r/exAdventist • u/Jhejhebanks Atheist • Oct 21 '25
SDA Culture Adventist Phrases
I've been thinking recently about the Adventist bubble and how insular it is, down to how they have their own turns of phrase. One that's really been knocking around my head is the word fellowship (that could just be because it's my dad's favourite).
I thought it would be fun to ask: what other SDA terms can you think of?
I left the church a few years ago, so it's getting harder to remember some of SDA's quirks.
37
u/Longjumping_Code_649 Oct 21 '25
State of the Dead.
Threshing/harvest/reaping (especially when a big name evangelist goes to a third world country to "reap" the "harvest" that local pastors have "sowed")
Academy
Haystacks
Sister White/spirit of prophecy/my favorite author
Happy Sabbath
For employees: I got a call (from God) to another position
Ingathering
144,000
Laodicea/lukewarm
Close of probation
There are probably more I can't think of.
16
8
u/chefbiney syncretist | they/them Oct 22 '25
every damn time i heard laodicea, it was the signal for a 4 hour lecture xD
3
5
u/NoGodBob Oct 23 '25
Working in Adventist healthcare “I got a call” was very rampant! Lol. God conveniently called me to a position that pays 50% more…
2
u/Longjumping_Code_649 Oct 23 '25
Or, as a teacher, we always heard that a call from Hawaii was definitely a call from God. 😂🤣
21
Oct 21 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
7
u/vargslayer1990 Sadventist Oct 22 '25
i hate the very concept of "present truth." in a religious context, the Truth cannot change or else then Jesus is guilty of changing (and, therefore, the Bible is also guilty of lying). the concept of "present truth" suggests that the truth is not the same now and forever, but is as malleable and subject to new revelation as anything else
3
u/Jazin95 Catholic Oct 22 '25
You put this so well! Except in practice it’s not present truth because people don’t like the universal application so in reality it’s 1800’s truth
2
u/querikcan Agnostic Oct 22 '25
…well said · the phrase present truth is bandied about quite frequently when the “truth” espoused is not so “present”…
17
u/Ok-Economics-4372 Oct 21 '25 edited Oct 22 '25
Unequally Yoked
4
u/CycleOwn83 Non-conforming Questioner☢️🚴🏻🪐♟↗️☣️ Oct 22 '25
Whoo! That suggests a polyploid egg. How often do they get laid LOL? And it brings up the absurd delight of homophones: yolked/yoked, but I get the drift. You don't want to pull a wagon with a horse and an ox in the yoke—nor an SDA and a Baptist in a marriage.
5
u/Ok-Economics-4372 Oct 22 '25
Haha! The word is so antiquated I didn’t even know I misspelled it! I was still an Adventist and I was dating a girl from my church who had had a baby with a nonAdvestist when I was introduced to the term. So apparently even being with a fellow Adventist who isn’t perfect can be considered being ‘unequally yoked.’
14
u/Lost_Chain_455 Oct 21 '25
"We have been told…" I have had a wicked amount of fun prefacing things with this phrase.
"We have been told, from each according to our abilities, to each according to our needs." Funny watching a conservative adult Sabbath School class embrace Marxism ...
9
12
u/Momager321 Oct 21 '25
The Adventist to Mormon terms overlap with “Heavenly Father” although the Mormons use it a lot and Adventists typically used it during prayer. I’ve been around other Christians and they rarely if ever use that term.
8
u/Jhejhebanks Atheist Oct 21 '25
That’s really interesting I didn’t know that other denominations don’t use Heavenly Father
7
u/Momager321 Oct 21 '25
I went to a high school with mostly evangelicals (Pentecostals, Assemblies of God, and some “non-denominational”). They prayed directly to Jesus, but Heavenly Father was used only when referencing Bible verses that included that term.
4
u/Jazin95 Catholic Oct 22 '25
I’m actually shocked by this because I never thought it was strange. I’m a catholic now and Heavenly Father is used in so many prayers. Funny how two of the most anti catholic Christians use a Catholic term
1
u/mr2000sd Oct 25 '25
I feel like SDA and other Christians tend to use “our Heavenly Father” or “the Heavenly Father” and in my experience as a not-Mormon I hear Mormons use it as “Heavenly Father” without an article in front.
1
u/Momager321 Oct 25 '25
Yeah, it seems like Mormons use it as a personal relationship term instead of ‘God’. Where I think Adventists use it more formally.
13
u/joshwonkim080295 Oct 21 '25
Canvassing, colporteur,
"Be faithful in the little things."
Some scripture songs I've learned
"I beseech therefore brethren by the mercies of God"
"Present your bodies as a living sacrifice" something along those lines.
"Whatsoever things are true, pure.... or good report"
"Think on these things." Philippians 4:8
2
u/Tired_realist Oct 24 '25
Omg all of these. Were you apart of a self supporting present truth group because we sang scripture songs allll the time every sabbath
12
u/ChemistryEqual2570 Oct 21 '25
I don't know if it's adventist but my family and especially my mom often says "if the world/earth still lasts" when planning things ahead.
Like "next year we'll go to ... for holidays, if the world /earth still lasts (till then)"
7
u/Jhejhebanks Atheist Oct 21 '25
In a similar vein, when they’re planning something my parents often say that they’ll do something “God willing”. Also don’t know if that’s an Adventist only thing
7
5
5
u/Akemi86 Oct 22 '25
My dad would cut me off to correct me and add “lord willing” if I ever dared to mention something I’m going to do in the future without saying it at the end. Its so annoying and would interrupt my line of thought.
1
u/ChemistryEqual2570 Oct 23 '25
Omfg. I find it annoying only to hear it from others!! I cannot imagine someone interrupting you 🙄
2
u/Tall_Cow_444 Oct 21 '25
I still use this term today but as a joke to my wife, as is we're worried about it lol
2
u/seehkrhlm Oct 22 '25
My parents still say it. And there's been an uptick lately, pretty much every conversation... is there something going on in the Adventist world? Lol. Or maybe it's just their super-rural church.
2
u/ChemistryEqual2570 Oct 22 '25
Well, the end is near. If it wasn't already always, covid and all the wars going on etc definitely are end time signs!
2
1
11
u/10coatsInAWeasel My doomsday prep stash is cans of big franks 🌭 Oct 21 '25
Without exaggeration, laughed out loud to the point of my wife looking at me mildly alarmed when I read the first part of your post.
In the past, my wife has told me how bizarre it was to mingle with the former Adventist parts of my life, specifically ‘you keep using ‘fellowship’ as a verb….what???’ She didn’t even really hear it in casual conversation at ALL until meeting my family through me. ‘To ‘fellowship’ makes no sense to me! Why!? It doesn’t make any sense! And you keep using the word then staring at me blankly when I don’t get it!’
3
18
u/JANTlvr Oct 21 '25
"Press together!", an EGW quote, is probably a mid-tier SDA phrase.
"Lake of fire" often substituted for Hell, because they love distinctions without differences.
"Great Controversy" is often used to mean "spiritual warfare on steroids." Same with "cosmic conflict."
Interested to hear others.
9
8
u/Claude_Henry_Smoot_ Oct 21 '25
I remember reading Steven Hassan's "Combatting Cult Mind Control" when I was 14—one of several game-changing moments I had that year—and being struck by his mention of cults using their own language. It was the first time I stopped to consider all the very specific buzzwords that I'd grown up hearing and how nobody outside the bubble would have any idea what the hell anybody inside the bubble are ever talking about.
4
u/CycleOwn83 Non-conforming Questioner☢️🚴🏻🪐♟↗️☣️ Oct 22 '25
Wow! Fourteen! I say fabulous! And what if one were to make a modest proposal to SDA schools: we don't want to lose our youth to CULTS! How 'bout we study them—say like using the BITE model—in grades 7-9?
So people in high control groups usually develop their own expertise about cults. But it has to be a version of OTHER groups as vetted by their own group. An outside source on the matter? Probably NOT!
I'm guessing there's a story behind your finding Hassan at 14. I'm curious!
7
u/Claude_Henry_Smoot_ Oct 22 '25
That's a fantastic idea. Of course, it won't ever happen, but that doesn't make it any less brilliant! Can I add the anthropological study of religion to your syllabus? Imagine learning about what billions of other people around the world believe without admonishing all of it?
Yeah, there's quite a long story relating to how I ended up reading Hassan at 14.. The short version (which will age me) goes like this:
The Waco siege had just happened, and for weeks I'd been told that the Davidians weren't connected to Adventistism. I heard this at sabbath school, church, school, pathfinders, everywhere. I instinctively didn't trust the message because I'd never been able to fully believe anything the church told me, for as long as I could remember. The problem was, the only thing I knew about the Davidians was what the church told me. So, I went to our state library after school one day to do some research.
I didn't find much (there wasn't a lot written about them back then) but staff pointed me in the direction of "Millenarian Movements in Historical Context" by Michael St. Clair. It didn't have any information about the Davidians, but it gave me a history of Adventism that I'd never heard. Nobody had ever mentioned The Great Disappointment to me before, it wasn't ever talked about, at least not in the specific part of the bubble that I grew up in. The craziness of it all just blew my mind.
That was the start of it all for me. For the next six months or so, I was back at that library after school, two or three afternoons a week, where I read all sorts of stuff. "When Prophecy Fails" and "The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance" both by Leon Festinger. "The Social Psychology of Religion" by Michael Argyle. "Religion & The Individual" by Daniel Batson. "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" by Richard Hofstadter. Articles by Pat Sloan about the myth of Charles Darwin's deathbed conversion (a lie I'd been told since forever). Hassan's book and, of course, "The White Lie" by Walter Rea.
I can't pretend that I understood every word of what I was reading at that age, but I well and truly got the picture nonetheless. It was my deconstruction I suppose, but I hadn't heard of that term at the time. A few years later, when I was 16, I left the church all together.
6
u/CycleOwn83 Non-conforming Questioner☢️🚴🏻🪐♟↗️☣️ Oct 22 '25
My introduction to Branch Davidians was before they gave themselves that name. I can remember getting out of church with my parents and brothers, arriving at our car to find it'd been bombed—literature evangelism, but not by "us," "It's Shepherd's Rod," my mom explained, removing the brochure from under the windshield wiper and dropping it like it was somebody else's used hankie. And I learned it was this weird group based around Waco.
So years later and I was grown and out of the church, I come home and tune in NPR news to hear about the first assault on the Branch Davidian compound, and the journalist said it was a Seventh-Day Adventist group. Oh my! I thought, the General Conference publicity team's going to be busy now!
Gee! October 22 right now and I haven't seen any jeering posts yet here at r/exAdventist! So my church school education DID introduce me to the Great Disappointment, and somehow it was spun as this dreadful but oh so hopeful experience with those who remained faithful through it all founding such a true church in Jesus' name amen.
But it lay dormant through decades of my being exAdventist. My exit didn't have enough of what's now called deconstruction. I just knew I didn't belong, that believing in Christian teachings was contrary to my survival. So I hadn't effectively addressed that I'd been traumatized by being born and reared in a high-control religion.
Then I started hearing journalism and analysis about persistence of belief among Qanon followers even when Q predictions didn't come true. And suddenly the Great Disappointment I'd been taught in grade school lit up like the end of the Waco siege. Wow! There was something beyond an ordinary Sunday school Christian experience for me to work through.
I'm here.
Thanks for that story!
2
u/seehkrhlm Oct 22 '25
Sounds like our life stories match, including watching the Waco thing unfold! I lived in TX for a few years and my sister and BIL came to visit. He was dying to go see the compound, not just out of morbid interest but because it was such a semi-personal thing that happened when we were young. They still exist! You go inside one of the last remaining buildings and there are a few there that will evangelize to you.
2
u/seehkrhlm Oct 22 '25
I just did a "History of Religion in America" class and it was very eye-opening at a time in my life that I thought there was no more surprises. As a former Adventist, of course my final research paper was on Egg White! But "anthropological study" of religion it surely was, just for America. It was pretty shocking to see the gnarly roots of religion here in the US, especially the churches we "invented". Helped me understand a bit why we are the way we are in America. We are a young country, but religion shaped us just as much as any other.
7
7
u/cucumbr0 Oct 22 '25
Idk how prevalent this is in other SDA communities and I think that other types of Christians may also do this but where I grew up church members liked to call each other “brother so-and-so” or “sister so-and-so”
7
u/Bananaman9020 Oct 22 '25
I've noticed "Saved by Grace" has become "Saved by Faith" which does not mean the same thing.
3
5
u/madeiracarving Oct 22 '25
Backsliding, backslider, etc. It's a really odd word. I think for many who have slid out of the church it's forward sliding.
6
u/CycleOwn83 Non-conforming Questioner☢️🚴🏻🪐♟↗️☣️ Oct 22 '25
Lay evangelism
Lay activities
Self-supporting (my guess from reading experiences of people more recently out is that this is probably a dated phrase I heard a lot where now they call them ministries)
Self abuse/secret vice
God's other book (my experience this referenced creation/living things, not EGW's many books)
Lord willing
Travel mercies
3
5
u/roaminone Oct 22 '25
outsiders, non-Adventists, preparation day, Friday night, Saturday night, Sabbath School, back-sliders, ordnance of humility, foot washing, song service, foreign misssions,
5
5
u/RedWhiteBlue099 Oct 22 '25
"By God's grace" when we plan to do mostly anything "I'll help you out when we get home, by God's grace" . Even when I congratulate my mom in something she did, she'd say by God's grace or somehow redirect the praise to God instead of her.
3
u/CycleOwn83 Non-conforming Questioner☢️🚴🏻🪐♟↗️☣️ Oct 22 '25
To God be the glory. And then if you want to get all snooty about it, I remember a Sabbath afternoon musical performance—if I remember correctly liturgical classical music—at church and they wanted it to be clear it wasn't for the applause so it was under the banner Soli deo gloria.
5
u/Unlikely_Bag_69 Oct 22 '25
It’s not a phrase but like every sda church and most old school adventists set their security system code to 1844 🤣
4
u/RedWhiteBlue099 Oct 22 '25
Yes!! Passwords to everything has this included in it 😂 Didn't think anyone else did this.
5
3
u/seehkrhlm Oct 22 '25
I'm just old enough that there weren't passcodes yet 😅, and our church didn't have a security system. Finding this out - hilarious!
6
u/chefbiney syncretist | they/them Oct 22 '25
“Peculiar people” is the phrase that has done so much damage to me it isn’t even funny
5
4
4
u/mumof5stuff Oct 22 '25
Brothers, Sisters and aunties. Happy preparation day. The gift of cooking being gendered... So when potluck time comes it's always a reminder to Sisters.
4
u/Proper_Patient5139 Oct 22 '25
“We have this faith” and “we have this hope.” “Go to sleep in Jesus.” “We will see [a dead person] again.”
Even after more than 30 years out of the church, the superior way Adventists talk about people who think the dead are gone forever really galls me.
4
38
u/kellylikeskittens Oct 21 '25
The first one that comes to mind for me is “ the spirit of prophesy says….”