Of all the honors a club earns in a year, Temperance is one of the ones that shows up most. And the reason is simple: it sits at the heart of the Adventist health message, it is short, and it is done almost entirely through practical activities — it does not depend on memorizing a whole manual for a test.
But that reputation has a downside. Many people treat Temperance as "the easy drugs honor," do it any old way and turn it in half-finished. They miss the essential point: Temperance is not a research project about alcohol and tobacco. It is a signed pledge — a personal commitment to a lifestyle, and the promise to help other people understand that lifestyle.
This guide shows what the honor really asks for, the roadmap that lets you earn it without a last-minute rush, and the mistakes that most often fail the evaluation. It is editorial: it does not reproduce the answer key or the raw requirements — that is what the official Honors Manual is for, which we cite at the end. Content verified on 07/23/2026 against the official sources listed.
What is the Temperance honor?
Temperance is one of the honors in the Missionary and Community Activities area of the Pathfinder program of the South American Division (SAD). Translating the name: "temperance" means self-control — the conscious decision not to put into the body what harms it.
It exists because health is not a side topic for Adventists; it is part of the message. The honor takes that principle and turns it into something a pre-teen can study, practice and, above all, take on as a commitment. That is why it is usually among the first a club earns: it is accessible, it deals with a subject that touches the kids' real lives, and it does not depend on any equipment.
What many people do not realize is the scale of what is at stake. Most honors teach a skill — tying a knot, identifying a bird, pitching a tent. Temperance teaches a life decision. It is the difference between knowing that a cigarette is bad and signing, in your own hand, that you will not use it. Taken seriously, it is one of the most character-forming honors in the entire program.
A note on precision: the exact requirements are in the SAD's official Honors Manual, and they can vary from edition to edition. If any number or detail in this guide differs from the card your club is using, the card rules. This text explains the spirit and the path — it does not replace the manual.
The Temperance Pledge: why is it the requirement that matters?
If you strip away everything else and keep only one thing, the honor still stands because of this requirement. The first step is to memorize and sign the Temperance Pledge. This is the official text:
"Aware that the use of alcohol and tobacco and the use of drugs not recommended by physicians is not compatible with healthy living, I commit myself not only to abstain from the use of these substances and to live according to the principles of Christian Temperance, but also to help others understand and accept this healthier way of life."
Read it again carefully, because it has two halves and the second is the one almost everyone forgets. The first half is abstention: not using. The second is witnessing: helping others understand and accept. The Pledge does not just ask you to stay away from alcohol — it asks you to be someone who helps other people live better. That is why the honor has a requirement about talking to people. It is not an extra; it is the second half of the pledge turning into action.
Notice too the precision of the text: it speaks of "drugs not recommended by physicians." That matters. Temperance is not being against medicine or against treatment — it is being against the use that does harm. A Pathfinder who needs a prescribed medication is not breaking any pledge. Explain this to the kids; it is a question that always comes up.
Some cards allow the Pathfinder to write their own pledge, in their own words, instead of memorizing the official one. If your club opens that door, take advantage of it: a pledge written by hand by the child sticks far better than a text memorized the night before.
What do the requirements ask for, in short?
Without giving away the answer key, you can understand the map of what the honor requires. The requirements revolve around five kinds of task:
| Type of requirement | What it develops | Typical format |
|---|---|---|
| The Pledge | Personal commitment | Memorize and sign (or write your own) |
| Quotations | Biblical and Spirit of Prophecy basis | Memorize a few quotations from each source |
| Study of the harms | Knowledge about alcohol, tobacco and drugs | Research and summary of the effects on the body |
| Creative expression | Communicate the message | Speech, written work, verse or poster |
| Real-life situations | Knowing how to react to peer pressure | Role-play responses to pressure scenarios |
| Witnessing | The second half of the Pledge | Share with people outside the family |
Note the design: only one block is pure research (studying the harms). Everything else is practice — memorizing, creating, role-playing, talking. That is why the honor does not fit the "answer a questionnaire and you're done" model. Anyone who tries to do it as a test turns in a shell without the filling.
Most cards also ask for the reading of support material — a chapter from the book Counsels on Health, from the Spirit of Prophecy, about stimulants and narcotics, usually shows up. Do not treat that as decoration: that is where the information lives that gives substance to the written work and the role-play answers. Reading it first saves rework later.
Read alsoNutrition HonorWhat is the right roadmap to earn it?
The order in which you tackle the requirements changes everything. Most clubs do it in the wrong sequence — leaving witnessing for last — and then chase signatures during induction week. Here is the order that works:
1. Start with witnessing, don't finish with it. The requirement to share with other people (and, on some cards, to gather signatures from people who also commit) depends on time, on conversations and on other people's schedules. It is the only requirement you do not control on your own. Launch it in the first week and let it run in the background while you do the rest.
2. Read the support material before producing anything. The speech, the written work and the poster come out much better — and much faster — when you have already read about the subject. Making the poster before studying is the road to the empty poster, full of pictures and short on content.
3. Memorize the Pledge and the quotations in small doses. Memorizing everything the night before does not work and does not stick. Twenty minutes per meeting, repeating, works better than a marathon on Saturday morning.
4. Produce the creative items last, when the subject is already in your head. Then the speech comes out naturally and the poster has something to say.
A reminder that holds for any honor: the one who officially validates and records it is the club, and the achievement enters the Pathfinder's history. Club support tools help track progress day to day, but the official record follows the club's flow. Do not leave a completed requirement without someone signing that it was completed.
Which mistakes fail this honor most often?
Temperance seems impossible to get wrong — and that is precisely why so many people get it wrong. The evaluation notices instantly when it was done on autopilot. The most common slips:
Copying the "answered honor" from the internet. There is a flood of sites with the requirements already answered. They are for the instructor to prepare the lesson — never for the Pathfinder to copy. A plagiarized written work and a pledge memorized without understanding the text deliver the same thing: nothing. And the worst part is that the child comes out without having formed the conviction the honor exists to form.
Doing only the first half of the Pledge. It is the champion mistake. The club works beautifully on the abstention part — the harms, the quotations, the poster — and simply skips the witnessing, or solves it with a rushed five-minute chat at the end. Half of the signed pledge is half a pledge fulfilled.
Including your own family in the witnessing when the card forbids it. Many cards ask you to share with people outside the closest family circle — the whole point is talking to someone who is not obliged to listen to you. Gathering your mother's and brother's signatures does not meet the goal. Read the requirement carefully.
Treating it as a test about drugs. If, in the end, the Pathfinder only knows how to list the harms of cigarettes but took on no commitment and talked to no one, the honor failed at what mattered most. Knowledge without decision is not temperance.
A generic last-minute poster. The creative item is where the rush shows up most. A poster made in the garage half an hour before, with downloaded images and no message of its own, checks the box in the table and fails at the purpose. Give it time.
Why is witnessing the most important requirement?
Go back to the Pledge: "...but also to help others understand and accept this healthier way of life." That sentence is the reason the honor sits in the Missionary and Community Activities area, and not in the health and science area. Temperance, in the Adventist view, is not personal hygiene — it is service. You care for your own body and help your neighbor care for theirs.
In practice, it is the requirement that transforms the child. Studying the harms of alcohol is one thing. Having to explain those harms to a peer, eye to eye, and invite them to think differently — that forces the Pathfinder to believe in what they are saying. That is where conviction takes hold. Someone who can defend their own position to another person rarely abandons it afterward.
For the instructor, this is the requirement that demands preparation. The kids need help so as not to turn the witnessing into a tiresome sermon or into a judgment of whoever drinks or smokes. The right tone is that of the invitation, not of the wagging finger. Teach the child to tell what they chose and why, and to respect those who have not yet chosen. An arrogant testimony pushes away; a humble one draws in.
It is also the requirement that gives the honor a long life. The poster goes in the trash, the test is forgotten — but the conversation the child had with a friend about not using drugs stays. Sometimes it stays with both of them.
Is Temperance just "not using"? The principle behind it
Here the deeper layer applies, and it converses with current science. The word temperance sounds like pure prohibition — do not drink, do not smoke. But the Adventist concept is broader: it is balance. Use in moderation what is good (rest, exercise, food, sun, water) and abstain completely from what is harmful. It is not a list of "do nots"; it is a whole way of treating the body.
And, in the case of alcohol, the historic Adventist position of total abstinence found an echo in recent public health. In January 2023, the World Health Organization, through its European office, declared that no level of alcohol consumption is safe for health — the risk exists from the very first dose, and there is no threshold below which drinking is harmless. In Brazil, the Dietary Guidelines for the Brazilian Population, from the Ministry of Health, acknowledges the harmful effects of alcohol and does not encourage its consumption. The abstention the honor teaches, therefore, is not religious exaggeration: it is the most prudent recommendation science has today.
You can use this when teaching. When a Pathfinder asks "but a little is fine, right?", the answer does not have to be just "the church does not allow it." It can be: the WHO itself says there is no safe amount. The honor becomes stronger when the principle of faith and the health evidence point the same way — and, in this case, they do.
A final word of caution, because the topic is sensitive: this honor is education and prevention, not treatment. If any Pathfinder or family lives with alcohol or other drug dependence, the path is professional help — health services, addiction care centers, qualified professionals. The honor plants the seed of prevention; it does not replace, and must never pretend to replace, care for someone who is already ill.