he first business item on the agenda for the 2002 Annual Council was devoted to the General Conference's five-year strategic plan. In the words of General Conference president Jan Paulsen, this priority was given to allow council members to consider these important issues "with minds fresh." The Strategic Plan Committee has set out goals under three headings: (1) Quality of Personal and Church Life; (2) Unity in the World Church; and (3) Growth of the Church. For the purpose of gaining an international insight into where the Seventh-day Adventist Church is situated in relation to these goals, the Strategic Plan Committee commissioned a world research project and engaged the Institute of World Mission at Andrews University to undertake a broad survey. By way of introduction to the discussion of the Strategic Plan, Roger Dudley, director of the Institute of World Mission, presented the report on this World Survey. (For more information on the Strategic Plan goals and the World Survey, see "Three Strategic Issues: A World Survey.")

The survey results raise some interesting questions about the state of the Adventist Church. There are a number of obvious anomalies. The broadest and most extreme is the gap between the highest ranking goal-"Cohesiveness in doctrine"-rating at about 91 percent and the lowest goal-"A positive impact of the Seventh-day Adventist presence within a community"-at just less than 30 percent. Similarly cause for concern is the gap between the reported "Cohesiveness of doctrine" and the significantly lower "Assurance of salvation," reporting a little under 70 percent.

Overall, the survey presents a picture of a church with some successes and much work to be done. Of the 15 objectives, just six average better than 50 percent.

However, some council members were cautious in their reading of these findings. Among those was Pastor Joseph Ola, president of the Nigerian Union Mission. "They are good ideas and we need to know where we are, but the survey should have been done in a way that would give more concrete results. The way it was done-it was not universal. If you had allowed the local people to assist, we would have got more concrete results."

Under questioning from Council members, Dr. Dudley admitted some shortcomings in the mechanics of the survey, citing budgetary constraints and the need to reduce the data to a manageable form. Yet while cautioning against the strict adherence to the raw numbers in the survey report, he urged the acceptance of the survey results and indicative of general trends within the church.

Some council delegates also expressed something of a skeptical attitude to the process of strategic planning. Their concerns ranged from the challenge of applying one approach across such a diverse church to the tendency to talk much theory without significant practical results to the risk that various church departments and regions will simply rewrite their documents to reflect agreed goals without any real change of focus.

Pastor Tor Tjeransen, president of the Norwegian Union, has been through a lengthy process of strategic planning in his region and recognizes the challenges of one plan for a world church. "This is a complicated issue," he reflects. "It's one thing to make a strategic plan for a local area; but to make priorities for the whole world is difficult. No one is going to quarrel about the three values, but when we go through a process like this we need to choose among all the options available. Choosing the priorities is difficult."

Others see strength in the comparative simplicity of the Strategic Plan Committee's approach. "It's good to have an emphasis on three points," says Pastor Bill Townend, president of the Southeast Asian Union Mission. "In the strategic planning in the past, we have tended to have too many points-and people have had some negative experiences with strategic planning. But it's good to have this tight focus and work together across the world to get some real outcomes."

Stanley Wai-Chung Ng, secretary of the Northern Asia-Pacific Division, echoes the enthusiasm for this process and for making these good ideas a reality. "I think all our entities should be better integrated. This will work for the betterment of the cause. In our field now we are ready to implement."

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Nathan Brown of Townsville, Australia, is an editorial intern with the Adventist Review.