“Do we still take world mission seriously? When will our mission be complete?”

These questions, posed by General Conference (GC) secretary Rick McEdward, opened the two-hour Secretariat Report during the GC Annual Council in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, on October 11.

“We have an opportunity before us that we must not miss. God’s call to mission is alive and well—and it is our great privilege that our God calls us to join Him in sharing this beautiful message with the world,” McEdward emphasized. During the report, McEdward and his team shared not only figures and percentages but mission-focused stories of how Mission Refocus, an initiative to streamline and redirect the Church’s mission priorities, is already resulting in a renewed experience for many.

Mission at the center

McEdward reminded the more than 300 members and invitees of the GC Executive Committee (GC EXCOM) that the Secretariat Report has been and should always be about mission. “Whether we speak of agendas, plans, policies, or frontline missionaries—it should be all about reporting, planning, and inspiring for mission,” he told delegates. In that regard, “every aspect of Secretariat serves the church in leading and supporting God’s mission,” McEdward said.

McEdward reminded GC EXCOM members that we have the privilege of joining God in His mission of restoring hope and joy to this world. It is the reason everything church leaders do should serve to challenge, inspire, enable, and support the mission of the church. “This is why Mission Refocus [an initiative to assess and redeploy mission resources globally] is so important,” McEdward explained. “It is our response to the divine calling to frontline mission.”

How to achieve it

McEdward said a key to keeping mission relevant today is refocusing on specific “windows”—the world’s most challenging mission territories, where the church needs to be actively engaged. These territories include the 10/40 Window, where most of the world's population lives but Christianity is a small minority; the Urban Window, the world's most populous cities; and the Post-Christian and Secular Window, mostly in Western Europe.

For McEdward, reaching these populations requires some changes, including reorganizing the missionary-sending process. The Mission Refocus initiative aims to streamline that process and direct more resources to the places they are most needed. As McEdward put it, this means “actively moving budgets to the front line of mission.”

“We are improving our process of recruiting, sending, and processing new missionaries, making it more efficient,” McEdward reported. “In addition, we are involved in training, coaching, and caring—with the primary goal to establish new congregations.”

Beyond the figures, percentages, and ratios, McEdward said real-life stories convey part of the richness of the Adventist missionary experience worldwide. McEdward and his team’s report combined statistics and trends with firsthand accounts and implications for a growing mission-focused movement.

Prepared for mission and each other

Among several testimonies, leaders shared the story of two young people who grew up thousands of miles apart. “The Lord was preparing them for mission and for each other before they knew it,” Elbert Kuhn, director of Adventist Volunteer Service (AVS), shared during a brief presentation. One of those two was a young Korean woman who was not a Christian when she began to attend an Adventist university. “There she met Jesus and discovered one of the 300 mission schools for volunteers,” Kuhn shared. She was eventually baptized.

She then learned of a teaching opportunity at a school for Syrian refugees in Beirut, Lebanon. The young woman applied to serve and was accepted.

Thousands of miles from Korea, in the United States, a young man felt called to mission service. That calling led him to study theology at Middle East University, Kuhn shared. “In Lebanon, these two stories became one,” he said. “They met on a mission [project], they served, they fell in love, and they married.” Now they are getting ready to be sent as long-term missionaries to an undisclosed country, Kuhn reported.

“This is more than a beautiful story,” Kuhn said. “It is a picture of what Mission Refocus really is.” He added, “Mission is not something we do in isolation. It is an ecosystem.”

Mission Refocus efforts are connected to OneVoice27, an initiative that seeks to share Jesus as never before through social media and other activities in 2027 and beyond, McEdward said. According to him, the initiatives are not two separate mission programs but only one, focused on sharing Jesus.

It is expected that Secretariat and Adventist Mission will increase their presence as liaisons to the initiative, McEdward said. Every part of Secretariat will be involved. This includes Global Mission, which will dedicate $US5.4 million to 110 unentered cities and $US540,000 for digital ministry in the 10/40 and post-Christian Windows.

Adventist Mission has been working with divisions worldwide to select cities for emphasis, partnering with church regions to bridge the gap between digital ministry and church planting, McEdward reported. Global Mission Centers will be the strategists and coaches of these efforts, and International Personnel Resources and Services (IPRS) will send missionary families to many of those cities “to bridge digital ministry with in-person follow-up.”

McEdward also explained how the Institute of World Mission will continue training and mentoring people to serve cross-culturally, while VividFaith will post calls to serve as part of OneVoice27, and Adventist Volunteer Service will equip young people as digital pioneers. Secretariat teams are working to develop an interest tracker and identify ways to support disciple-making and the reclamation of former members.

“As you can see, every aspect of Secretariat is integrated for mission,” McEdward said. “And the best way to get involved in Mission Refocus is to start with your personal involvement in OneVoice27.”

Sending more missionaries

In the last part of his report, McEdward reminded GC EXCOM members that the Adventist Church is currently sending one missionary for every 45,000 members worldwide. “I think we can do better,” he said. “Imagine if every union, conference, mission, institution . . . every local church was engaged in missionary focus. Is it unrealistic to have one missionary for every 10,000 members in the world?” He added, “What about one missionary per 5,000 members in the world church? If so, we would have 4,800 full-time cross-cultural missionaries. And I cannot hide that I pray for more.”

McEdward invited some pioneers to share stories of how God has been working and opening doors in previously unentered areas. They included a testimony by Delmar Reis, president of the Albanian Mission. While the country, closed to the Christian faith for decades, is extremely secular, perspectives have changed as the Adventist Church prays and makes efforts to connect with its citizens.

Two stories, one example

Reis shared the story of Era, a woman who met an Adventist missionary family 25 years ago. Recently, after praying to be reconnected with God, she met a group of Adventist volunteers and discovered there was an Adventist church in Tirana, Albania. She began to attend church, received Bible studies, and was baptized on September 5. “As it says in Acts 18:10, the Lord reminded me [that He still has] many people in the city,” Reis said.

Another story came from North Carolina, United States, where Sergio Quevedo, a former local church pastor in Charlotte, shared how his congregation chose to look beyond its own community and become a “sending church” for missionaries. Quevedo reached out to Reis to explore how the congregation could support the fledgling Adventist work in Albania.

“As I was thinking of how to raise the funds to send missionaries, I got a call from one of my elders informing me that the church air-conditioning units were [not functioning], and that we needed $US100,000 to replace them,” Quevedo shared.

Quevedo went to the board and told them that, despite their ordeal, they had an opportunity to support a center of influence in Albania. “Let’s take care of God’s mission,” he told the church board, “and God will take care of business here.”

The church members agreed to move forward, but as the time to replace the air-conditioning units approached, they still didn’t have the necessary funds and didn’t want to divert funds from the mission in Albania.

A few months later, they were surprised to learn that some members had received refunds for insurance claims and poor house repairs totaling $US50,000, and they were donating it to the church. When air-conditioning technicians assessed the problem, they found that only one unit needed replacing; the other could be repaired and last another five years. The cost? $US50,000. “If we focus on God’s mission, He takes care of our needs,” Quevedo said.

Now the challenge is for every church region and institution to replicate this model and partner to increase the number of missionaries around the world, McEdward said. He asked, “Can we go to new areas, no matter the challenges? Can we display God's love in new areas of the world? Can we shine brighter as a church so that salvation will be known to the ends of the earth?”