Communication; media; Nurture, Discipleship & Reclamation – Integrated Evangelism Lifestyle (NDR-IEL); ministerial; and treasury leaders from across the Southern Asia-Pacific region attended the OneVoice27 Strategic Alignment and Collaborative Summit held September 20–23 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Themed “One Mission. One Strategy. One Voice.”, the summit was designed to bring ministry departments together to transition OneVoice27 from separate departmental initiatives to an integrated mission strategy that connects digital and media outreach with local church engagement, evangelism, and discipleship.

Alex Ott, General Conference associate secretary and Southern Asia-Pacific Division (SSD) OneVoice27 liaison, emphasized the importance of seeing the global initiative not as a collection of separate programs, but as a connected mission journey in which every ministry is involved.

Ott outlined how communication and media can help reach people and create initial interest while departments, local churches, and church members provide opportunities for deeper engagement, relationships, and discipleship. He stressed that these touchpoints must intentionally connect with one another so that a person reached through digital media is left with a clear next step toward a local community of faith.

The summit centered on how ministries operating across different programs, platforms, and budgets can work together to help individuals move from first contact with the biblical Seventh-day Adventist message to a growing relationship with Jesus and the local church community.

Roger Caderma, SSD president, said the gathering reflected the need for the church to move beyond individual departmental plans toward a shared mission.

“OneVoice27 is not about one department, one program, or one platform,” he said. “Mission belongs to the whole church. If we want to reach people effectively, our ministries must understand how their work connects with one another and, most importantly, how everything we do helps people come to know Jesus.”

From digital contact to discipleship

The development of an integrated mission pathway was central to the summit. Participants identified five touchpoints: Church media, content creators or digital evangelists, bridging events, local church-sponsored programs, and local church presence.

Digital evangelism doesn't stop at the first click, participants agreed. Once someone watches a video, responds to a post, or visits a website, they need a way to connect with a local church. Discussion centered on how media outlets, digital platforms, and churches and ministries can coordinate to give interested people a clear path forward.

The SSD OneVoice27 strategy developed at the summit places media and communication at the beginning of an individual's spiritual journey rather than treating digital engagement as the end goal.

Under the new strategy, once online content reaches and engages new audiences, local churches and ministries are responsible for building relationships and hosting community activities that help people become disciples of Jesus.

Building bridges between media and the local church

The summit also focused on developing bridging events—welcoming activities designed to connect people reached through digital and media initiatives with Adventist members and local congregations.

Summit participants recognized that many people, particularly in large urban centers and areas where Christianity is a minority, may not initially respond to an invitation to attend a worship service. Community activities centered on a shared need or interest may offer a more natural first opportunity to meet Adventists and build relationships.

Proposed bridging events included health and wellness activities, family and relationship programs, youth activities, community service, skills development, and small-group gatherings.

Summit participants recommended that local churches offer regular, relational activities while conferences and missions coordinate larger monthly events.

Participants clarified that the goal is not to increase program attendance but to ensure that each activity provides a pathway toward a continued relationship, spiritual conversation, and discipleship.

“We cannot assume that reaching someone means we have connected with them,” said Arnel Gabin, SSD NDR-IEL director. “A person may watch our content, respond to an advertisement, or attend an event, but someone still needs to welcome that person, listen to them, and walk with them. That is where the local church becomes essential.”

Creating a shared media database

The summit addressed the large amount of useful content that exists but is scattered across different organizations, platforms, languages, and individual storage systems.

Summit participants discussed developing a shared OneVoice27 media database that unions, Hope Channel, Adventist World Radio, conferences, institutions, and other ministries can contribute to and pull from.

The database is intended to become a shared media ecosystem where content can be created, contributed, contextualized, translated, and reposted across SSD.

Summit participants believe the shared database will enable a single core message to reach multiple audiences across all the languages spoken in the Southern Asia-Pacific region.

The database will also work alongside an integrated content calendar. While the calendar will indicate the message the church is communicating at a specific time, the database will identify which resources already exist, which can be contextualized, and which content still needs to be produced.

Different ministries, one journey

Summit participants emphasized that although ministries and departments should collaborate, this does not require every ministry and department to do the same thing.

Communication departments, Hope Channel, AWR, ministerial, NDR-IEL, and other departments and ministries maintain distinct responsibilities. Participants emphasized, however, that each departments' responsibilities contribute to the same mission.

“Our departments do not need to lose their identity for us to work together,” said Jacinth Adap, SSD treasurer. “Each ministry brings something important to the mission. What we need is to understand where those contributions meet so that the person we are trying to reach does not fall between our programs.”

Preparing churches for the people they pray to reach

Discussions at the summit repeatedly returned to local church readiness.

Summit participants recognized that expanded digital evangelism could generate more conversations and contacts, but those efforts will have limited impact if local churches are not prepared to receive people who respond.

The SSD OneVoice27 strategy calls for churches to identify leaders and members who can welcome guests, provide follow-up, and accompany individuals through their spiritual journey.

This preparation includes helping churches become welcoming environments for people who may have little knowledge of Adventist beliefs, worship practices, or church culture.

The strategy also calls for missions and conferences to develop clearer processes for transferring digital contacts to local churches so that inquiries are not lost between media platforms and local ministry.

For SSD leaders, this represents an important shift in understanding digital evangelism. Technology may initiate a conversation, but discipleship requires relationships.

Moving from planning to implementation

Representatives from SSD's unions and conferences reviewed existing initiatives, ministry calendars, media capacity, evangelism plans, and available resources while identifying areas where departments could collaborate rather than duplicate activities.

Summit participants created 30-, 60-, and 90-day organizational goals.

During the first 30 days, organizations are expected to clarify responsibilities, gather ministry plans into integrated calendars, and identify priority audiences and churches.

Over the next 60 days, ministries will develop contextualized resources, train leaders, and strengthen processes for transferring contacts from media and community initiatives to local churches.

By 90 days, organizations are expected to begin activating those plans, with unions coordinating ministries and local churches increasingly prepared to receive, care for, and disciple people reached through OneVoice27 initiatives.

The process also calls for continued coordination among the division, unions, conferences, and missions, rather than allowing the Bangkok meeting to become an isolated planning event.

One mission across diverse cultures

Summit participants said the collaborative approach is particularly significant in the SSD region as the Church serves culturally, linguistically, and religiously diverse populations across Southeast Asia.

“We are serving very different cultures, languages, and communities across this division,” Caderma said. “One voice does not mean everyone must sound exactly the same. It means that wherever we serve and whatever platform we use, we are moving toward the same mission—helping people encounter Jesus.”

The success of OneVoice27, leaders emphasized, will ultimately depend less on the number of programs produced than on whether the different parts of the church can work together to accompany people through a complete spiritual journey.

The original article was published on the Southern Asia-Pacific Division news site.