The West Oakland
Homeless Seventh-day Adventist Church
Project

Mission

• Developing a Neighborhood House in West Oakland, California
• Planting a church right in the homeless community
• Totally volunteer effort, supported by Seventh-day Adventist churches

Relevant To This Project

International SDA Site
Market Street Seventh-day Adventist Church
Dwight Nelson sermon on Isaiah 58
Ellen G. White's Ministry of Healing
The Complete Published Works of Ellen G. White
Neighborhood House Project Description
The Newstart Acryonym (Weimar Institute)

Mission Statement

A group of Adventists in the West Oakland community of Oakland, California is working to establish a neighborhood house that will provide West Oakland's resident homeless with cooked meals, bath, grooming and laundry facilities, closet space for business or work clothes, a business office with free phone answering and secretarial service, and assisted referral to emergency services. We are also working to establish men's and women's satellite group homes that will actually house our formerly-homeless members.

We are utilizing our Biblical beliefs and the book Ministry of Healing by Ellen G. White as a basic approach to rehabilitation for those individuals who wish to draw close to God and to change their lives. Our program is committed to observing traditional Adventist principles.

We are church planting - building a congregation, populated by those with whom we are working, in hopes that they will expand our work and move forward as God's missionaries to their own and to other communities.

The Homeless SDA Church is a brand-new self-supporting project, and is not yet a formally-recognized congregation or project of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. We are supported by individual members of several East Bay Seventh-day Adventist churches in Oakland, California. You can join our effort and help us. You can e-mail us at homeless_sda@yahoo.com or call us at 510-357-8220.

Ellen G. White Statements

"Often in helping the intemperate we must, as Christ so often did, give first attention to their physical condition. They need wholesome, unstimulating food and drink, clean clothing, opportunity to secure physical cleanliness. They need to be surrounded with an atmosphere of helpful, uplifting Christian influence. In every city a place should be provided where the slaves of evil habit may receive help to break the chains that bind them. Strong drink is regarded by many as the only solace in trouble; but this need not be, if, instead of acting the part of the priest and Levite, professed Christians would follow the example of the good Samaritan." Page 172, Ministry of Healing

"Every church should labor for the perishing within its own borders and for those outside its borders. The members are to shine as living stones in the temple of God, reflecting heavenly light. No random, haphazard, desultory work is to be done. To get fast hold of souls ready to perish means more than praying for a drunkard and then, because he weeps and confesses the pollution of his soul, declaring him saved. Over and over again the battle must be fought.

"Let the members of every church feel it their special duty to labor for those in their neighborhood. Let each one who claims to stand under the banner of Christ feel that he has entered into covenant relation with God, to do the work of the Saviour. Let not those who take up this work become weary in well-doing. When the redeemed stand before God, precious souls will respond to their names who are there because of the faithful, patient efforts put forth in their behalf, the entreaties and earnest persuasions to flee to the Stronghold. Thus those who in this world have been laboreres together with God will receive their reward." Testimonies for the Church, Volume 9, Page 196-197

"I have felt stirred with an intense desire to do all in my power to encourage the faithful workers in Oakland, as I have realized that many souls in this city and in near-by cities are in great peril. Satan is doing all in his power to make of no effect the merciful warnings of Jehovah. Notwithstanding the heavy judgments of God, the wickedness in San Francisco and in Oakland is increasing." Review and Herald, November 29, 1906, par. 1