My favourite General Conference meetings usually take place over Easter. Not that I like being away from family at Easter but the GC “Spring Meetings” focus on how we reach the billions who have not heard of the everlasting gospel of Jesus.
Enthralled, I listen to frontline missionaries who have left their home countries, learnt other languages and cultures to work with very different people groups from atheist, Muslim, communist, Buddhist and other backgrounds. They share the challenges of not having many who understand them, of meeting people and having no response, but also the joys of new friendships and people dedicating their lives to Jesus. These people are my Adventist heroes.
The challenge is real. One of the Church’s unions has a population of 601 million and only around 7000 Seventh-day Adventists. Adventist membership in that Union has nearly doubled in the past seven years—so God is blessing their pioneer missionaries in a place that seems impossible to reach.
We heard of a Muslim sheik visiting an Adventist friend because of a dream he had. He was told to find people who lived according to their beliefs. The Adventist was faithful in sharing the message of God from the Koran and Bible. The sheik went back to his people and asked them to consider the new messengers and message. His people did not like churches but valued the message and have been sharing it from house to house. They now have a network of house churches with more than 3000 people involved and many newly baptised members trained as lay house church pastors.
Adventist house churches are proving to be an effective way to evangelise around the world. The Global Mission committee is discussing ways to integrate this growing movement in the Church without imposing obstacles to its growth.
The South Pacific Division is open to innovative ways to share the last-day gospel to the world. We want to ReFocus on Mission in and outside of our Division and bless our nearest neighbours in Asia. We dream of sending 20 full-time missionaries in the next five years, 100 people for one year in mission and 2000 on short-term mission trips. This will help expand God’s last-day, disciple-making movement there and here.
