An Open Letter to Family and Friends
by Fred and Rochelle Hosillos

FRED & ROCHELLE HOSILLOS

656 NE Cobblestone Lane

Prineville, OR 97754, U.S.A.

May 12, 2013

 

 

Our dear Seventh-day Adventist

FAMILY & FRIENDS:

 

On April 19, 2013, we mailed a letter to the Senior Pastor of Vallejo Drive Seventh-day Adventist Church in Glendale, CA, U.S.A., to officially withdraw our membership from the Seventh-day Adventist Church/Denomination effective immediately.

 

In fairness to all of you, we are writing this letter so you will know how we have come to the conviction that it is time for us to move forward from Seventh- day Adventism to Mainstream Christianity. Actually, we have been studying the Scriptures in depth for the last 3 years, without the filter of any church/religion/sect or denomination, but with open hearts and minds, to reconcile some SDA teachings we were nurtured in- for a combined total of 108 years- with the Bible. What we discovered were real eye openers, and liberating.

 

Before we enumerate our discoveries point by point, we will backtrack to Fred’s visit to the  Iloilo Central SDA Church in the Philippines,  June of last year. He was asked to preach at their Women’s Ministry Sabbath, and decided to present the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s well (John 4:4-42). The woman asked Jesus why,  if He was a  prophet, did the Jews insist that Jerusalem was the only place of worship, when the Samaritans  also had Mount Gerizem, where their ancestors worshipped. To which Jesus answered: “Believe me, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father here or in Jerusalem… The time is …already here when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for anyone who will worship Him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth,” (Vs. 21- 24 NLT)

 

When Fred  finished his presentation, there was a resounding AMEN. Yet, as he greeted the brethren at the door, he got comments like, “sermon was good, but in the last days people will have to keep the seventh-day Sabbath, and join the SDA church to be saved, right?”

 

That afternoon, the head elder called an officers’ meeting to evaluate Fred’s presentation. His conclusion: Fred preached an un-Adventist sermon! The following Saturday afternoon, the officers met again to answer the question: should their church preach the gospel, or SDA doctrine? Their solution, I was informed, is to preach both!

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