c. 2000 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) While marveling at the diversity of their denomination, newly elected officials of the Seventh-day Adventist Church say they will be challenged to keep the global body unified in the midst of its rapid growth.

Jan Paulsen, who was re-elected as world president of the Adventists during their World Session that ends in Toronto on Saturday (July 8), said he hopes his church will maintain its emphasis on missions.

“I see that everything that the church does finds its meaning only insofar as it is true to that,” he said. “I want the church, therefore, to be intensely mission-driven and mission-focused.”

The evangelistic efforts of the denomination have resulted in a worldwide membership of 11 million people, marked by an influx of 1 million new members in the past year. Delegates representing 205 countries attended the meeting in Toronto.

“A rapidly growing church can fragment unless deliberate efforts are made to make sure that the family communicates well, that we understand each other, that we become involved in each other rather than distancing ourselves from each other,” Paulsen said in an interview Thursday (July 6).

The denomination began in the United States in 1863, but now finds that less than 10 percent of its membership is in this country.

Paulsen, 65, said he’s not concerned the U.S. membership is overshadowed by membership in other regions of the world.

“No, I think it is wonderful,” he said. “The Seventh-day Adventist Church has over … 92 percent of its membership outside North America. I think this testifies to the success of the mission of the church. It has become in the process a very, very diversified church.”

Pastor Don Schneider, the newly elected North American president of the denomination, said he’s “thrilled” the denomination has grown so much beyond North America.

“I look out on the floor and see people from all over the world,” he said in an interview, also on Thursday, describing the scene at the World Session. “Every night people pray from the platform and it’s a different language and it just about sends chills up and down your spine.”

But Schneider said he wants to encourage increased growth and evangelistic efforts within his division of the church.

“What I’m after is to have our membership be able to say, `I met Jesus. He’s made a difference in my life. I’d love to tell you about him,”’ he said.

Schneider, 57, of Berrien Springs, Mich., said his division will continue to work on building its identity within North America.

“Mostly, people don’t know about Seventh-day Adventists,” said Schneider, who served most recently as president of the Lake Union Conference, which includes churches in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.

In addition to mission efforts, Schneider said his division also will continue to address race relations. North American church leaders held a first-ever racial summit in November 1999 and plan to hold another national summit in the fall of 2001 as well as regional gatherings on the topic.

“Racial issues don’t change easily in the church or anywhere in the world, but as a result of that conference, we said we need to look at certain things and we need to have more and more dialogue,” Schneider said.

The worldwide denomination also must be more intentional about gender relations, Paulsen said.

“Our church has taken a position that we do not ordain women to the ministry on the one hand,” said Paulsen. “Yet that is not to be confused with meaning that therefore women should not have a creative access to leadership roles in the church.”

Some women are commissioned as pastors in local congregations, but ordained men have credentials that are valid worldwide. Paulsen said he hopes the church will be more intentional about electing women to leadership roles in its decision-making bodies.

Paulsen and Schneider each will serve five-year terms in their presidential positions. Paulsen, a native of Norway, was first elected in March 1999, replacing Robert S. Folkenberg, who resigned amid allegations he was involved in fraudulent business dealings.

During the international gathering, the denomination released official statements supporting the right to evangelize but condemned proselytism that involves unethical persuasion; affirmed the rights of children to be free from abuse and have appropriate shelter, health care and education; and condemned gambling as “a modern curse … incompatible with a Christian lifestyle.”

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is known especially for its belief that the Advent, or Second Coming, of Jesus Christ will occur soon and its observance of the Sabbath on Saturday, the seventh day of the week.

DEA END BANKS