Dan Jackson Elected as North American Division President
July 6, 2010
On June 28 at the 59th General Conference Session of the Seventh-day Adventist World Church, new presidents were elected for three of the world divisions, including SDACC President Dan Jackson as the next North American Division President, along with re-elected NAD Secretary G. Alex Byrant and Treasurer G. Thomas Evans.
Adventist News Network (ANN) reported that Jackson, who has served as president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Canada for nine years has, with the exception of five years of service in the Southern Asia Division, lived and ministered in Canada. He is a graduate of Canadian Union College (now Canadian University College) and Andrews University. During his career, Jackson served the church as a pastor, teacher and administrator. Dan and his wife, Donna, have three children and four grandchildren.
Dan and Donna Jackson shared that the election came quite unexpectedly. The Nominating Committee does not give much time for individuals to consider their calling – requiring an answer in as little as 30 minutes! Dan’s name came to the committee just before nominations were closed – after which he was asked to leave the room to allow for discussion on their names. The next thing Dan heard after re-entering the room was his name being announced as the committee’s first choice. Dan and Donna talked about it together, and their answer came almost immediately. They felt it was so unlikely for Dan to be called to this position and thus they believed it must be part of God’s plan. Dan was thrust into the new position and the spotlight immediately, facing several interviews and of course congratulations from Canadians attending the GC and numerous acquaintances and friends.
The new North American Division President was quoted by Adventist News Network as saying: “God never calls us to do things we are capable of, and this thing is so much bigger than me. But He has called, and I accept this with the greatest humility and with extreme gratitude to Don Schneider.”
Congratulations and God’s Blessing to both Dan and Donna!
Adventist Church President Jan Paulsen speaks to Haitian Adventists: ‘Don’t lose courage’
January 20, 2010
Source: Adventist News Network
In a statement aired on the Seventh-day Adventist Church's television station, the Hope Channel, church President Jan Paulsen urged Haitians to not lose courage in the aftermath of the earthquake.
 |
Paulsen's words came hours after a magnitude 6.1 aftershock struck Haiti, renewing anxiety among survivors.
"The scale of the suffering that has been inflicted on the nation and the people [of Haiti] is unimaginable," Paulsen said. "We want to be involved, we want to participate and show our sense of brotherhood with the people of Haiti." Paulsen added that every church member has something to contribute, whether it's money or service.
Paulsen urged Adventists to encourage their children to participate in aiding the Haitian community.
"Tell your children about this -- help your children to discover that even in these tragedies that we share humanity," he said. "When something happens anywhere in the world on this scale ... we have a responsibility."
Paulsen concluded by saying his hope and prayer was that "the future of Haiti be better than its past."
Relief agencies estimate that 200,000 people may have died as a result of the January 12 earthquake.
Reports about deaths among Adventist Church members in Haiti are still trickling in, said Orville Parchment, assistant to Paulsen.
Parchment said two choirs were practicing in a church when the earthquake struck. Fourteen bodies were found, but the number of survivors is still uncertain, he said.
Children at an Adventist school in Haiti escaped their collapsing building when they ran outside to investigate a loud noise, Parchment said. He added that while no children were reported dead, one janitor was trapped and killed in the school when the quake hit.
Structural damage to Adventist property includes numerous churches and the church-run hospital and university.
The Adventist world church is raising money to help with organizational recovery, leadership said. Earlier this week, the world church administrative committee voted a donation of $200,000 to help rebuild churches and other facilities. The North American region voted to send $600,000 to Haiti, with other local offices in North America adding at least $175,000.
After his televised comments, Paulsen added that he had spoken with the president for the church in Inter-America, Israel Leito, about the total church donations so far.
'The donations have exceeded $1 million," Paulsen said during an interview with Adventist News Network. "This is specifically for church recovery, and there is more to come from other divisions. [The Adventist Development and Relief Agency] works with even hands to help everyone, but this donation is given specifically to our churches in Haiti. It signifies how intensely our church family feels about the situation."
A special offering will be collected February 6 in North American congregations for Haitian church relief, said Fred Kinsey, communication director for the church in North America.
Other world regions plan to hold their own offerings for Haiti, church leaders said.
Update:
Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders in Haiti reported 522 church members were killed by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck the capital last week. More than 55 churches were destroyed, 60 churches partially damaged and some 27,000 church members left homeless in the capital city of Port-au-Prince.
Dr. Elie Honore, health ministries director for the church in Inter-America, said the Adventist Hospital in Port-au-Prince is in need of orthopedic surgeons and anesthesiologists. To volunteer, contact Honore at honore@interamerica.org.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Inter-America has set up a special fund account specifically to assist church members. Donations may be sent by check to the Inter-American Division, Re: Haiti Catastrophe Fund, 8100 S.W. 117th Avenue, Miami, Florida, 33183.
Donors can also e-mail catastrophefund@interamerica.org.
For updated news on Haiti, visit interamerica.org.
For more information about general relief work or to donate to the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), visit adra.org.
Original Post: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ann-en/~3/gKQMDUD_CYM/adventist-church-pre.html
Adventist lawyer’s blog ministers when many need it most — Monday morning
January 19, 2010
Source: Adventist News Network
When Kent Hansen gets a case of the Monday blues, he doesn't mope around the office; he blogs about finding God in "ordinary" and oftentimes faith-testing situations.
 |
Hansen says he "stumbled into" online ministry. The Southern Californian attorney whose blog, Monday Grace, now reaches 4,000 readers, began writing the weekly devotionals on practical faith in 1998 when his sister was in the last stages of pancreatic cancer.
"I said, 'God, I'll write if you give me something to write about,'" Hansen remembers.
Aside from completing academic or legal assignments, he hadn't written anything for 20 years, after his fiancée died in an auto accident during his junior year of college.
Since beginning Monday Grace, Hansen, who recently did a series on worry, says he has tried to "write about life, but be positive." He previously covered prayer, forgiveness and other "things people wrestle with."
Many would say his devotionals come at the ideal time.
"The people I work with sit at the computer Monday morning and say, 'Ugh ... another week.' They're facing tough stuff and I want to say something positive about God to them," Hansen says.
Out of his blogs came two books: Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places (Review & Herald Publishing, 2002) and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God's Love Through Prayer (Pacific Press, 2007).
As a boy growing up in Santa Cruz, California, Hansen was interested in history and government and knew he wanted to study law. He also demonstrated an early interest in writing -- he composed short stories, edited his academy newspaper and minored in Journalism at Seventh-day Adventist-owned La Sierra University.
In 1979, Hansen graduated with a law degree from Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Oregon. Since 2000, he has worked as general counsel for Loma Linda University, where he supervises four other university lawyers. He also serves as La Sierra's legal advisor.
While Hansen doesn't hear from everyone who reads his blog, many do contact him -- asking for prayer or sharing their experiences. "Over time it establishes a community," he says.
That community extends to some "fairly remote places," he has learned. "I've heard from [readers in] Mozambique and Zimbabwe. One woman who came across [the blog] is a Ukrainian exchange student in Beijing, China."
Hansen sees a blog as a place people who might not show up in church Saturday morning or attend an evangelistic meeting can find God. "It's very hard to get people in the doors of your church. This reaches them at their desks," he says. "That's where most of them spend their time."
Several people have even decided to become Christians because of his ministry, he says.
Broadening his reader base, several church conferences and the C.S. Lewis Foundation now run an RSS feed of his devotionals on their sites.
While Hansen's ministry might be a bit "unusual," it's also "practical and insightful," says Lowell Cooper, a reader and Loma Linda University board chair. "He's very gifted in expressing spiritual truths. He's got readers across the spectrum," Cooper says.
To read Hansen's weekly devotionals or subscribe to the e-mail version, visit mondaygrace.com.
Original Post: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ann-en/~3/Zbxi-wpFCwQ/adventist-lawyers-bl.html
Church Chat: The evolution of Adventist World Sessions
January 12, 2010
Source: Adventist News Network
 |
Now held every five years, the gathering is a business session for the international denomination, known as the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
Beach, former director for the church's Department of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty, has attended 14 Sessions. Former church President Neal Wilson has also attended 14.
Beach was 17 years old when he served as a pageboy at his first Session in 1946, held at a church in Takoma Park, Maryland. At the time, there were about 600,000 Adventists worldwide. By comparison, there are now some 16 million members, and this summer's Session in Atlanta will be held in a football stadium.
Beach, who holds a doctorate in history from the University of Paris, has represented the church as a participant and observer in numerous interfaith councils. "I see myself as a bridge builder," he told the Adventist Review in 2001.
Beach, 81, sat down with ANN last week to discuss some of his memories of Sessions over the years. Some excerpts:
Adventist News Network: How has the atmosphere changed since Sessions have transitioned to being held in basketball arenas and now in football stadiums?
Bert Beach: The atmosphere is different now in the sense that there's much more professionalism you might say, the way things are more organized. Today it's much more professional with the television and production. It must be because it's much larger and we have, of course, much more experienced people when it comes to communication, for example -- people who really are professionals, not people who do it simply as a vocation after having served as a pastor or minister for many years.
ANN: What's it like to serve on the nominating committee [which nominates candidates for approval by the delegation]?
Beach: The atmosphere is very professional, very careful, people are friendly basically. The tendency is not to make very strong speeches against somebody. The tendency is more to make speeches for a person if you really want to promote a candidate.
ANN: What other roles have you had at General Conference Sessions?
Beach: Beginning 1954 I was a delegate at the General Conference Session and participated rather actively. ... I did a lot of translation. I would translate for people because I knew Italian, German, English, French, and so delegates would come and they didn't know English in those days. They know more English now. ... At later Sessions, I was the official at the General Conference who was in charge of protocol for the guests from other churches and from the government.
ANN: How old were you when you were placed on the Executive Committee?
Beach: Thirty-two. That's relatively young. There might have been some people that were even younger, [but] nowadays, it becomes a little bit more difficult because they've restricted the numbers of positions of the Executive Committee.
ANN: How does the Adventist Church's world Session compare to meetings of other denominations?
Beach: It's a very big meeting compared to other denominations. First of all, most churches around the world are not world churches. Obviously the Roman Catholic Church is a world church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, so is the Salvation Army, but most churches are national churches. Let's say the United Church of Canada, the Church of England, the Southern Baptist Convention, these are not world churches in the full sense of the word. They form alliances with other churches of the same belief.
ANN: What people or discussions over the years stand out in your mind?
Beach: We had some colorful people speaking at General Conference Session sometimes. I remember the famous Uncle Arthur [Maxwell] of the Uncle Arthur bedtime stories, who was editor of Signs of the Times, and was a very good speaker. I still remember him getting up at the General Conference Session and he was complaining that there were too many officers sitting on committees all the time and not enough other people -- pastors and departmental people and so on. He said, "And here we have a secretary and then we have on the committee an undersecretary, and then we have an associate secretary and then a treasurer and an undertreasurer and assistant treasurers," and so on. And so people started laughing in the audience. Then of course we had the meeting about the ordination of women, I think it was in Utrecht [Netherlands in 1995]; two sessions actually dealt with it. I still remember long lines of people. They had to line up at two different microphones. One was for those who had announced that they were in favor and those at the other microphone who had announced they were against, so they could balance. The chairman would ask [a representative] from one microphone and then from the other. I'm not so sure those speeches were that helpful, really, because I think most people had made up their minds. Things are debated really at Annual Council and at the meeting of the officers even prior to Annual Council.
ANN: What is the real business that takes place at Session?
Beach: Many think in terms of elections as the important thing. And that is important. But at some Sessions sometimes there comes a Constitution Committee, which deals with some very important issues. Then the Church Manual can only be edited or revised, amended at a General Conference Session. At Session it takes hours of discussion to deal with the Church Manual.
ANN: Any mishaps over the years?
Beach: I remember one of our speakers, who was famous, one of the great preachers in our church, who lifted his voice and somehow, he must have been speaking too loud and suddenly his voice broke and he couldn't speak anymore. It was more like whispering. Or, one sermon that went on and on and on, and it was a problem because on Sabbath afternoon the meeting was starting supposedly at 2 o'clock and the sermon went well past 1 o'clock. Of course, people who were involved were upset. Little things like that happen. But overall, I think General Conference Sessions have been extremely well organized, the music has been superb, and the spirit, generally speaking, is very good.
ANN: Are you going to Atlanta?
Beach: If I get invited. You can't go on forever, you know. It's been a great experience to have been a member of this church, to participate in councils and discussions and committees over the years, and I have great confidence in the leadership of our church.
GC Session 2010: Looking back with Bert Beach from GC Communication on Vimeo.
Original Post: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ann-en/~3/bEIn1A7T8A4/church-chat-the-evol.html
Adventist leadership development office sets guidelines to steer newly elected officers
January 12, 2010
Source: Adventist News Network
What happens when a Seventh-day Adventist Church member with limited leadership experience is unexpectedly elected to church office?
The church's Office of Global Leadership Development is making sure that members in that position have access to the resources necessary to become -- in short order -- effective, mission-focused leaders who can anticipate changes and challenges and respond in a responsible and appropriate fashion.
Leadership Development officials will meet in Beijing, China on January 26 for their third annual Global Leadership Development Summit. There, they'll review existing curriculum -- available for regional church presidents, secretaries, treasurers and other leaders -- to ensure no topics are overlooked.
 |
"There are many people who are elected as, say, president, who have never served in that capacity before. And when they start their new job, they sometimes don't have the necessary skills -- how to chair a meeting, how to consider issues in a legal context," said Pardon Mwansa, who, alongside Michael L. Ryan, oversees the Leadership Development team. Both are also Adventist world church general vice presidents.
While curriculum topics will be standardized across church regions, they can be tailored to fit the needs of a particular culture.
"One topic, for example, is decision-making. You're still making decisions wherever you live and work, but how you make decisions in China is very different from how you might make decisions in, say, the United States," Mwansa said.
The leadership team anticipates finalizing and approving the curriculum in time for this summer's Adventist Church World Session, where leaders are elected to fill a number of positions at church headquarters as well as in each of the church's 13 world regions, Mwansa said.
View leadership guidelines and look for new developments at leadershipdevelopment.adventist.org/curriculums.
Original Post: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ann-en/~3/fXMRYkfSOuM/adventist-leadership.html
Adventist president celebrates 75th birthday
January 5, 2010
Source: Adventist News Network
 |
As Seventh-day Adventists worldwide gear up for a new decade, their church's president, Jan Paulsen, celebrates his 75th birthday, affording the veteran leader an opportunity to reflect on a different decade -- the more than ten years he's spent at the helm of the 16-million member global Protestant denomination.
During those years, Paulsen said he has seen Adventists unite to focus perhaps more deliberately than ever on their mission to spread the church's message of hope.
"It's against that backdrop that the significant growth we've seen in the past five, six years should be viewed," he told Adventist News Network the day before his January 5 birthday. "Our mission is reflected in our agenda and continues to drive our budget."
The success of that mission, Paulsen said he's observed, depends in part on a commitment to greater openness -- from administrative and financial transparency to a willingness to "acknowledge, validate and work with diversity within the church."
Paulsen's long-running Let's Talk television program, consisting of unedited, unscripted conversations with teenagers and young adults worldwide, helped the church embrace its younger generations and, more recently, Adventists About Life, a YouTube channel offering an Adventist perspective on current issues, is opening the church to yet another audience.
Openness also involves engagement beyond the church pews, said Paulsen, who has long stressed that churches should serve as community centers, where the church's message of hope finds its practical expression as members offer friendship, spiritual support and humanitarian aid to their neighbors.
As the Adventist Church enters the New Year, Paulsen said he's particularly troubled by the continued pervasiveness of poverty. "The church has such a huge responsibility to not only address poverty and alleviate suffering, but also to engage politically to affect change in the interest of those who are disadvantaged. We must carry the interests of those who cannot do it themselves," he said.
Paulsen, who was born in Narvik, Norway, completed an early ministerial internship and pastoral work in his native country. Later, a missionary stint in Ghana, posts as professor and principal of Babcock University in Nigeria and afterward at Newbold College laid the foundation for what is now more than 50 years of denominational service.
Paulsen served as general secretary and director of Education of the church's Trans-European region, and later its president, bringing to each post broad experience and an educational background in theology -- Paulsen earned his master's degree from Washington Theological Seminary, a bachelor of divinity degree from the Adventist Theological Seminary and a doctorate in theology from Tubingen University.
A post as a general vice president of the world church began in 1995, ending with his election in 1999 as world church president.
Empowering people, Paulsen said, is one of the greatest lessons he has learning during his years at world church headquarters.
"People may be your most complicated -- and, at times, troubling -- assets to handle, but they are your most important," he said, adding that it's members, not administrators, who are ultimately the church's "owners." Paulsen added that he hopes they continue to invest in their church and, as a unified force, shape its future.
Original Post: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ann-en/~3/HPaiAlkgPdo/adventist-president-1.html
