Church leaders meeting at Annual Council have earmarked $1 million to support a new leadership training unit and the newly formed Council of Evangelism and Witness. The allocation comes one day after Pastor Jan Paulsen, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church worldwide, emphasized these areas in his keynote address to Annual Council as being essential to building a mission-driven church.

The allocation was part of the distribution of $8.5 million, which represents capital in excess of the working capital requirements of the General Conference. These so-called Supplemental Budget Requests for the year 2000, approved today at Annual Council, will help fund special projects in 11 divisions (or administrative regions) of the world church.  The budget allocations will support projects ranging from the purchase of land for a new radio/TV center in Germany, to an evangelistic center in northern Uganda, to the construction of a vocational training center in northeastern China.