08/30/2026
Do We Dare Dream?
By Gary Rustad
With a little time on my hands Sabbath afternoon, August 29, I stopped by the former Atlanta Adventist Academy (AAA) campus off Cascade Road on the west side of Atlanta.
What I found initially saddened me.
The old church is being rented out, but much of the rest of the campus has fallen into serious disrepair. Windows are broken, doors are open, mold is visible, and the landscaping has become badly overgrown. It was difficult to see a place that once had such a strong Adventist presence in this condition.
But as I walked around the campus, my sadness slowly turned into something else.
I started to dream.
I began asking myself, โWhat if?โ
The reality is that, as you can see from the first picture, the Georgia-Cumberland Conference currently has no church presence in this entire section of Atlanta. Yet this is a growing and changing part of our territoryโand we have been called to reach all of our territory with the good news of Jesus.
So I began to wonder:
Could God be calling us back to this part of Atlanta, where we once had such a strong presence?
Does that mean returning to this exact location? I donโt know.
What I do know is that there are people in this community who need to know Jesus.
I know there are families on this side of Atlanta who need a vibrant Seventh-day Adventist church community.
And I know there are young people here who could benefit from the opportunity to receive a Seventh-day Adventist Christian education.
What could that look like? How would it happen? Where would we begin?
I donโt know.
But I do know this:
It doesnโt hurt to dream.
In fact, perhaps we need to dream a little bigger about what God could do through us.
Jesus gave us the gospel commission and told us to โgo into all the worldโ with the good news.
For us, that includes all of GCCโincluding the places where our presence is currently missing.
So maybe the question isnโt whether we have all the answers.
Maybe the question is simply:
Do we dare dream?