With as many as 70,000 Adventists and friends expected in St. Louis during the 58th world church business session, the Seventh-day Adventist Church is explaining the sudden influx to the local community.

A series of billboards, television, radio and newspaper advertisements will tell residents about the meetings and why the 142-year-old denomination is assembling in the center of the United States to conduct its official business.

“We’re in town in a big way, but a lot of people don’t know who we are and why we’re there,” said Reger Smith Jr., director of public relations for the world church. “We [Adventists] have a challenge of presenting ourselves to the community as a face they can recognize,” he added.

Normally, the local Adventist church membership of roughly 3,500 people would be all but lost in the 2-million-plus St. Louis area, where the majority of people are Roman Catholic Christians, followed by members of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, with headquarters in a St. Louis suburb. But the presence of the General Conference Session will draw attention to the Adventist movement, creating an opportunity, Smith said.

The advertising “becomes part of a bigger outreach that we are doing, saying we’re here as part of the community,” he said. Other outreaches will include cultural events, community service projects and a Bible festival to which the community will be invited.

A key element of the advertising program is five large billboards visible on major roadways around town. Each shows two expressions on a person’s face, one that is sad or conflicted, and another that is happy and confident. Headlined “The Ultimate Makeover ... Transformed in Christ,” the billboards are designed to quickly convey the Session’s theme of regeneration through faith.

“Our challenge was to make ‘Transformed in Christ’ not just an internal slogan for the meeting, but also something that reaches and connects with the community; the idea was to add ‘the ultimate makeover,’ playing off the public’s interest in [television show] makeover themes. It’s the makeover that lasts,” Smith said.

He added, “Then we found we had the opportunity to do television, newspaper and radio; so that’s when we decided to expand the same theme to a television commercial. Using this theme of people, we wanted to represent a variety of people showing the spectrum of the church’s membership.”

All the models were people who either work at the church’s world headquarters or are members of nearby congregations. The creative team included Smith, Ray Dabrowski, communication director,  John Banks, media relations director, John Torres, public relations specialist and Melita Pujic, communication intern.

Global Mission videographer Daniel Weber and freelance musician John Stoddart contributed to the television ads, which were voiced by Adult Bible Study Guide editor Clifford Goldstein. The TV spots, the first Adventist church advertisements filmed in high-definition, used still photos as visuals, with Pujic and Smith as the photographers.

Two additional informational TV ads, created by Adventist Media Productions (AMP) in Simi Valley, California,  will air in St. Louis. One pre-Session spot explains why Adventists are coming; a second, to air during the meetings, will offer more information. Both spots invite the public to attend events at the America’s Center venue.

The world headquarters and North American Adventist church region are sharing the cost of the media buys, while North America has covered the production costs for the ads, Smith said. The media campaign is likely to be repeated in Atlanta five years from now, when another major city will wonder who is visiting in such large numbers, and why.