As of Sept. 30, there are 1,097,217 members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America, said G. Alexander Bryant, secretary of the church in North America, in a report opening the region's year-end meetings in Silver Spring, Maryland last week. The figure represents a ratio of one Seventh-day Adventist for every 312 people in North America, he said.

That's a net increase of 12,379 members over the 1,084,838 on the record at the end of 2008, according to statistics on file at Bryant's offices. During 2008, Bryant said, 7,353 members passed away, and another 14,687 were either dropped from church rolls or could not be located. Today, North American members of the Church worship weekly in 6,005 churches and congregations in the United States, Canada and Bermuda.

Overall, however, church growth is more positive than the initial numbers might suggest, Bryant explained. The current membership growth rate is 2.13 percent, Bryant said, up from 1.44 percent in 2004, and 1.97 percent in 2007. (Rates of growth are the changes in membership between the beginning of the year and the end of the year, shown as percentages.)

From June 30, 2008 to July 1, 2009, an average of 116.8 people joined the church in North America per day either by baptism or on profession of faith. That's 4.1 percent of the 2,818.1 people who joined the worldwide Adventist Church every day during that period, for a global total of 1,029,206 members. Global Adventist Church membership, as of late September, stood at just over 16 million, world church leaders reported.

Bryant's report followed a presentation by Don C. Schneider, president for the church in North American, in which he highlighted a number of evangelism initiatives throughout the three-nation region. Among the most notable was the Claim L.A. campaign headlined by It Is Written speaker/director Shawn Boonstra, targeted at the nearly 14 million people who live in Los Angeles.

But evangelism "is happening all over our division ... everywhere," Schneider said. "New churches are starting, and ... there were more baptisms this year than we have had in many years."

The NAD year-end business meetings ran through Monday, November 9.