Most of this morning was the Secretariat report. It was longer than usual but informative. The overriding theme was Mission Refocus, redirecting the resources of the church to advance our mission, primarily in the 1040 window.
54% of the world population is in the 1040 window and only 12% of our church membership is in the 1040 window.
Over the last 20 years we have lost 42% of our members, not to death but to leaving the church. Last year we regained 60,000 worldwide.
If we followed the suggestion of EGW of the ratio of missionaries to members of her day we would be sending 67,000 missionaries per year. But we are sending about 300+. Here are some explanatory charts:
This afternoon was a continuation of this mornings presentations.
This afternoon: Nominating committee report to fill 7 vacant positions at the GC. The positions are women’s ministry associate, Children’s Ministry associate, a researcher for the Geoscience Institute, and an associate in Education (hopefully one with some courage and biblical conviction).
There were reports from the Divisions, a Youth Ministries report, Geoscience Research Institute report, and a Communications report.
There was a new children’s Sabbath School curriculum presentation. Hope Channel gave a report and celebrated their 20 year anniversary. There was a realignment of divisions, with Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal joining the Northern Asia Pacific Division.
There is no indication whether this body will deal firmly and swiftly with the North German LGBTQ+ apostasy. We will see in the next three days. Someone could go to the microphone and motion that the second step of the Compliance Document be applied to the North German Union. If it is seconded, then it would have to be discussed.
We also need to begin the process of installing a circuit-breaker on the Church Manual change that liberal conferences are weaponizing against conservative churches. This should be brought back up at the 2025 General Conference Session and swiftly corrected. In order for this problematic church manual change to be brought back up, a church needs to submit this request to their conference and get it to the Church Manual Committee.
****
