Whitewater Times

Seventh Day Adventist Church issued the following announcement on November 2.

is currently the president of the division, and was previously its executive secretary for 12 years.

“First, I want to say a word of appreciation to Elder Bryant,” said Ahn. “He brought a lot of progress to the works of secretariat, those of us who work at secretariat express our appreciation for his dedicated service.”

Ahn’s report centered on membership within the NAD territory. As of December 31, 2019, there are more than 1.2 million Seventh-day Adventists in the North American Division worshipping in 5,621 churches and 880 companies. In 2019, there were 28,011 baptisms. In addition, 6,372 joined the church through profession of faith.

“One of the joys in presenting the membership report is to show how many new members joined the church each year,” said Ahn. “All together 34,383 new members were added to our churches here in North America. In 2019, our acquisition rate was 2.73 percent. This means that we have added 2.73 members for every hundred members. In each of the past eight years, we had an acquisition rate of around 3 percent.”

The figures from 2019 indicate a net increase from 2018 of 5,734 members. Ahn noted this is considered steady growth, verses exponential growth. While Ahn celebrates the growth, he noted the number of “missing” members from last year reached 7,191. Members are considered missing when their church cannot locate them, or when they have not officially transferred from their church.

“My prayer is that we find them and have many of them return to our local churches,” said Ahn.

Coordinated Mission Planning

Still under the umbrella of the secretary’s report, Ernest Hernandez, director of NAD Office of Volunteer Missions (OVM), shared progress the office has had over the past five years and discussed how COVID-19 has impacted the ministries operations.

“We have witnessed the deployment of nearly 3,000 long-term missionaries from the NAD, including more than 250,000 short-term volunteers. Since March of this year, our missionaries have experienced an unprecedented challenge from COVID-19,” said Hernandez.

In response to the worldwide coronavirus disease pandemic, OVM evacuated 126 volunteers from 28 countries. Hernandez also reported that 101 volunteers serving in 15 countries decided to remain in their roles.

Hernandez announced the launch of the “Mission Trip Connector” online tool, which was designed to help streamline mission-efforts. Currently, there is no system that allows various entities of the church to coordinate mission trips. The platform allows groups to schedule and manage trips, share reports, and connect trip organizers to engage in joint projects.

“We estimate there are more than 100,000 volunteers in the U.S. alone engaging in missionary work. Imagine if these groups could talk together to share their visions and find common ground? Tithe money would be used more efficiently, resources could be shared, and the movement of large groups could be coordinated to address places where the gospel has been limited to access,” said Hernandez. “The organized movement of members, churches, academies, and conferences could revolutionize how we engage in mission work.”

Human Relations

Following Hernandez, a report was given by Carolyn Forrest, associate secretary of the division who serves as the director of human relations, interdivision/international service employee resources, and archives and statistics.

“A big area of human relations is listening. And I have found over the years that a lot of times all we need to do is listen. It's been my privilege, and those that serve with me, to receive phone calls and emails and various messages, asking questions, seeking information. We listen, and we direct to local conference leadership and even the union at times to assist and to answer questions.”

Forrest spoke on the support human relations gives at the NAD headquarters and across the division. Training programs including the annual human resources conference; orientation for newly elected secretaries — under the leadership of the former NAD secretary, G. Alexander Bryant — with a focus on policy, prevention of harassment, sexual misconduct, and locally-funded employees; and a new presidents’ orientation in partnership with Alvin Kibble — NAD vice president with an extensive portfolio that includes executive coaching, training, and development — who led training on ethics, diversity. Forrest hopes to incorporate equity and inclusion in future training events.

Another area that Forrest addressed is the work she’s done with the NAD Women in Pastoral Ministry initiative. “As you may recall, we rolled this out in 2015. We said that what we would like to do in this area is promote the hiring of more female pastors. That was our goal. We also recognize that there needed to be some education taking place in some of our local churches. We provided information in that area, because we wanted to emphasize that God calls both men and women.”

Forrest also celebrated the division’s full-time missionaries, or inter-division/international service employees, which include dentists, pastors, doctors, and administrators. The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists also provides support with resource distribution. There are also efforts to recruit from colleges and universities located within the division.

Original source here.