Under the branches of a tree in Africa or the South Pacific, in an auditorium in Europe or Asia, young adults in the Seventh-day Adventist Church are stepping forward to take a leading role in public evangelism, church leaders said Oct. 5.

After the Oct. 2-3 session of the church’s Council on Evangelism and Witness, leaders said they are enthused about the “Elijah Project,” which is a collaborative effort of Adventist-laymen’s Services and Industries, or ASI, with three world church offices and departments: the Center for Global Evangelism, Personal Ministries/Sabbath School, and the Youth department.

“This is a strategy to involve young people between the ages of 15 and 30 in actively proclaiming the Gospel,” said Mark Finley, director of the Center for Global Evangelism and speaker/director of It Is Written, an Adventist media ministry. “We believe we will involve 100,000 young people in 10,000 evangelistic meetings worldwide.”

Finley explained that the church will invest U.S. $1.2 million—including a U.S. $500,000 grant from ASI—in funding the project, along with a further U.S. $1.5 million in materials ranging from printed picture rolls to “New Beginnings” DVD lecture series.

He added that world divisions are “mobilizing” young people for the event. The Southern Africa-Indian Ocean church region has already committed to holding 750 such meetings, with the South American region pledging to conduct 950. In Romania, more than 500 youth-led evangelistic meetings are scheduled, he added.

“It’s amazing,” Finley said of the commitments already received.

He explained that instead of investing a large amount of resources in one or two satellite campaigns, which would not involve a great number of young people, the smaller events will bring young Adventists to the forefront of sharing Jesus with others.

“The issue is not the number of people we will reach, but the number of youth who are involved,” Finley said, noting that the public meetings will, cumulatively, reach numbers similar to those who attend satellite events. He added that the church will conduct several major satellite evangelistic campaigns in the next year.

The Elijah Project is not the only church initiative to draw attention at the evangelism council meeting. According to world church general vice president Ted N.C. Wilson, “this was one of the most thrilling councils in terms of reports of God’s moving through the Holy Spirit’s power. More and more places are employing personal evangelism through small groups.”

Wilson said there was a “growing excitement” among church leaders about the Elijah Project as well.

Armando Miranda, also a general vice president of the world church, noted a different context to this particular meeting.

“We have a lot of different meetings here dealing with administrative items and many [other] problems,” Miranda told ANN, “But this is the only one focused just on evangelism—the only one. The only concern here is how to do the ministry of the church, not only to exchange ideas, but provide models of evangelism.”

“It’s encouraging to see and participate in a platform established by the church where we can explore different models of how to reach people where they are and lead them to Jesus Christ,” said Miroslav Pujic, communication director for the church’s Trans-European region. “It is important to explore views in order to better understand that a journey of faith more than often requires time, as well as an awareness of the culture and circumstances of those whom we are to reach for Christ.”