This year’s Segment Leadership Development (SeLD) Conference opened with a record number of Seventh-day Adventist church administrators, department heads, pastors, and institutional leaders across the territory in attendance. More than 3,300 leaders tuned in via video conference on Monday, July 6, as the opening ceremony challenged leadership to reflect on their relevance and effectiveness in their ability to rise to the challenges of the times.
Pastor Elie Henry, president of the church in Inter-America, encouraged the thousands of leaders to have total dependence upon God in times of trouble, inquiring at all times and waiting for God’s guidance and wisdom always, especially in crisis.
“Make sure you choose to go to God first in times of emergency,” Henry said. “David found strength in God, even as he worried about family, about his men, all he had worked for; he worried about the future and all he could do in his hopeless situation was to seek God first. As leaders, that’s the first lesson, followed by the second lesson which is to develop a game plan for victory and wait on the Lord for his guidance.”
Henry continued by saying that the Lord wants the pandemic to end just as much as we do, but he also wants us to continue fighting for him--to fight the evil in the world “until we get the complete victory, as it is our responsibility to be part of God’s rescue team.”
He challenged leaders to make sure they choose to go to God for encouragement and strength while upholding the mission he gave his church until Jesus comes.
“Life will knock us down, we will face emergencies and difficulties, and what we choose to do will make a difference in our family, in our offices, in our institutions, and our communities,” Henry said.
Themed “Leadership in Unusual Times,” the four-day training session continued through July 9.
“Our focus is on assisting leaders in reassessing their emergency responses, empowering leadership responses to members and community in times of difficulty, accelerating decision-making skills for addressing challenges with the organization, and providing a forum for leaders to network on disaster challenges during the pandemic,” explained Pastor Balvin Braham, assistant to the IAD president in charge of leadership training and the main organizer of the conference.
The SeLD conference usually draws more than 600 leaders every year to Miami, Florida, in the U.S., but since the General Conference session was postponed until 2021, IAD leaders decided to reschedule the SeLD conference training event to be held online this month, opening the way for five times more attendees this year, said Braham.
Pastor Geoffrey Mbwana, general vice president for the Adventist World Church, spoke during the first plenary session on crisis leadership and the leaders’ impact on helping people and organizations through such crises.
“Crisis presents a huge challenge to us in leadership, with disasters, calamities, floods, pandemics, economic crisis, and the like and each one brings their own dangers, threats, and abnormalities which disrupt our lives and our leadership, leading to fear,” Mbwana said in his address. He reminded leaders that it is their responsibility to anticipate crisis, accept it as a part of life, prepare for it, plan for it, face it, and lead proactively, just like the Prophet Nehemiah went through and navigated through the crisis of his time.
“Crisis presents an opportunity for leaders to grow and you, as leaders in this church, are called to bring out your best again and again with every passing crisis,” Mbwana said “If you are successful in leading through a crisis, you become a better person, but also a better leader.”
It’s about owning the situation you are in, praying about the situation, managing yourself, planning carefully how to handle the situation, implementing a plan, learning lessons, and sharing the lessons learned with others.
Pastor Mbwana touched on the necessary role and functions of having a crisis management committee, a crisis management team, and a crisis management plan in place as the framework of response to the crisis.
“Leadership is about vision--the ability to see what is ahead before it comes. It’s about preparedness,” said Mbwana. “While you deal with crisis keep the mission in focus, make sure you bring people together, be truthful, and act confidently, for at a time of crisis people have their eyes and ears on the leaders. So rise up and lead!”
More than 40 speakers and experts from the Adventist world church and the IAD territory spoke during the general sessions and seminars on crisis management, organizational effectiveness, financial strategies, emotional intelligence, church management, and more.
The conference was presented in English, Spanish, and French.
This article was originally published on the Inter-America Division’s website