Michiana Adventist Forum

Michiana Adventist Forum


The Theology of Ordination Study Committee:
One Member’s Observations and Reflections


Presented by

Cheryl Doss PhD
Director of the Institute of World Mission
Member, Theology of Ordination Study Committee

Sabbath Afternoon, September 20, 2014
3:30 pm

Chan Shun Hall
Andrews University


About the Topic

Currently, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, the SDA denomination’s highest administrative authority, does not endorse the ordination of women as ministers.

During the past two years the Theology of Ordination Study Committee appointed by the General Conference has been studying issues related to the ordination of women as ministers in the SDA church. The committee recently made its report as part of a process which is expected to lead to discussion and possible revision of the denomination’s practice of not endorsing the ordination of women as ministers when the church holds its next world-wide General Conference Session in 2015.

Cheryl Doss, a member of the committee and director of the denomination’s Institute of World Mission, will discuss personal observations and reflections growing out of her work on the committee.

About the Speaker

Cheryl Doss, PhD, is the director of the Institute of World Mission, a service of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists that serves the world church.  The Institute facilitates the cross-cultural outreach of the Seventh-day Adventist world church. It provides cross-cultural training for full-time, short-term and volunteer workers, and facilitates their re-entry to the home field.
Cheryl’s mission experience began as an MK (missionary kid) living in South Africa.  Later, with her husband Gorden (also an MK and now a teacher of mission at Andrews University), she served for sixteen years in the country of Malawi.

During her years in Malawi, Cheryl directed rural clinics, developed training programs for pastors’ wives, facilitated women’s ministries programs, and helped start Shepherdess Clubs.  She also home schooled her two children, Kristi and Richard, and taught classes in the ministerial training program at Lakeview Seminary.  As a nurse she lectured on health and, along with her husband, initiated annual family life training seminars for pastors and their wives.  Their book, Christian Marriage, was published in Malawi in 1995.

Combining her mission background and educational training with her passion for family growth, Cheryl’s research and writing has largely focused on families in cross-cultural transition.  Besides teaching and administrative duties, her specific responsibilities at the Institute of World Mission are developing curriculum and resources for mission training, and the support and education of missionary families through newsletters and re-entry programs.

Since leaving Africa in 1997, Cheryl and Gorden have made their home at Andrews University and are blessed to have their two remaining parents living nearby.  Kristi and her family are on the faculty at the Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies in the Philippines.  Richard and his family are serving at Nile Union Academy in Egypt.