Paul Douglas has been re-elected as the Treasurer of the General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists (GC). Douglas was first elected to the position during the 2021 Spring Meetings, in Silver Spring, Maryland, after Juan Prestol-Puesán retired.
Before becoming Treasurer of the GC, Douglas served as director for the General Conference Auditing Service where he cultivated an extensive pedigree in financial administration and denominational service. He became an assistant auditor for the GC in 1986, then stepped up to a full-fledged role two years later. He continued climbing the ranks, ultimately becoming GCAS Director in 2006.
Douglas realized and embraced his niche for accounting as a youth in Jamaica. He focused his studies and interest on science, with the intent to go into medical school, yet hit a period of indecision upon graduating and transitioning to college. An educator-mentor recommended Douglas give bookkeeping a try, and the immediate success he experienced swung the door wide open to what has become an impressive career, with no turning back.
Douglas places confidence in God’s guidance and wisdom to lead the Adventist Church in anything we face as we move into the future. In his 2022 Treasurer's Report to the Executive Committee during the Spring Meeting, Douglas continued to highlight the importance of looking to God’s continual leadership by quoting Seventh-day Adventist Church co-founder Ellen G. White saying, “we have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.”
He encouraged all members, saying, “I want to submit to us, as a body of believers known as the Seventh-day Adventist Church, that the greatest of all dangers for us in turbulent times is to forget that the Master of the Sea is in the boat. We must not forget that this is His mission to which we have been commissioned.”