A few decades after it was officially organized, the Seventh-day Adventist Church sent its first missionary outside the United States, the denomination's birthplace. This step was only possible after the biblical understanding that Christ will return for people all over the world, not just for a few. Today, almost 150 years after John Nevins Andrews arrived in Switzerland, the church is present in more than 210 nations.
However, there are still many challenges for the message about Jesus' return to reach men, women, children, and elderly people in small and big cities. What can be done in each local Adventist church and by administrative headquarters to let others know the details of the Gospel? Although it is focused on finances, the report from the South American Division treasury brought a call for all levels of the denomination to look at needs that are beyond their territory.
"We cannot look only to our local church, to our reality. We need to offer our resources also for foreign missions and help those who have less," reinforced Pastor Marlon Lopes, financial director for the South American Division. His phrase, uttered during the Plenary Steering Committee, is based on the results experienced by the denomination in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay in the last five years.
From 2018 to 2022, which includes the period when the world went through a pandemic that claimed millions of lives and raised unemployment rates, the church continued to work to assist in the spiritual growth of its members as well as missionary focus so other people would come to know Christ. Lopes recalled that even in the face of this scenario, "God blessed us and allowed us to move forward in our mission to present Jesus to those who no longer had hope."
Growth in Difficult Times
It was during these years that the denomination saw growth in several areas as a response to members' faithfulness in tithes and offerings. For ease of understanding, the following numbers will be comparative between the years 2018 and 2022:
When it comes to the number of Adventists in the South American Division, it went from 2,476,209 to 2,602,093. Of those, tithers jumped from 899,538 to 1,009,979. The offerers, on the other hand, went from 675,802 to 764,833.
In relation to the Adventist Education Network, the number of students went from 330,167 to 358,656. And the number of schools went from 540 to 568. The division improved the distribution of offerings. “It has never grown in student numbers like it did in 2022 and 2023," Lopes details, "but the question is, What are we going to do with the blessings we receive?"
Looking Outward
Just as occurred with the first missionaries who arrived in South America as early as the end of the 19th century, the finance director reinforced that efforts need to be directed toward helping the church in places that have even greater challenges. To this end, Lopes cited a passage from the Spirit of Prophecy: "Those living in places where the work has long been established, should bind about their supposed wants, so that the work in new fields may go forward" (Ellen G. White, Gospel Workers, p. 455).
Lopes’ appeal was for this issue to receive the attention of institutions and headquarters of the church and be taken back to local churches so members are also sensitized to understand the importance of collaborating with the arrival of the biblical message in other regions of the world, especially with their missionary offerings.
This is in line with the proposal of the Mission Refocus project, also presented during the Plenary Steering Committee, which aims to involve the denomination's offices and churches in initiatives of this nature, always seeking to serve those who are beyond their own territory. "If our commitment is to preach the Gospel, we need to look at the other side, which needs help," emphasized Lopes.
The report generated immediate reactions. Pastor Edson Medeiros, director of Casa Publicadora Brasileira, the Adventist Church's publishing house for the national territory, stressed the need to be grateful for the care, especially with the members, throughout these years. "This commission needs to go back to their fields [regions] with a word of gratitude for the growth that we have seen here, when we had thousands of opportunities to preach. We need to praise God, because even in those times, the church has been faithful. And if God is giving us this, we need to find out why He is putting it in our hands," he observed.
Pastor André Dantas, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church for the states of Amapá, Pará, and Maranhão, asked for the floor to point out that the presentation "makes us think about the challenges across the planet." He also stressed, "This data motivates us to look at the people who live across the street and across the world. There is a weekly opportunity for us to talk about this to our members, who are the newsletters. I have noticed that where I have been, the missionary offer is not convincing the members to think this way. If every Sabbath morning we knew the importance of that video [World Mission Newsletter] for the content of the offering, it would be a way to make the members aware that we have a world mission."
"We need to put into the local church the need to be concerned about the church around the world. It is an urgent call for everyone to work towards this, to reach places where there are so many needs," pointed out Pastor Enzo Chaves, president of the Adventist Church for Southern Peru.
For Pastor Pablo Flor, executive secretary of the administrative headquarters for Paraguay, it is increasingly clear that investing outside is one of the ways to grow internally. "This vision needs to be intentionally put into the new generations. Children need to be convinced of this mission, to love the work and world missions. We need to have activities with the little ones so that they also have their focus on the challenges that are beyond our reality," he suggested.
The original version of this story was posted on the South American Division Portuguese-language news site.