Question: Why don't you have the words Seventh-day Adventist or SDA in your name?

Answer: We understand that these terms are legally protected by the church.

Question: Why should I trust your organization any more than I would trust the church?

Answer: We don't think you should. How to demonstrate accountability to the members of MCA has been given considerable thought. We have tried to keep our organization simple and transparent. We publish our financial statement in each quarterly newsletter. We have thought of ways that would allow each member to track their contribution but still not make the matching of contributions to people public. We would discuss any such arrangements with the membership before starting it. Our treasurer does work under the supervision of a public accounting firm. All of this may not still be enough. At any rate I would expect the trustees to allow and encourage any group of MCA members to audit our books under the same terms that we are asking to audit the records of the church. These terms are basically that any actual auditing be done by a competent public auditing firm and that the reasonable expense for added work load for the ones being audited be paid by those doing the auditing.

Question: Why do we get mailings from doctors in California but the MCA address and bookkeeping are in Colorado? Someone questioned whether anything good could come out of Colorado.

Answer: It is hard to tell volunteers where to live. The secretary treasurer, Norm Smith, lives in Colorado. (Can't say whether that is a strike against him.) George Grames and Stewart Shankel the leaders of the General Conference Reform Group, a group within MCA, live in California.

Question: Is MCA some sort of an "offshoot" group.

Answer: The leaders of MCA are members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. We consider MCA to be part of the mainstream Adventist community. Because we would eventually like to fill an independent spot auditing role in the life of the church, MCA must of necessity be independent of the church organization. We certainly do not consider MCA to be an "offshoot" organization. We want to work within the mainstream Adventist community to promote accountability in church dealings. We would like to cooperate with church leaders in achieving this goal.

Question: How is MCA different from other concerned groups within the church.

Answer: We are not claiming a unique role in promoting accountability in the church or in monitoring its dealings. We would be happy to work with other such organizations to common ends, if there are any such organizations. Certainly we know of other groups concerned about the church. We don't know of any presently working to achieve accountability in the way we think necessary.

Question: Why would you want to say anything negative about the church?

Answer: We do not see promoting accountability in church affairs as a negative activity. We think honesty, integrity and fairness are very positive qualities. In order to make church members aware of a need for change, we must of necessity call their attention to problems that have occurred. We attempt to do this with reasonable restraint and care. We do not think that being aware of problems and working toward greater accountability is a negative activity any more than realizing that your car has a flat tire and making the effort to fix it is a negative activity.