Rick McEdward has coordinated church planting throughout Southeast Asia and in the United States in Texas and his home state of Washington. Now the former Global Mission director for the Southern Asia-Pacific Division has been tapped to head up the Seventh-day Adventist Church's Global Mission Religious Study Centers.

McEdward, who spent his teenage years in Saudi Arabia, said his goal is for the four centers to consistently produce more materials so that Adventists worldwide will have tools to better relate to friends of other faiths and beliefs.

The four study centers are: the Center for Asian Religions and Traditions, the Global Center for Adventist-Muslim Relations, World Jewish-Adventist Friendship Center, and the Center for Secular and Post-Modern Studies.

McEdward, 46, most recently served as associate director of the Institute of World Mission, located on the campus of the denomination's Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan, United States. In 2004, he helped provide denominational news coverage of the South Asian Tsunami while working as a mission coordinator in Sri Lanka.

He is currently completing a Doctor of Missiology degree at Fuller Theological Seminary School of Intercultural Studies, and he holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Adventist Theological Seminary, located at Andrews.

In an interview yesterday, he discussed his goals for the centers, as well as why church members are the best witness for growing the denomination. Edited excerpts:

Adventist News Network: Why have study centers?

Rick McEdward: The majority of our growth as a church, even in non-Christian countries, is really among people who are from Christian backgrounds. Somehow as a church we need to relate more effectively. So the purpose of the study centers is to help develop a sense in the church that there are some tools and models that may be available to help people relate to their neighbors and people they work with. That's the goal, to assist churches, members and institutions to be more relevant in an area where they're not as strong as they'd like to be.

ANN: What are you hoping to accomplish with the centers?

McEdward: First thing I want to do is work with the study center directors, learn who they are, what journey they've been on, understand their challenges, and create some mechanisms to help them evaluate their own work. Then to address the more difficult situations they're seeing around the world so they can develop more resources for church members to witness to people.

ANN: You've said you don't use the term "laity," but prefer the phrase "church members." Why the distinction?

McEdward: Because it creates an artificial division between pastors and church members. Clergy and laity are not biblical roles. The true role is that a pastor is a leader among equals. A pastor's role is to equip other Christians.

ANN: How can the church best grow?

McEdward: If all 17 million Adventists around the world took to heart to be salt and light to their neighbors, be loving and lovable Christians, I think our church would not only be stronger but would be more relevant to people of other faith backgrounds. That's the bottom line -- who are we and how we relate the message we have to others.

ANN: What's an effective witness?

McEdward: It's three things: First, Adventists having a deep faith walk with God. Two, the need to know how to articulate our faith clearly for the person who is hearing us, rather than the way we want to say it. Third, building friendships with people who are not part of our church.

ANN: Some feel they're in a battle of who's right. How do you respond?

McEdward: I'd like to see a cordial witness, one that builds a warm relationship with others rather than one that focuses on putting the other ones down. In Christian history we haven't always been cordial. Even as Adventists we don't always do well in that regard. Since we see ourselves so strongly as having a message we desperately want the rest of the world to believe in, sometimes what we've done is put others down a bit, even other Christians. That witness has not always served us well. Especially in areas of the world that are risky or where other faiths are dominant. Everything rides on the back of building a relationship with someone. If you try to drive home truth without a relationship, I think you bear the consequences of putting people off. It's a life, it's a faith, it's an everyday trust in God that makes us transformed people. That's what I really want Hindus and Muslims and Jews and Atheists around the world to understand. We can't do that unless they are able to understand what we're trying to communicate.

--Visit the Adventist Mission website for links to each of the four study centers. For more information, email Rick McEdward directly at [email protected].