Alfred C. McClure, NAD President

North America is the home of Seventh-day Adventism. With historic sites such as Battle Creek, Michigan; Washington, New Hampshire; and Loma Linda, California, it is the cradle of our church. Here the church grew up and matured, struggling to create its doctrines and identity. And here the church extended its missionary arm around the world.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church has now grown far beyond its humble roots. The church operates in more than 200 countries worldwide. North American membership is less than 10 percent of our worldwide total. We praise God for His blessings throughout the world.

We also praise God for the evidences of His blessings in North America. There is much to be grateful for. The past five years have seen a resurgence of evangelism, sparked by the NET evangelistic meetings. But churches throughout the division are doing far more than simply turning on the satellite receiver.

Local churches are calling for the help of full-time evangelists more often than before. Many pastors are conducting their own evangelistic meetings. Local churches have drawn on the talents of members to organize Discover Bible schools. Sabbath schools have classes for those considering membership. Many members have caught the vision of planting new churches, and hundreds of new churches have sprouted in just this quinquennium. The entire program of the church is focused on reaching people with the good news of salvation.

This report will focus on three areas. First, we will look at the numerical growth of the church in North America. Second, we will review the rebirth of evangelistic fervor. Third, we will highlight some of the important changes in the institutions of the North American Division.

Statistics
During the past five years the North American Division passed several important membership milestones:

• In September 1999 the division passed the 900,000-member mark.
• In 1999 the division baptized more than 40,000 people in one calendar year.
• During this quinquennium 185,687 people joined our movement-the highest number in the history of the church in North America.
• The division passed the 5,000 level for churches and officially recognized companies.

The North American Division passed important milestones in financial support as well:

• In 1997 the division received more than $500 million in tithe.
• In 1999 the division received more than $600 million in tithe, with a total of $610,215,568.
• Total giving in North America for the five years of the quinquennium topped $4 billion, including tithes and offerings for world mission as well as local church outreach.

Those numbers don't begin to tell the real story, however. For example, the Children's Ministries and Stewardship departments of the division developed a children's tithe envelope. It teaches tithing principles-and blessings-to the youngest members of our congregations, those whose incomes may be less than $1 a week. These statistics represent God's work in the life of an individual member who is faithful to the gospel message and rejoices in the Saviour's love.

Evangelism
Just five years ago the North American Division uplinked the first series of satellite evangelistic meetings. Skeptics abounded. They wondered who would come to watch evangelistic preaching on a TV screen. They thought it would be too impersonal. They thought no one would ever walk toward a TV monitor in response to a call for surrender to Jesus.

They thought wrong. About 700 churches participated in that first-ever satellite series. Mark Finley preached in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to a few thousand people, while a crew from the Adventist Media Center uplinked the live Chattanooga meetings to sites around North America. As many as 70,000 people were able to see the event simultaneously.

More than 5,000 people were baptized as a direct result of the uplinked meetings.

Just 18 months later the division uplinked a second satellite evangelistic series, NET '96. This time the skeptics were quiet. Many of them hosted downlink sites in their churches. More than 1,500 sites participated in North America, with another 1,000 or more sites in Western Europe.

NAD Evangelists

Again Mark Finley was the featured speaker, this time in Orlando, Florida. Again people sat in front of television monitors in small churches or big screens in large churches, listening carefully to the simple explanations of Bible truth. Again people walked toward TV screens to give their hearts to Jesus.

More than 14,000 people were baptized in North America, with thousands upon thousands more throughout Western Europe.

NET '98 was uplinked in every time zone around the world. A local church pastor, Dwight Nelson, preached from his own pulpit at Pioneer Memorial church, Andrews University. Every world division had a participating site. The gospel was preached in 40 languages, a modern-day Pentecost.

The technical challenges were immense. The Adventist Media Center crew had to design an uplink unit that could uplink 40 languages; none existed. The production team stayed busy all night, uplinking the program to various satellites at times when it would be convenient for the downlink sites.

Again more than 10,000 were baptized in North America, with multiplied thousands more around the world.

Satellite evangelism spread. Doug Batchelor has led out in two series, one uplinked from the studios of the Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN) in Illinois, and the other from downtown New York City. A Spanish-language event, LA RED II, was broadcast from Orlando. Ken Cox preached from Seattle, and will soon do a satellite series from Chicago.

Satellite evangelism has become almost routine. More than 10 series have been uplinked in this past year, from locations as diverse as Rome and Sydney, Los Angeles and Lima. Other world divisions besides North America have taken the lead in producing some of these satellite evangelistic events.

The resurgence of interest in evangelism hasn't been limited to satellite series. Satellite series may have sparked it, but evangelism in all its forms shows up in every part of the division.

Churches and pastors show a rekindled interest in local evangelism. The division had its greatest statistical year ever in 1999, when it baptized more than 40,000 people for the first time. That came from a number of factors, and satellite-related baptisms were not the largest part. Local church pastors holding evangelistic meetings in local churches. Full-time evangelists working in cities large and small. Schools leading their students to Christ. Local churches being open and receptive to visitors who wanted to join. Ethnic groups seeking those who share a common culture and sharing with them an uncommon Christ.

Ebony Evangelism is a plan of the African-American conferences in the division. The nine conferences set aside some funds each year to help the smaller conferences grow. And it has worked. African-American membership in the division now stands at 30 percent, its highest figure ever.

Work among other ethnic groups also has grown rapidly. Hispanics now comprise more than 10 percent of the division's membership, and that sector is growing rapidly. Asians and Pacific Islanders also are growing rapidly. North America is truly a microcosm of the world membership of the Adventist Church.

Almost every nation is represented in the church in North America. Do you speak Hungarian? There's an Adventist church in Cleveland that conducts services in your language. Are you Tongan by birth? There's an Adventist church in Los Angeles devoted to reaching Tongans. There are almost 50 identifiable ethnic churches in North America.

Church planting also has been a large part of the resurgence of interest in evangelism in North America. As with NET evangelism, many people said it couldn't be done-and shouldn't be done. North America already has too many small churches was their refrain.

But church planting caught on, thanks largely to the efforts of the North American Division Evangelism Institute (NADEI) and the Seeds conferences planned every year starting in 1996. About 300 people attended the first year, and division leaders werepleasantly surprised at the large turnout. This past year more than 600 people attended.

Changes in Institutions
Media: The Adventist Media Center in Simi Valley, California, became part of the North American Division during this quinquennium. The center provides a home for six ministries: Voice of Prophecy, Faith for Today, La Voz de la Esperanza, It Is Written, Breath of Life, and LifeTalk Radio. A new decentralized structure has given the ministries freedom to follow new methods of reaching people through media.

It Is Written is seen by more than 1 million people each week. Faith for Today's programs are broadcast on more than 5,000 television stations each week. The Voice of Prophecy has weekly and daily programs heard across the division. La Voz has increased its outreach in the Spanish-speaking parts of Central and South America.

Health Care: In a decade of rapid and sometimes turbulent change in the industry, Adventist health-care institutions have also seen change. Two of our hospitals in North America closed in widely publicized events. But others stayed open, continuing to serve their communities and build goodwill for the Adventist Church. It is no accident that some of the largest Adventist churches in North America, as well as many of the best schools, are located near Adventist hospitals.

Education: Three Adventist colleges became universities during this quinquennium: Canadian University College, Southern Adventist University, and Southwestern Adventist University. A third Adventist college-Florida College of Health Sciences-started during this decade, bringing the total number of colleges in North America to 15. In addition, enrollment in Adventist colleges has grown back to the levels of the early 1980s.

Changes have occurred in K-12 education as well. The division executive committee voted to adopt a systems approach to Christian education, bringing together all areas that touch the lives of Adventist young people. Sabbath school. Pathfinders. Junior youth. Summer camps. Adventist youth. And, of course, church schools.

The result has brought collaboration between the Bible classes and the Sabbath school lessons; the sharing of ideas between Pathfinder Honors programs and church school curricula. No one says that North America has finished this task of integrating the entire life of young people in the church, but the journey has begun.

Division Office: Seeking new ways to provide value to local churches has become the motto of the ministries departments of the division. The division is dedicated to developing resources for local churches, conferences, and institutions to use for ministry in their communities.

Many of the resources are being created, supported, and implemented by resource centers of the division. These resource centers are independent agencies, tied closely to the church's strategic plans. The resources they develop are all driven by a needs assessment process that identifies the things local church leaders say they need. Only after a need is determined are the resources developed.

This has brought a new role for departmental leaders at the North American Division office, a reinventing of the role of division personnel. They no longer have to create every resource, train every local leader, speak at every workshop, attend every committee. The supporting resource centers do much of that work, and division personnel provide guidance and strategic planning.

An example: the Discover the Power Pathfinder Camporee in 1999 was planned by the Center for Youth Evangelism. This resource center created the promotion and the programming, the outreach service projects, and the baptismal event. Pathfinder ministries at the division office helped identify the strategic directions, and more than 20,000 young people benefited from a great spiritual experience.

Summary
When the apostle Paul engaged the philosophers in Athens, he showed that he was familiar with their objects of worship by quoting their own teachers and poets (Acts 17:16-34). But later in Corinth, Paul said he determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2).

God never changes, but differing circumstances sometimes demand changes in our methods. Every new plan of the division, as well as every method of sharing the three angels' messages, is tested so that it will reveal God's never-changing Word in an ever-changing world.