Just 18 months ago Pastor Jan Paulsen, president of the Seventh-day Adventist world church, approached the Adventist Review staff about a new idea to launch a world church magazine that would reach a global audience. The Adventist Review, the general church paper, has been in print since 1849 and until now primarily served North American readers.

In July this year, the first issue of “Adventist World” was released to the 2,000 delegates at the church’s business session in St. Louis, Missouri, and the second issue was just released today to delegates at Annual Council, a yearly business meeting of church leaders from each of the church’s 13 administrative regions.

The goal for Adventist World? “To foster the unity of the world Adventist family,” Bill Johnsson, editor of the Adventist Review, said when the new magazine was voted on during last year’s Annual Council.

A delegate from the church’s Northern Asia Pacific region welcomed the magazine, calling it a “significant contribution to global unity in the church.” He said many churches in his territory are “studying how to use this method [of outreach] effectively.” School teachers are using it in classrooms, translating together with their students, he said, and members are sending the magazine to former church members.

Adventist World is going to “Iraq, Mongolia, going north and south and east and west,” Johnsson reported. He acknowledged several people in the creation of the new church magazine, including Pastor Paulsen, P. D. Chun, who helped organize editorial involvement from editors in Korea and negotiate financial and legal hurdles with the magazine, and Don Schneider, president of the church in North America, who helped formulate plans for what the paper would be in his region.

“This is God’s plan. I see Adventist World as an instrument to speak to the whole world church about the values and identity which define the Seventh-day Adventist Church,” Paulsen said to delegates. “I see it as an instrument of unity and many times we are asked how can we, given the fact that this church is such a rapidly growing church, how can we keep forward our purpose and values that are part of our heritage? This paper is part of God’s answer on how we can do this.”

He added, “When I first talked with Bill Johnsson months ago, the fire and enthusiasm and commitment and sense of ‘wow—this we will do for the Lord and His people’—it never diminished.”

Johnsson ended with an appeal to Annual Council delegates: “This magazine must be international in all respects. We need writers from all over world. We need you.”