A Just hours after election as General Conference president, Pastor Jan Paulsen paused to share his vision for the world Adventist church. I asked for 10 minutes; he gave me 18—and rushed back to urgent business. Excerpts from this Review exclusive:

The state of the church:
Our church at this time, as we go into this new millennium, is in avery rapid growth phase. That growth is not just simply a mechanical thing in the sense that somehow this is what we got into. My reading of the church is that it is extremely focused on witness, on evangelism, on making sure that we are going about the business of the church.

On the challenges facing the church:
As we look forward, growth brings its own challenge. It's an enormous blessing. I mean this is why we are here. And yet it presents a major challenge as the church has to be very deliberate in its plans and that has to do with the church as it develops being able to stay together. Making sure that growth does not become a growth into fragmentation but a growth that is simultaneously a strengthening of all the elements that bind us together. So growth, the miracle, must be accompanied by corresponding attention to all the elements that hold us together.

I also see as a major challenge a need for the church to develop leadership that can give guidance, that can give direction and can be the church. Now these things don't come about of themselves. They have to do with pastor leadership, elected leadership, and also the kind of leadership that must emerge from the laity of the church, so that they can have ownership and give direction to the life of the church.

We've been accustomed to experienced hands doing it all. Yet as we go back to our earliest beginnings, they were very young men and women who began this movement. Today in many many countries, 70 -75 percent of our membership are less than 35 years of age. Clearly these people are not the leadership in waiting, they are the ones who must who must take a creative part in the life of the church today. I see this as a challenge but also as an opportunity.

On public perception of Adventists:
If the Lord tarries and we meet again for the next General Conference Session [in St. Louis, Missouri], I would like the public to see us as a very integrated church. I would like whatever diversity there is to be seen by the public as being the wonderful life of the church. Therefore I would like for the press in 2005 to be able to acknowledge with a special note the strong internationality of the church. And even as we care for our evangelists and our witnessing ministry, I would like for our church to always be seen by the public as a church that has a huge interest in the quality of life, for the community.

Here in Toronto we have had good exposure to the press. One interviewer paid particular attention to our health emphasis—healthful diet, non-dependency on smoking, alcohol, and drugs, and how much that means to people. I would like that to be something that the public can look to and see strongly, that this is a community that has real spiritual values and is very firmly based on Word, and that we care about what happens.

And I hope that we increasingly can be seen as a community that acknowledges the value and strength of women and children in our church.

How his life has changed:
Maybe I was becoming too placid, becoming too relaxed before that. [His election as world president 16 months ago]. It's very full and very busy. I have to say I observed with a certain sense of wonder how the Lord would use me. I am not as young as I used to be and yet there is I find within myself an enormous amount of energy and a sort of desire for the opportunities that the Lord has opened. So it's a very busy, very hectic life.

I ask myself: What is best? What is the church expecting of me? What can I do? How can I help? What can I do to make the life of the church stronger and more creative? I believe that God expects this church to be creative. With any church that has firm beliefs with specific parameters of conduct and faith and so forth, the danger is that they become confined within themselves so that they cannot think creatively. Without sacrificing the things that we have strong convictions for, we have to be creative and this is a demand for all of us, it's a discipline.

On personal renewal:
Renewal for me isn't so much a piece of geography. No recipe is given in a book or piece of exercise. I find renewal with my wife, colleagues and friends— often in a non-structured relaxed fashion to ask questions about what are the possibilities.

How he would like to be remembered:
I have to be honest—I haven't reflected on this. I think it would be fair to say that as the years have passed I have gone through certain changes. There was a time when I spent my whole life in an academic environment. I found it very fulfilling and it defined my being. From that particular perspective, there were days when I felt that the church was inept at doing what it should. Now I find—and maybe it's because I'm so much at the heart of the church now—that I feel more passionate for the church. I don't think I've ever felt more passionate for the church than I have during these last few years. I want the church to succeed. I want the church to look good and I believe the Lord expects that. So it matters a lot how the church thinks. I think if the church gets a bloody eye somewhere, it reflects badly on the Lord. I want the church to look good.

On his relationship to Kari [Mrs. Paulsen]:
I'm truly blessed in having a wife who has strong convictions and who will challenge me, who will tell me what she thinks is good for the church. But she's part of the church, a very strong component in the church, and she is for me a very good barometer of the pulse of the church. And that is invaluable to me. The question she asks most often when I'm dealing with any issue is "How do you know?"

Sometimes my feeble answer is it is hard enough to know what I know, let alone to know how I know! But questions of that kind are good.

Karie and I have always been open, always been able to communicate.