The church was formally organized in 1863 under the name Seventh- day Adventist, a name drawn from two of its fundamental beliefs: the Sabbath (the seventh day) and the second advent of Jesus. The church grew out of the great Second Advent awakening of the early nineteenth century, launched by Baptist preacher William Miller. After Miller's calculations of the date of the Second Coming culminated in the Great Disappointment, a small group continued to study the Scriptures and eventually became the first members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Church Structure*
Headquarters: General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.A.
World Divisions: 12
Union Conferences and Missions: 90
Local Conferences and Missions: 483
Churches: 44,888
Companies: 44,298

Mission
Of the 230 countries and areas of the world recognized by the United Nations, the church has work established in 205.

Education
The church operates one of the largest Protestant educational systems, consisting of 5,590 schools and approximately 1 million students worldwide.

Health Ministry
Hospitals: 162
Nursing Homes: 102
Clinics and Dispensaries: 361

Also included in the church's facilities are 57 publishing houses, 10 media centers, and 27 food industries.

Membership
World church membership: 10,671,005 (North American Division_904,247)
Sabbath school membership: 11,785,918
Annual membership growth from 1978 to 1998 was 6.1 percent. (Projected
membership in 2020: 37,289,857)
The three largest world divisions: Inter-American (1,949,907), Eastern
Africa (1,803,479), South American (1,660,234)

(Prepared by the Office of Archives and Statistics of the General Conference September 30, 1999)

*Separate articles in this issue explain several of the terms listed.

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