North America: Church Report Highlights Growth, Links to History
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The Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America topped 1 million members at the end of 2004, a milestone leaders credit to evangelism, including media ministries |
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Don Schneider, President of the North American Division [photo by Richard Dower]
Max Mace with the Heritage Singers performed during the North American Division report. [photo by Richard Dower]
The Heritage Singers sang during the North-American region report. [photo by Richard Dower]
The Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America topped 1 million members at the end of 2004, a milestone leaders credit to evangelism, including media ministries. In a report presented to the 58th General Conference Session in St. Louis, the world Adventist Church's quinquennial business meeting, Pastors Don Schneider, president, and Roscoe Howard, secretary, cited the foundation laid by pioneer Adventists as the basis for today's growth.
"In the past 5 years in North America, 153,000 converts were added to the Seventh-day Adventist family in our 6,000 churches across the United States and Canada," said Howard, who with Schneider was filmed at Elmshaven, the Northern California residence of Ellen G. White, a pioneering founder of the church.
Combining video clips, montages of ministry, specialized reports and live speaking, the 30-minute presentation, which concluded the first Saturday evening of the 10-day business session, included four live vocal numbers by the Heritage Singers, a premiere Christian ensemble based in California.
According to the North American report, evangelism included not only traditional forms of outreach, but media ministries including It Is Written, Amazing Facts, Voice of Prophecy, Bread of Life, Faith for Today, the Quiet Hour and La Voz de Esperanza (Voice of Hope). During past year, the report indicated, combined efforts of Adventist Media Ministries touched more people than in all previous years combined.
Following a filmed presentation by North American church treasurer Juan Prestol emphasizing the care with which the region spends money on outreach, Schneider told the St. Louis audience that the determination to fund evangelism is a longtime Adventist tenet.
"The pioneers gave everything to spread the Adventist message," he said, Now, "I want to give everything I have to the Lord Jesus Christ. In our reports you have seen about people coming to Jesus, we want to give everything we have to bring more people to Jesus."
He conceded that the work is far from finished: "In our own division we have not completed this work. Some of our neighbors have not yet heard about Jesus. We are committed to telling everyone about His coming. Around the world, you can count on us. We will put our resources, everything we have, to this."
The Seventh-day Adventist Church was formally established in Battle Creek, Michigan, United States, in 1863. It is active in more than 200 nations around the world, with its headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.
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