Leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s international network of Bible correspondence schools have moved to dramatically step up the church’s ability to handle large numbers of Bible study requests. The group, meeting last week in Sydney, Australia, voted a plan that would see local church-based Bible school ministries established in one-third of Adventist churches worldwide over the next two and a half years.

The step was prompted in part by the soon-to-be-launched Sow 1 Billion initiative—a plan to hand out 1,000 million Bible study invitations before July 2004.

“We’re talking about an unprecedented test of the church’s ability to respond to Bible study requests,” says Kurt Johnson, assistant director in the Sabbath School and Personal Ministries department of the world church, and a presenter at last week’s summit. “A mere 1 percent response to these brochures means 10 million requests for studies. How do we, as a church, plan to deal with that? This strategy—to help equip local churches, and lay people, to follow up on a large share of these Bible study requests—is a response to that challenge.”

The administrators, representing each of the church’s 13 world regions, or divisions, adopted a detailed plan of action to establish local church-based Bible school ministries in 10 percent of Adventist churches by the end of this year; in 20 percent of churches by the end of next year; and in 30 percent of churches by the end of 2005.

According to Johnson, these local church Bible schools will be encouraged to be creative in finding different ways for following up on Bible study requests. Depending on the resources available to a local church, follow-up could include offering written Bible study courses, one-on-one studies, videos or DVDs, and Internet study courses. These local church ministries would work closely with the 110 central Bible Correspondence Schools already operating worldwide.

Delegates to last week’s meeting also reported on the progress of Go One Million; a plan that originally aimed to train and equip 1 million Adventist lay people for evangelism, but which has now attracted more than 1.5 million participants worldwide. It is expected that these lay people will also play an important part in Sow 1 Billion, both in helping distribute the invitation brochure, and leading out in local church follow-up. 

Sow 1 Billion, which launches in September, was set in motion by international church leaders in October 2002. It is the first time the Adventist Church has attempted to implement an initiative of this magnitude on a global basis.