SCM Businessmen and Professionals Convene 42 Districts Via ASI Convention
Adventist-Laymen’s Services & Industries (ASI), a membership-based organization of Seventh-day Adventists, first formed its nucleus of members in 1947 and is alive and unified at Southeastern Caraga Mission (SCM). They organized a mission-wide convention themed “Engage, Involve, for Jesus Mission in this End Time” on October 26, 2024, at Patin-ay, Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur.
ASI, originally named Association of Seventh-day Adventist Self-Supporting Institutions by the General Conference (GC), is committed to supporting the Seventh-day Adventist Church and its various outreach programs, which include health, education, evangelism, community services, family concerns, and special projects. This unique and diverse group includes business owners and individual professionals supporting church ministries.
To multiply the positive effects of their cooperation and ability to “share Christ in the workplace and marketplace,” the event featured esteemed guest speakers, including Bro. Jonathan Lamorin, the SSD ASI President, and Engr. MJ Orillosa, SSD ASI Vice President for Projects, Fiscal Dickie Gongob, SSD ASI Vice President for Evangelism. SSD means Southern Asia-Pacific Division, comprising 11 countries in its territory.
Dr. Arnulfo Lantaya, ASI president of the Northern Davao Mission (NDM), also shared his insights and experiences of sharing Jesus with the elite, prominent people, and hundreds of individuals attached to their spheres of influence.
This mission initiative aimed to engage and involve participants from the 42 districts in promoting a Christ-centered lifestyle in daily partnership with God and the people they encounter every day wherever God tasked them to be. Under the leadership of Pastor Jerry Taguno, the SCM Executive Secretary and ASI coordinator, the camaraderie-enriching fellowship inspired attendees to continue their unswerving honesty in business principles and practices, participating in the various ministries of the Church, with unwavering positiveness toward Church leadership, unhesitating provision for the needs of others, and untiring focus on the Christ they represent in the marketplace. In short, every ASI member should be Christ’s “center of influence” amidst their wide reach of acquaintances and network.
Recognizing that our time, talents, treasures, and body temple belong to God and that we are His stewards, we believe that our vocations can and should be a ministry to advance the great gospel commission.
Actively participate in service and outreach efforts, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and commitment to spreading the Gospel in these critical times. Indeed, the transformative event empowered SCM constituents for mission work and deepened their commitment to serving Jesus through lay ministry.
One spirit-filled writer, Ellen G. White, who has written thousands of pages of God-inspired visions, wrote: “Every person is exerting an influence upon the lives of others. We must either be a light to brighten and cheer their path or a desolating tempest to destroy. We are either leading our associates upward to happiness and immortal life or downward to sorrow and eternal ruin. No man will perish alone in his iniquity. However contracted may be one’s sphere of influence, it is exerted either for good or for evil”.—Testimonies for the Church 4:654.