Aiming to streamline membership data management, the South Pacific Division (SPD) is investing significant resources into rolling out the Adventist Church Management System (ACMS) across the Pacific Islands and increasing its usage in Australia and New Zealand.
Developed and launched by the South American Division in 2012, ACMS was then adopted by the General Conference as the worldwide membership management platform for the Adventist Church. It is currently used in 97 Unions across 131 countries and has been utilised by church clerks in Australia and New Zealand for the past four years. Its features include efficient membership transfers, tracking interests and non-members, and generating various reports for better decision-making at local church and conference/mission levels.
To date, accounts for all organised churches and companies have been set up for the whole of the Papua New Guinea Union Mission (comprising nine missions and one conference), much of the Trans Pacific Union Mission and the three island missions of the New Zealand Pacific Union Conference.
“While this is a significant milestone,” reports ACMS project manager Pastor Adrian Raethel, “the second stage of gathering, compiling and loading the membership information for each of those entities will be a much larger challenge.”
The French Polynesia Mission is the first island territory to have all of its membership data loaded into ACMS, thanks to its previous use of another software platform. “Training for all local mission staff is well underway and will be extended to local church clerks and pastors in the coming months,” said Pastor Raethel.
In light of recent cyber-attacks on personal information stored by large corporations, data security remains a priority for ACMS. “Strict security measures have been implemented to protect both the data and the platform,” assured Pastor Raethel. The program is also governed by a detailed privacy policy, ensuring member information is safeguarded against unauthorised use.
