The Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Northern-Asia Pacific region has developed a strategic plan to help the church work more effectively in a highly populated and diverse area that includes Japan, Mongolia, China, North and South Korea, and Taiwan.

Some 1.4 billion people live in the Northern-Asia Pacific region, and there are just half a million church members. “This is a tremendous challenge,” says Stanley Ng, strategic planning coordinator for the region. Ng says that church organizations in the region have tended to do their own strategic planning, without clear, common objectives. “Now we’ve all identified and focused on the same strategic issues,” he says, “and we will pull our efforts and resources together to hopefully reach the same goal.”

The plan, voted in April by the church’s executive committee for the region, reflects the desire of Jan Paulsen, president of the world church, for each branch of the church to focus on three core values: unity, growth, and quality of life. “It is our deep desire that in the formation of a community of faith, each person will experience unconditional commitment to Christ,” states the Strategic Issues and Action Plans document. “This commitment results in joyful and loving personal service to the wider community in the world.”

P.D. Chun, president of the Adventist Church in the Northern-Asia Pacific region, says the strategic plan responds to four major challenges confronting the church in the region, including: how the church should function in communist countries; growing secularism in developed countries; decreasing numbers of young people in the church; and growing apathy among church members. Specific goals were set to meet each of these challenges.

“The Adventist Church faces tremendous challenges in this region, which covers a wide range of governments, economies, and religions,” says Michael Ryan, assistant to the Adventist Church president for strategic planning and director of the church’s Global Mission initiative. “This new plan, developed by local leaders, will help the church minister to its various communities with more strength, relevance, and purpose.”