{"id":26500,"date":"2026-08-17T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T09:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/?p=26500"},"modified":"2026-08-14T16:42:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:42:23","slug":"enditnow-calls-adventists-to-turn-compassion-into-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/enditnow-calls-adventists-to-turn-compassion-into-action\/","title":{"rendered":"enditnow\u00ae Calls Adventists to Turn Compassion Into Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

14 August 2026 | St Albans, UK [Joe Philpott]<\/p>\n

Seventh-day Adventist churches around the world are preparing to mark the enditnow\u00ae Emphasis Day on 22 August 2026, with this year\u2019s resources calling members to respond to abuse and violence with compassion, awareness and practical support.<\/p>\n

Under the theme \u201cMoved With Compassion\u201d, the 2026 materials have been written by Karen Holford, Trans-European Division (TED) director of Family, Children\u2019s and Health Ministries. The resources explore how following the example of Jesus can help us to see people who are hurting as valuable and worthy of being understood, supported and cared for.<\/p>\n

The annual Emphasis Day, held on the fourth Sabbath of August, is part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church\u2019s wider enditnow\u00ae initiative against violence and abuse. While the designated Sabbath provides an opportunity to focus our attention on the issue, the Church\u2019s 2026 enditnow\u00ae materials stress that the initiative should continue throughout the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am proud to be part of a church that is taking a clear and proactive stand on this important issue,\u201d said Sylvia Cariotoglou, TED Adventist Mission, Community Services and Women\u2019s Ministries director. \u201cAbuse and violence are real, and many families and individuals are affected. We, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, say no. We say enditnow. We say that all men, women and children are worthy of dignity and respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The initiative\u2019s collaborative approach has recently expanded, with Adventist Possibility Ministries becoming the seventh additional General Conference department to co-sponsor enditnow\u00ae. The initiative was launched in 2009 through Women\u2019s Ministries in partnership with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) at the General Conference. In 2016, six more General Conference departments joined as co-sponsors: Children\u2019s Ministries, Education, Family Ministries, Health Ministries, the Ministerial Association and Youth Ministries.<\/p>\n

\"The
The 2026 enditnow\u00ae Emphasis Day theme, \u201cMoved With Compassion\u201d, encourages churches to respond to abuse and violence with care, dignity and practical support<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today, the initiative reaches more than 200 countries and territories and addresses different forms of violence and abuse through awareness, education, prevention strategies and support for survivors. The participating departments contribute their respective areas of expertise while Women\u2019s Ministries continues to coordinate the initiative and its advocacy.<\/p>\n

For Holford, compassion is the central theme connecting these aims in 2026. The provided resources invite participants not only to recognise suffering, but also to consider how compassionate responses can lead to practical action. It includes a children\u2019s story and full scripts for a sermon and a seminar, with separate PowerPoint presentations for both, giving local churches materials that can be adapted for their congregations.<\/p>\n

Although the Adventist world church designates the fourth Sabbath of August as the enditnow\u00ae Emphasis Day each year, congregations are not limited to holding their programme on that date. This flexibility can be particularly helpful within Europe, where late August falls during the summer holiday period, so churches may choose to hold their Emphasis Day later in the year.<\/p>\n

For Cariotoglou, the initiative ultimately connects practical action with the Christian understanding of human worth. \u201cEnditnow is about raising awareness, offering training and resources, and highlighting that God\u2019s plan for people is always rooted in His love,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Churches and ministry leaders can access and download the 2026 \u201cMoved With Compassion\u201d resources from the General Conference Women\u2019s Ministries website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Resources equip churches to respond to abuse and violence<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":26501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26503,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26500\/revisions\/26503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}