The devil is sly. If one way doesn't work to destroy the Sabbath fully, he tries other ways to destroy it partially. One of these ways I've observed is through the feastkeeping movement. Certain ones, Adventists, former Adventists, and other denominations introduce feastkeeping as a necessary requirement which has been forgotten. This seems innocent enough and doesn't seem all that harmful in itself, but once people accept that, then they start introducing other changes. Once you have left your anchor, then you are adrift and soon lured in and become susceptible to other strange ideas itching ears want to hear.

Soon you have the Sabbath split across days, a 12 hour Sabbath, or a Sabbath that starts at noon and ends mid afternoon. If enough confusion and inconsistency is introduced, maybe people will just give up the Sabbath completely. And there's been more than one case where a feastkeeper is no longer going to church, no longer counts themselves as a Seventh-day Adventist, or has given up on God completely.

To promulgate the idea of feastkeeping, one must first decide on when the year starts. And each group picks a day of their own choosing to start the year. Sometimes, they use different criteria different years. You know, as "new light" pops into their heads.

Here are the main ones I have come across. There are several others, but then I would be tempted to title it, the dirty dozen.

Lighted Way, Canyonville, Oregon
Where Shauna Manfredine, an alpha-like female, (and Mark) light your path in ways you should not go.

Was listed on 7th day Church of God site: http://www.7th-day.info/Pages/fot_usa_2016.aspx
?Sabbath Fellowship? Church, was part of the Seventh Day Adventist conference. Sold to those "from many different backgrounds; Baptist, Catholic, Church of God, Seventh Day Adventist and others".
When searching on archive.org, it doesn't show this anymore but found some info at https://swarkansasnews.com/2015/03/church-in-the-wildwood/

Bible Explorations, Terra Bella, CA
Where John VanDenburgh (now deceased) explores new light on all kinds of so-called "truths" for this age.

Unburdened Friday Evenings
Where Charlene Fortsch is probably the most dangerous one against the Sabbath. Rather than outright deny the Sabbath, she promotes shifting it so all those embracing her idea are guilty of breaking part of it.

?This is a very easy study -- and so wonderful to finally have the burden of Friday completely removed. God's way is always better. His yoke is easy, and His burden is indeed light.?

Q: What is the burden of Friday?

A: ?The burden of Friday (at least in the far northern and southern areas) is trying to get ready for Sabbath before the sun sets.?

"and so wonderful to finally have the burden of Friday completely removed."

From the pioneers, Waggoner:
Vogel: in an attempt to support that the first day is to be observed, and made many convoluted statements in such an attempt. He reviews 3 different reckoning the days, dismissing from evening to evening as passing away. Read about his review of morning to morning and Waggoner's responses.

And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (Genesis 1:5 ASV)
So were those terms the beginning points or end points? Vogel says end points. "There could be no evening without a previous period of light." {1872 JHW, WDUS 117.7}

But likewise, one could say, there could be no morning without a previous period of darkness.

Why this motivation for changing when the Sabbath starts?
It could very well be that she lives/had lived in Canada and either she, her husband, or other close family member had Sabbath problems with work.

I do feel for Charlene. I understand that either she and or family have lived in Canada or spent part of their time there. For instance, in December in Vancouver, British Columbia, the sun sets at 4:13 p.m. If you are at Whitehorse, Yukon, it sets at 3:46 p.m! If work requires you to work until 5:00 p.m., that could be a problem for many weeks.

What to do? Change the Sabbath to meet your needs!
So she moves it to start and end at dawn, not sunrise, as that would be pagan. So you just face east and watch for the sun and it's sometime of your own choosing before you actually see the sun. Kind of reminds me of Easter sunrise service.


Timothy Astleford
in Alberta, Canada. I believe is a co-author with Charlene and played a big part in misleading her. I have not been able to find much else about him.

An individual in the midwest
I do not give the name as they are not advertising themselves.
I see them as a gatherer and distributor, or a disseminator, of all kinds of information. One who has never seen an idea not worth considering as truth and sharing with others.

When Charlene Fortsch said they surprisingly received a DVD about the day starting at dawn, it wouldn't surprise me that the DVD came from or passed through this individual.

I live in Canada and have been dealing with early sunsets Friday for many years (and yes, it is a bit of a problem from November to February) But have always managed to arrange something at work. Of course sometimes one has to take shorter hours, which means smaller paychecks.
But change God's Sabbath, for convince -- Not a good idea.

Then comes summer. Sun sets after ten o'clock at night, and rises way before I want to get up.
In summer we have no Friday evening Sabbath hours to relax, unwind and enjoy the sweet beginning of the Sabbath.
In a lot of ways I miss the Friday evening Sabbath hours that we enjoy in winter. There is something special when the sun goes down Friday and darkness gathers, all work set aside, to relax and prepare the heart and mind to relate with our Creator.

Anyone who moves Sabbath to "dawn to dawn" is doing away with something pretty precious.
Friday evening Sabbath hours, make the whole Sabbath so much more blessed!


Except in hearing they exist, I have not met anyone that believes in a dawn to dawn Sabbath.


Now there is another strange attack on what day is the Sabbath.
And it comes from those pushing feast keeping. A lunar Sabbath idea.
I have run into a few of those people.
Since the feast days are determined usually by the "new moon" some think the weekly Sabbaths are linked to the new moon as well. So each month has a different sequence of 7th day Sabbath starting with whenever the new moon is sighted. Now that is confusion at it's best. One month it may be every Monday, another month it may be every Thursday etc. It really is confusion at it's best. especially at the end of the month when the next new moon ends up on the eighth or ninth day.

Luckily most Adventists just shake their heads and keep on with the consistent Saturday Sabbath from sundown to sundown each week.

I have found that at more than one non-Adventist work places, the rest of the people like getting off work early on Fridays. Sounds to me she (or whomever) should be looking for a different place of work rather than changing God's laws to suit man's wants.

I agree, there is something special on Friday evenings. Even if you are rushing and feel like you are sliding in right at sunset, there still is something about it. And as you get more mature and plan for it ahead of time, it's just so nice to set back and just be in God's presence. But with her, you go to be and wake up Sabbath. And you feel like you are the last to a get together, that God has been waiting and you finally got out of bed. She quotes Ellen White talking about we will keep the Sabbath more fully. Rather than understand her to mean instead of watching the clock, or seeing what one can justify doing on the Sabbath, Charlene means that more fully means keep it across two days. That new light destroys old.

But she talks fast, and switches meanings of days around so that more than one has been deceived by her.

Yes, there are some of them out there who change the Sabbath to different days of the week. The devil is happy either way. Move the Sabbath half a day, or move the Sabbath to varying days. Sometimes they are keeping it at the right time, but as long as they don't keep all of it, that serves his purpose.

The "Feasts" were very much the feasts of the land, connected to the agricultural cycle of the land. God used these as times that the Hebrews needed for their living in the land, but took advantage of this to teach them lessons. Even the Canaanites kept these feasts for centuries before the Hebrews came.

In Babylon, those left in the land would observe when it was time for the feasts and a series of places for smoke signals were set up to let those in exile know when the feasts came. (some who lived between the land and Babylon would sometimes, knowing that the feast would soon arrive, send their own smoke signals to fool the Hebrews into keeping the feast a day or two early).

The Sabbath was not in this category. The Sabbath was universal and was kept whenever the sun set where they were, whether they were in Babylon, The land, or Egypt and as Jews moved east or west they would welcome the Sabbath when the sun set where they were.

If you only knew how much I wish I could say that. It's like one hears about people believing in a flat earth, but don't really know anyone.
Ooops! Now I find the person I know believes in a flat earth. It's so sad and no longer funny thinking there's strange flat earther's out there. So sad. So very sad.

I have a couple of very interesting links on the Sabbath for you.

https://ualrexhibits.org/tribalwriters/artifacts/Antiquities-Cherokee-Indians.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uikrPsRGVUI

That's interesting about the Indians and the Sabbath. Somehow it got off, but they did know something about it.
While some cultures have something to do with the solstices, one wonders why so many cultures have something with the equinox? It's really not the beginning nor ending of anything. The halfway point of the sun on half it's yearly circuit - one quarter of the way. Maybe a yin-yang type of deal with half winter half summer.

Add another to the list - covenant calendar club.
Ooops. I repeated myself...

Where little, if any, truth is mixed in with their errors. Where one makes up things, and then says others who make up things are wrong. Where one says something isn't found in the Bible, but also just gives a statement as fact with no proof it is in the Bible. For instance, "Year begins when the winter season is complete in the Northern Hemisphere. The equinox day is the sign to determine the year end;" and "(Gazing at the moon to determine the month-start is also not commanded anywhere by Moses in Torah, or other Scriptures.)"

Don't be misled. You have to be on your toes. They are more sly than those trying to prove 2+2=5.
I did find it interesting they seem to suggest that the southern hemisphere is the opposite. I hadn't come across that with the other deceivers. One wonders what happens as you approach the equator. And depending upon how they calculate the pagan equinox, what they do within seven degrees of it.

Oh, and of course you can donate. To Neil Pritchard. Hmm. Hadn't heard that name. Maybe a pawn / fall guy.

We've had real problems with those who push this lunar Sabbath idea, and it seems there is no way to get them to change their minds on it.

That's because no human being can change anyone else's mind no matter how convincing we think our arguments are. The only person who can change the mind of anyone is God. He knows us inside and out. He knows the background of everyone. He knows their biases, their weaknesses their strengths and prejudices

The only tool we have in our toolbox is prayer. That's it.

I tried. Oh, I tried. It didn't work. Only made things worse. They dug in their heels.
Why do they believe this stuff, I don't know.
Snowflake, I think.

Were you replying to me?

Sorry. It was in response to Rick's.

Under Equinox 2023 explained at StudyTheCalendar rather than study the Bible, Charlene Fortsch has come up with a way of solving the international date line issue. My interpretation...
She looked away from her North-Merica centric tunnel vision and suddenly realized there was a whole world out there. And she said to herself, wow, my made up things don't fit the rest of the world. I will now proceed to make up more things and maybe no one will realize how convoluted they are. So now, rather than a date line in the middle of most of nowhere, I now pronounce it changes each year moving over various spots, splitting cities so some people on one side of my line keep feast days on one day, and those on the other side, another day. I still don't worry about the southern hemisphere, they can figure it out themselves. Haven't looked into within 7 degrees of the equator as it's not in my realm.

Who is Charlene Fortsch?

Read the first post and that should tell you what she's doing and how she's misleading.

This is really strange. There's a guy on Christian forums who claims there were 10 days in the first week of creation and that the Jews got everything associated with the start of the Sabbath wrong. He also says there are only 12 hours in a day. There is even an SDA who has made that argument there. He tosses out the creation week entirely in speaking of the length of a day.The first guy says there were two evenings in the first day when God created light.

Very strange delusions.