Many Challenges
Lie Ahead
Presented Monday, July 4, 2005

Laurie Evans
President

The Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific Division (SPD) is a colorful and diverse mixture of cultures and people. During the past quinquennium there has been an emphasis on our vision statement: "To know, experience, and share our hope in Jesus Christ." During this General Conference session, both the division display booth and the audiovisual report focus on people telling their story--an exciting story of their experience with Jesus Christ.

The division comprises the 17 island nations of the South Pacific, including Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Australia. After the last General Conference session, the division restructured its boundaries by reducing the number of unions from five to four, simplifying representation and saving costs.

The church continues to experience incredible growth in the island missions, but only minimal growth in the more challenging secular, developed nations of Australia and New Zealand. During the quinquennium 70,000 new members were added by baptism, bringing the division membership to 372,000 at the end of 2004. Some 61,000 of these new members were in the Pacific island missions, bringing the island percentage of the total division to approximately 86 percent. There are now 5,170 churches and companies served by just 675 pastors.

Global Mission continues to expand the church into new areas and people groups. This has included new churches in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and the highlands of Papua New Guinea. More important, it has seen the planting of new church groups within ethnic communities of the larger cities of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Auckland, and among aborigines of Australia. Last year, news was received of work opening for the first time in the Shortland Islands, long dominated by another denomination.

Satellite events have had a major impact in the South Pacific over the past five years. In 2001, Papua New Guinea hosted the final ACTS 2000 series with Mark Finley. More than 100,000 people crowded into a single stadium; thousands of others watched via satellite downlink sites across the nation, and on the last Sabbath morning more than 2,300 people were baptized.

In 2002 another satellite series, Rez10, saw youth groups from all parts of the South Pacific unite in Christ. Broadcast from 10 locations throughout Australia, this series aimed at getting unchurched youth involved in small groups, known as the Under-ground. In 2004, the Year of Evangelism, the North New Zealand Conference hosted a special Easter uplink with Bruce Marchiano presenting the "In the Footsteps of Jesus" seminar that brought many people into Adventist churches.

The year 2004 was a good one for the SPD. It is estimated that approximately 14,000 people have joined the church as a direct result of members being involved in Year of Evangelism activities. It raised awareness of why we're here and what the church's core business is.

An evangelistic series presented by Tony Kemo in Madang connected with about a half million people in Papua New Guinea via satellite. The series was a follow-up to a month of evangelism, during which church members presented thousands of programs. Evangelists from other countries presented programs in urban areas, while local evangelists presented programs in rural areas.

I joined Ministerial Association secretary Anthony Kent in an evangelistic series in the Solomon Islands' capital of Honiara, and about 300 people joined the church some three months later, after making their commitment and joining Bible study classes.

In the Australian Union Conference, pastors and members alike were encouraged to "Light Up Australia" with hundreds of prophecy seminars conducted in homes, schools, and churches. This resulted in approximately 1,200 baptisms.

Health ministry has always been seen as the "right arm" of the gospel, and in the SPD it continues to play a major role in outreach. In 2003 the Health Ministries Department produced a DVD resource and series of dynamic lifestyle presentations entitled "Taking Charge of Your Health." This has provided local churches with a professional resource that has been followed by several community-linked activities such as walking clubs, stress-control programs, weight-loss programs, etc. In the Pacific islands, basic health care is provided through scores of clinics. For a time in Papua New Guinea, it was also provided by a "flying doctor" service.

Sanitarium Health Food Company plays a vital role in contributing to the church in the South Pacific. Sanitarium's healthy breakfast cereals, soy milk products, and vegetarian foods generate more than $300 million each year in sales. Our dietitians provide free nutrition information for the government, health professionals, and individuals. Sanitarium promotes active, healthy lifestyles in initiatives such as the Kids TRY-athlon and Breakfast Club programs. During the past five years the company has expanded operations with joint ventures in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Canada. In the process, the company provides valuable finances for the division's annual budget, enabling this division to fund 100 percent of its mission program in the South Pacific.

For more than 100 years Sydney Adventist Hospital has been caring for the well-being of its patients. As the largest private hospital in New South Wales, Sydney Adventist Hospital is committed to providing additional services such as physiotherapy, nutrition advice, and diagnostic services. Staff members are also encouraged to take part in health outreach activities, both in the local community and abroad as part of the hospital's commitment to help and educate others. The hospital has sponsored Open Heart teams to Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and Nepal, and cleft lip surgery teams to Nepal and Mongolia. Renowned for its quality of service, the Sydney Adventist Hospital is actively and openly following Christ's example to heal the whole person.

Adventist education is beginning to play an increasing role in evangelism as Adventist church schools are seen as an attractive, value-based system for many Christian families. The growing percentage of non-Adventist students in our schools is providing a fertile field for evangelism. New church plants and small groups are springing up in schools, and school chaplains are being appointed to visit parents and students. For example, a spiritual emphasis week held last year at Prescott College in Adelaide, South Australia, was followed by a Prophecy Seminar conducted by chaplain/evangelist Darren Slade, and a number of students were baptized. The funding of schools in island territories presents a great challenge.

Pacific Adventist University, near Port Moresby, is renowned for the quality of its education as well as for its dedication to the local community. It's helping to resource people in the South Pacific with degrees and diplomas in education, business, nursing, office administration, science, and theology. In October 2003 a new 700-seat chapel was opened and dedicated to the glory of God. In recent years the government has recognized the important contribution of the university to the nation by providing generous financial grants.

For Australia and New Zealand, Avondale College continues to be the place for a professional degree and training with an Adventist Christian focus. Applications for enrollment in 2005 have reached an all-time high of more than 800. Avondale is in the process of preparing for university status and has recently been recognized for the government Fee Help program.

There has been a renewed interest in, and emphasis on, children's ministry in the South Pacific, particularly since the Australia-wide Year of the Child, during which the Adventist Church sponsored a children's festival in Brisbane. Implementation of the GraceLink resources and wider participation in Kid's Club activities have all contributed to a greater involvement of children in evangelism. Many churches are more child-friendly, with intergenerational worship services that focus on kids. The division produced a video on parenting, and one mission conducted a children's congress.

Parallel to this emphasis has been a focus on family ministry, with a considerable number of pastors and others being sponsored through a degree program in family ministry. The Institute of Family Ministries helps to provide counseling facilities and conduct seminars on domestic violence and sexual abuse for pastors and members. Each year the division Family Ministries Department conducts a national family life conference as well as retreats and programs for singles. To deal with the possibility of sexual offense complaints, the Australian Union Conference has an Adventist Support Service that provides confidential reporting and investigation of complaints.

One of the trends in witnessing and spiritual nurture throughout the past five years has been an emphasis on forming small groups. For the youth age group, the Underground was the vehicle for promoting many hundreds of small groups to which youth could bring their friends to share their faith and nurture spiritual growth. In the Australian Union Conference, the Homes of Hope project has encouraged hospitality as a way of reaching friends and neighbors.

At the beginning of this past quinquennium, the division saw a need to strengthen communication and public relations, and a larger-than-usual team was appointed to care for news, public relations, and crisis management challenges of the church. Bronwyn Mison and her team have provided a great service with the quarterly news video Adventist News and other attractive PR resources. A dynamic new Web site and improved media relations have saved the church from potentially negative publicity.

The Record, printed at the Signs Publishing Company and made available to church members every week, is our premier news publication. The Australian Signs magazine, with a circulation of 43,000, is a popular and attractive evangelistic tool that is sponsored to many people and is freely available at airports, railway stations, and other public places.

Offering a full range of printing and publishing services with distribution through its chain of Adventist Book Centres and door-to-door literature evangelists, Signs Publishing Company is reaching the hearts of people all over the South Pacific. The publishing ministry is one of SPD's real success stories, for it is one of the areas in the world field in which literature evangelists are doing well, both financially and in outreach results. Since the major restructuring of the department, book sales have hit all-time records during the past few years, with total book sales of A$4 million. Colporteurs open up many homes for Bible studies and enroll hundreds in Bible courses. The printed page is often the entering wedge for further contacts with the church. To attend a literature evangelists' convention is to be inspired by stories of how God is using the literature ministry.

Closely linked is the outreach of electronic media, and the Adventist Media Centre in Sydney, Australia, continues to be one of the church's leading production facilities. Involved in all of the major satellite uplinks, this team has also assisted other divisions, such as the Trans-European Division, with the production of Dwight Nelson's Mind the Gap and Evidence series. Other new productions this quinquennium have been Taking Charge of Your Life and Chasing Utopia. Daily the Discovery Centre follows up with correspondence course interests generated through TV advertising and video home viewings. Adventist media see their mission to connect people with hope, and they are doing this through Web-based correspondence courses, radio, television, and now the Hope Channel.

The church in the South Pacific was also involved in the Go One Million and Sow 1 Billion programs. In New Zealand more than 1,000 laypeople were trained under the Kiwi 1000 program. In Papua New Guinea several lay congresses trained and motivated members for action. Try Jesus cards, offering a new set of Try Jesus lessons or the Who Is Jesus video, were used in the Sow 1 Billion program, with thousands of people mailing in requests. Many of these people are still to be brought through to decisions and baptism.

With the strong emphasis on mission in the Pacific, SPD has given emphasis to Pacific leadership development. Brad Kemp has been responsible for designing leadership training programs, conducting mission institutes, and assisting missions toward achieving conference status.

One of the most exciting and exploding activities in the South Pacific has been the growth of volunteer services. Some 17,000 volunteers have been involved in either long-term or short-term assignments, some to overseas posts of duty--such as language schools or task force roles--others to local outreach programs. STORMCo (Service to Others Really Matters) trips have seen scores of students and youth spend their vacation time in community service in outback towns and indigenous communities.

Some have paid the ultimate sacrifice in rendering their service to God, and it was with great shock and sadness that during this quinquennium we laid to rest missionary pilot Les Anderson and Atoifi Adventist Hospital's business manager, Lance Gersbach (who was beheaded in Malaita, Solomon Islands).

To achieve our vision and our mission, the South Pacific Division has had a strategic plan that focused on six areas: grace, faith and worship, community, witness, leadership, and identity. All departments and services have united their efforts in trying to achieve goals in each of these areas. Prayer ministry has been the key to all of our activities. Much has been achieved, but much remains to be done. It is through the faithfulness and commitment of individual members throughout the villages and cities of our division that "the old, old story" is being told. We look forward to a finished work and thank God for His blessing and leading during this quinquennium.