15 October, 2014

Adventist Church sets vote on women’s ordination for next July

The Seventh-day Adventist Church as early as next July may decide to take a historic vote on whether to allow women to be ordained ministers. The decision to allow for a vote was made today by the General Conference Executive Committee at the Church’s world headquarters during the 2014 Annual Council. A vote on women’s ordination could put an end to—or further prolong—a decades-old debate that has threatened to divide the denomination, according to those on both sides of the issue.

14 October, 2014

Annual Council adopts recommended edits to Fundamental Beliefs

October 13, 2014 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | Edwin Manuel Garcia/ANN A policy body of the Seventh-day Adventist…

14 October, 2014

Church leaders urged to hire pastors, not administrators

The General Conference, the top administrative body of the Adventist Church, had 282 employees in 1995. Today it has 287, an increase of only five employees. But the Seventh-day Adventist world church has not remained the same. Membership soared from 8.8 million to 18.1 million over those 18 years, while the number of world divisions increased from 11 to 13, the number of unions grew from 94 to 125, and the number of missions grew from 459 to 602.

13 October, 2014

Surfer pastor, clinics, literature outreach are evangelism highlights this year

Church representatives from across the globe on Saturday shared their region’s most successful and unique initiatives to reach non-believers in the world’s largest cities—ranging from a pastor who witnesses on his surfboard, to a health clinic attended by thousands. The initiatives were part of the Council on Evangelism and Witness report presented to delegates of the 2014 Seventh-day Adventist Annual Council.

13 October, 2014

Church membership reaches 18.1 million

Membership in the Seventh-day Adventist Church has topped 18.1 million for the first time, but G. T. Ng, secretary of the Adventist world church, isn’t celebrating. Ng expressed dismay about large losses. “It’s easy to baptize them, but it’s much harder to retain them,” Ng said in an interview.

13 October, 2014

Adventist Church Announces New Bible Reading Plan

Revived By His Word, an online blog that tens of thousands of Adventists are using daily to read though the Bible, will not end when it reaches the book of Revelation next year. Instead, the blog will relaunch under a new name, Believe His Prophets, and expand to include passages from the writings of church co-founder Ellen G. White, church leaders announced Friday evening.

12 October, 2014

Ebola deaths include 16 Adventists in West Africa

The Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has claimed the lives of 16 Seventh-day Adventists, a church official announced Saturday. “The people are suffering,” said James Golay, president of the West Africa Union Mission, speaking from Liberia onto a video screen projected to hundreds of church leaders gathered at the denomination’s headquarters for the 2014 Annual Council.

11 October, 2014

Wilson says Satan trying to destroy Adventist Church

Ted N. C. Wilson, leader of the Seventh-day Adventist world church, said Satan was using every means at his disposal to try to destroy the Adventist Church and neutralize its mission of proclaiming Jesus’ soon coming. Wilson, speaking in a sermon that serves as his annual world pastoral address, said the devil’s tactics include ecumenism, charismatic worship approaches, and attacks on biblical prophetic understanding, and he said he had felt the blows personally in recent weeks with the death of a prematurely born grandson and the discovery that two other grandsons suffer serious health problems.

10 October, 2014

Researchers Hopkins, McBride, Randall given Adventist Health Ministries Medal of Distinction

Three Seventh-day Adventist health experts were awarded the denomination’s Health Ministries Medal of Distinction for their ongoing research and promotion of healthy relationships to prevent at-risk behaviors. Andrews University professors Dr. Gary Hopkins and Duane McBride were presented the award yesterday during a meeting of the Institute of Prevention of Addictions board at the denomination’s world headquarters. Child psychologist Kiti Freier Randall was unable to attend and will receive her award later this year.

10 October, 2014

Annual Council opens with focus on healthful living, appeal for diplomacy

The Seventh-day Adventist Church’s 2014 Annual Council opened with an appeal for respectful diplomacy over coming discussions as well as a major call for the Church to focus on health. Leaders were implored both to establish health ministries for the community and to set their own example of healthful living. Vice President Geoffrey Mbwana and Secretary G. T. Ng opened the six-day meeting of the Executive Committee at the world church’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, before Church President Ted N. C. Wilson welcomed the several hundred present delegates.

10 October, 2014

Day two of Annual Council is preamble to next year’s election, women’s ordination vote

October 10, 2014 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | Ansel Oliver/ANN Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders spent the second day…

9 October, 2014

Adventist volunteers increasingly coming from Latin America

Latin America is becoming a growing supplier of international volunteers to the Seventh-day Adventist world church, a trend that underscores how the historic mission field is increasingly providing support to other regions of the denomination. Church leaders say steady growth in numbers from the Church’s South American Division is the result of deliberate management and promotion of the Church’s volunteers program, which sends university students and recent graduates as missionaries abroad for two to 24 months. Volunteers serve in schools, clinics, ministry projects and administrative headquarters.