It's simply a moment of celebrating, Seventh-day Adventist church president Jan Paulsen told the participating members of the Church's Executive Committee who have gathered for a two-day annual Spring Meeting.
It’s simply a moment of celebrating, Seventh-day Adventist church president Jan Paulsen told the participating members of the Church’s Executive Committee who have gathered for a two-day annual Spring Meeting. Paulsen was speaking about the Year of World Evangelism 2004, an initiative that attempts to involve every Adventist church member in evangelism.
“I think it is significant that … 150,000 evangelistic events will be held during 2004,” he said. “An event can be many things—I think in many fields these will be events as small group activities. There are parts of the world where these small groups have proven enormously effective as instruments [of evangelism].”
Voted during the 2002 Annual Council of the Church, each church region was given the opportunity to review the plan and vote on it. Church leaders during Spring Meeting reviewed the plan once again, receiving updates and making suggestions.
“The focus is on the full, complete, and total mobilization of the entire church,” said Peter Prime, Year of Evangelism coordinator.
“The world church has enthusiastically endorsed and supported the Year of Evangelism,” Ted Wilson, a vice president of the world church, told delegates.
A live worldwide satellite uplink by Adventist Television Network on the Year of World Evangelism held April 15 outlined plans to pastors, leading lay people and church administrators all over the world, who will take the concept to their local churches. “[It] showed what that beautiful program can be,” Wilson said.
“It establishes a network with people from the community to go into the life and the family of the church,” Paulsen added. “I expect great things to come out of this. The Holy Spirit is there and I expect 2004 to be a year of celebrating the reaping that will come.”
The Year of World Evangelism is interconnected with other church programs, including Go One Million, Sow 1 Billion, satellite/net evangelism, public evangelism, small groups, church planting, personal evangelism, creative experiments in evangelistic outreach, and global internet evangelism.
Prime said that the entire church will be involved in a special prayer week for this initiative at the beginning of 2004.