington, DC, area at that time."

Yes, things have changed. "In the early days, I recall, when we came to the General Conference Session, those who came to the Session from abroad arrived by boat. That gave you time to relax before you arrived. Now we all arrive mostly by plane, and it's a little more hectic, more pressed for time than in the past," he adds.

Scanning the past, Beach points to other differences between the bygone era and the way the denomination conducts its Sessions. "One big difference between the early Sessions and nowadays is that the early Sessions were a bit less professional, in a way. It was more the Seventh-day Adventist family coming together and doing its church business. Now it's highly professional and organized."

"Allow me to illustrate. In the early days, beginning in 1958, when my father was the Secretary of the General Conference, one big event at the Session was the Missions' Pageant. I remember that my father would be on the platform and he would just . . . ad lib the program of the pageant, with all the people marching by and he would talk about them and the work. Obviously he had prepared for it, but it was basically an ad lib. Now, you have professional script writers who prepare the program. It's much more complicated, much more expensive and much more involved. The spirit of the Session was more the spirit of a family and more of a pioneer church. Now it's more of a large, more professional church. And that makes some difference."

Reflections about the past bring Beach quickly to an area which planners for the Session hold as one of their objectives; namely, positively impacting the place and the community where the Session is held. Yes, the Session is a business meeting of the Church, but as Seventh-day Adventists, we do things because we are missionaries in the world. Beach comments that "overall the local community has been rather favorable to the General Conference Session. We've always made a positive impact."

"I remember in San Francisco a newspaper article about the General Conference Session saying, 'The Seventh-day Adventists came to town with a $10 bill and the ten commandments, and they broke neither.' This was kind of a back-handed compliment to our morality, but maybe less to our spending ability to help local businesses during the General Conference Session."

Today, such mega-events impact the cities and countries in which they are held in a much bigger way than before. "We plan more to take into consideration the local community than we did before. We invite more public officials than we did in the past. Now, we have more guests attending, including observers from other Christian churches. In the past, the other churches practically always ignored our Session. Perhaps one reason was, we had ignored them, too. We just had 'our' Session and didn't pay attention to others. All of this contributes to the kind of impact we make."

"And we are also intentional about having some activities outside, like we did in Utrecht. ADRA's Global Village made an impact on the community, so did youth activities and public concerts. Beginning with, maybe the Session in Dallas, Texas, in 1980, we started issuing public and official statements regarding issues that were of interest to the general public, and not only to ourselves."

Looking forward to Toronto, like every delegate, Bert Beach has personal expectations. He hopes that Toronto 2000 will be a meeting in which the global outreach of the Church and its international character will continually be highlighted and that the meeting will not be viewed as "business as usual."

"With a smaller delegate number of 2,000, even though the Church has several million more members than it did in 1995 in Utrecht, we can do better business than if we get so big that it becomes unmanageable to actually do business and give people the opportunity to express themselves in speeches on the Session floor regarding the business of the Church."

But for him, even this smaller number of delegates still seems too big. "I would personally hope that we could bring down the size of the actual voting business delegation even further. I think an assembly of 2,000 is a very big assembly. I know of no other church that has anything that size."

As he enters into his rich memory bank, Beach does not hesitate to explain that one single thing that has made him proud of the Church is "her tremendous growth and missionary activity and inspiring reports from the world divisions, highlighting evangelism in all parts of the world."

Looking back at the past Sessions, he is eager to speak about "the energy of the Church. That has always impressed me in a great way. Now, we must never let the Church get bogged down by majoring in minors. A Session is a wonderful occasion but more important is to finish the work." [A Session 2000 News interview by Ray Dabrowski]