World Church: Facing a Climate of Change

Some 2,600 people join the Seventh-day Adventist Church every day--that's just about two people per minute. With a current membership of around 13 million, this means rapid growth--and much change--for the church worldwide.

Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | Wendi Rogers/ANN

Some 2,600 people join the Seventh-day Adventist Church every day—that’s just about two people per minute. With a current membership of around 13 million, this means rapid growth—and much change—for the church worldwide.

In a March 2003 evaluation of how change affects the church today, Lowell Cooper, vice president of the world church, explained the realities of an ever-changing worldwide church organization. “Members of an organization cause change, but they are also caught by changes over which they have little or no control,” he said.

In an interview with Adventist NewsLine on Adventist Television Network, Cooper says that some change can be anticipated, but some happens naturally. “Change is inevitable [but] there are some things we can influence. Church members can affect the quality of spiritual life at all levels [of the church].” He says that members can also focus on worldwide church unity and mission.

From a church born on North American soil, Adventists today have an established presence in 203 out of 228 countries. Is the church equipped to handle the large influx of new members around the world—and the diversity that comes with it?

“I think that the Adventist Church, perhaps more than many of the churches in the world, is set up to deal with diversity because of our organizational structure,” says Roy Adams, an associate editor of the Adventist Review. “All along the ranks there’s training for leadership, so you can have, over time, trained leaders in every sector of the church.”

In the early days of the church, Cooper says, missionaries went from its North American roots to Europe. By 1960, the two regions had a combined total of 43 percent of church membership. As of 2001, that number was just 11 percent. However, church membership in these areas has not declined—but the church has grown significantly in many areas of the world where there were currently few or no members. Missionaries are no longer coming from North America and Europe alone—they are coming and going from each of the church’s 13 divisions, or administrative regions.

“Now we have missionaries [going] from everywhere to everywhere,” says Agustin Galicia, associate secretary of the world church. They are also no longer called “missionaries;” they are called “interdivision employees.”

“In a familiar way we call them ‘missionaries’ still. But the nomenclature we use in policy anywhere else is ‘interdivision employees,’” Galicia says.

Cooper points to the areas of the world with great concentration of Adventist church members. More than one-third of the entire church membership is in Africa, and another third in Central and South America. About 19 percent are in Asia, and three percent are in the South Pacific. With such rapid growth, 25 percent of the current church membership have been members for less than five years, Cooper says, which means that a significant portion of the total membership is still getting oriented to Adventist history, values, lifestyle and organizational processes.

Another major area of change for the church is resource distribution. Members are giving differently than they used to, mainly because of the rapid increase of special purpose entities. These entities have had a major impact on the worldwide activity of the church, but at the same time, the shift in giving patterns by members as compared with several decades earlier presents a challenge to carry on the established work of the church, Cooper says. “It is relatively easier to find donors for highly visible and successful evangelism projects than to obtain systematic support for the training of pastors and local church leaders needed to serve the newly baptized members…If the historical trend in such offerings continues, there is likely to be an increasing strain on the ability of the church to care adequately for new growth.”

The church in North America still provides more than half of the total tithe collected by the world church. In 1960, North America provided 76 percent of the tithe base; in 2001, that number was 60 percent. This does not reflect comparative faithfulness in stewardship, Cooper says. “Such information could only be presented fairly within the context of local economies and currencies.”

Despite growth issues and changes over which church members have little control, members can be intentional about change, say church leaders.

“I think that church members underestimate the influence they can have, simply by writing letters to the right person…making a point they want to see changed in the church,” says Adams.

“It’s only as our church has become more ethnically diverse that the entire structure, right up and down the line, would be able to really celebrate this diversity, rather than try to manage it,” he continues.

“Just celebrate it [and] let it take root everywhere.”

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