Responding to the urging of church leaders around the world, the Seventh-day Adventist world church held its first leadership development conference in Slovenia from February 11 to 12. 

“Our church leaders see leadership development as one of the major issues that [our churches] will face in the immediate future,” said Michael L. Ryan, facilitator for the meeting and a vice president for the world church. “Providing more leadership development resources can help the church become more effective in accomplishing its mission,” he added.

Ryan, director of leadership development at the world church, said the conference brought together 17 people who focused on starting a leadership development resource network, creating a list of presenters to head up leadership conferences and identifying needed curriculums for certain key leadership positions.

Providing resources to develop more prepared leaders in the church is crucial in a church that is growing as fast as the Adventist Church is, especially in places that do not have a strong culture of Adventism, Ryan said.

In some regions with large membership growth in the last 20 years, “you’ve just found yourself with more than 700,000 Adventists who weren’t Adventists before and who haven’t been to our schools,” Ryan said. “So you need a church treasurer, a head elder and someone who will serve as a pastor, but we have not yet put people into those pipelines.

“As we train quality leadership, we will become a stronger church,” he added.