Jim Zackrison Director

The Sabbath School and Personal Ministries Department was organized at the 1995 General Conference session in the Netherlands. This was the first time that the world church had put these two units together in a single department.

Two Units Working Together
These departments have many features in common. For instance, both teach Bible study skills. Both teach skills on how to teach other people, whether in giving a Bible study, holding a lay evangelistic effort, or some other activity that includes a teaching component. Social skills through Friendship Evangelism seminars are also taught. How to set up hospitality groups and greeting committees at the door of the local church and how to make people feel welcome are seminars offered by the department. Small group technology is a core strategy of both sections of the department and is being used extensively.

Sabbath School
Sabbath School has been part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church since the 1860s. More than 11 million people worldwide currently attend. Now Sabbath school faces the twenty-first century with a new determination to be a continuing vital part of the world ministry of the church.

The Sabbath school is local church religious education that builds faith and practice. Its primary function is to lead people to study the Scriptures and to understand the fundamental doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It is designed to help church members, those who visit the church, and new members learn how to transfer biblical principles into their everyday lifestyles. The world Sabbath school does this by focusing on four primary purposes: study of the Word, fellowship, community outreach, and world mission emphasis.

Fellowship is an important part of the Sabbath school. As it was originally contemplated in the minds of the founders of the Adventist Church, Sabbath school was to be a place where people could feel comfortable, where they could study the Scriptures together, and where they could enjoy Christian companionship. This would lead to furthering their own personal spirituality and also inspire them to tell others about the church and its teachings.

Another major function of Sabbath school is world mission emphasis. Sabbath School was the first entity within the church to focus on raising offerings to further the work of the gospel around the world and has been doing so ever since. It has become a major source of nontithe funding for the world church and has helped in the establishment of hundreds of thousands of Adventist churches globally.

World mission emphasis is conducted through audiovisual programs, the three versions of mission quarterlies that are being used in an expanding number of churches globally, and other ways that focus on the world mission of the church.

Curriculum Development
One of the primary functions of the Sabbath school is the development of the Bible study guides studied each week in churches throughout the world. Their purpose is to guide people in the study of the Scriptures with the hope that they will learn more about the Lord’s will for them. They are developed around studies of books of the Bible as well as topical studies.

CQ and Cornerstone Connections. For the young adults of the church the Sabbath School Department develops the Collegiate Quarterly. It is produced in print media and placed on the World Wide Web. In discussion-oriented format, including a teacher’s guide, it leads to practical applications of the truths of the Bible.

Cornerstone Connections, a series of lessons designed specifically for those of secondary school age, is based on major issues faced by this age group. They learn biblical principles that mold the difference between making decisions from the perspective of the contemporary environment in which a person lives, and those based on what the Scriptures have to say.

GraceLink—The New Children’s Curriculum. One of the most exciting developments during the current quinquennium is the new children’s Sabbath school curriculum. Developed by a worldwide team of designers and authors, GraceLink is made up of more than 624 lessons based directly on Bible stories. The stories are used to apply biblical principles to everyday life through an interactive learning system. The children participate in all the activities and learn by doing. Each lesson is built around a concept called “total hour teaching.” The program time and the lesson of the day both deal with the Bible story that is included in the material so it can be learned, illustrated, practiced, and utilized in everyday life.

Many of the new materials are already in the hands of churches around the world. Those still in the process of development will soon be in your church. Junior/teen is in use now. Primary will be ready in January 2001, kindergarten and beginners in January 2002.

Personal Ministries
This unit of the Sabbath School and Personal Ministries Department includes those activities that have to do with outreach. Its statement of purpose is “Motivating, training, and mobilizing members to accomplish the world mission of the church.”

The key to accomplishing this purpose is built around a number of factors. The first is the establishment of a system of lay congresses in world divisions. The idea is that each local field will sponsor a lay congress every year, each union every three years, each division every five years.

Lay congresses during this quinquennium have had an enormous impact on the soul-winning initiatives of the people who have attended. The motivation and enthusiasm attendees have carried back to their home churches have resulted in significant church growth.

For example, the Northern Asia-Pacific Division held an extremely successful lay congress in Korea that involved a number of unions. The Southern Asia-Pacific Division held a major personal ministries and Sabbath school convention that was attended by more than 70,000 people. The Trans-European Division held a lay congress in the Netherlands in 1998 that was highly successful. It particularly motivated a large number of young adults to rebuild the soul-winning systems in their local churches.

The Inter-American Division’s “Festivals of the Laity” have seen thousands upon thousands of people attending in different parts of the division. The same story could be told in South America, the divisions of the continent of Africa, and other parts of the world that have participated in this plan. The North American Division has plans in 2002 for a division-wide lay congress with an expected attendance of 15,000 people.

ONE GROUP OF WRITERS: (left to right, back row) Adrianna Femopase, Argentina; Audrey Andersson, Sweden; Evelyn Omana, Venezuela; Denise Ropka-Kasishche, Tennessee; Denise Prereya, California; Janet Rieger, Australia; (front row) Eileen Dahl-Vermeer, Canada; Patricia A. Habada, General Conference; Jackie Bishop, Rocky Mountain Conference, Colorado; Rebecca O’Ffill, Maryland; Kathleen Beagles, General Conference

International Institute of Christian Ministries
Key to the training offered by the personal ministries unit is the International Institute of Christian Ministries, which now has thousands of graduates all over the world. This is not the same as a short weekend training session. This is serious training in which those who enroll take 40 hours of core classes, studying the basics of how to win people, how to give Bible studies, how to interpret the Scriptures, and other fundamental skills needed by anyone who does outreach. A student can specialize in personal lay witnessing, lay evangelism, lay preaching, youth evangelism, or a number of other areas in which they will become skilled in order to reach out effectively and bring people into the church.

People trained by the International Institute of Christian Ministries are becoming a major force in the soul-winning activities of the Seventh-day Adventist Church globally.

Bible Correspondence Schools
During the current quinquennium the coordination of Bible correspondence schools around the world was also assigned to the Sabbath School and Personal Ministries Department, working in coordination with the Voice of Prophecy, Adventist World Radio, It Is Written, ACGN, and other media programs. Bible correspondence schools are a major soul-winning entity within the church. In January 1998 a major meeting was held at the media center facilities of the North American Division in Simi Valley, California, in which all of the world church Bible correspondence school directors came together to lay plans for the future. Since that time a Web page has been developed. People can now take Bible correspondence courses on the Internet—a growing community of people that offers a new media for winning souls. A new basic course called Discovery, specially written to be easily translated and used on a massive basis in many languages throughout the world, has been developed.

Bible correspondence schools are ready to move into the twenty-first century with new enthusiasm for promulgating the Adventist message worldwide.

Your Sabbath School and Personal Ministries Department is on the move. You may have to run to keep up with it, but don’t lose out. The resources are available. It is up to you to use them for the advancement of the kingdom.