With one Seventh-day Adventist for every 55 people, the South Pacific Division (SPD) now has the highest ratio of Adventists to population in the world.
SPD secretary Pastor Mike Sikuri revealed this encouraging statistic while presenting the secretary’s report at this week’s Division Executive Committee meetings.
“This time last year when this report was presented it was 1 in 74 and so that’s phenomenal growth and we thank the Lord for that,” Pastor Sikuri said.
This year has seen 208,501 people baptised into the Adventist Church, largely due to the PNG for Christ program in April and May. Pastor Sikuri highlighted the years of groundwork in Papua New Guinea, noting “they spent a good eight years in preparation . . . and so a mighty harvest took place”.
Membership distribution in the SPD reveals that 65 per cent of members are in the Papua New Guinea Union Mission (PNGUM), 22 per cent in the Trans Pacific Union Mission (TPUM), 10 per cent in the Australian Union Conference (AUC) and 3 per cent in the New Zealand Pacific Union Mission.
The member-to-population ratios are also notable: TPUM has one Adventist for every 17 people, closely followed by PNGUM at 1:19. NZPUC’s ratio is 1:261 and AUC’s 1:406.
Since 1990, 1,163,962 people have been members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific. Of those, 315,155 have left, resulting in a net loss rate of 27 per cent. This means that for every 10 members who remain, approximately three leave.
The report also highlighted variations in ministerial resources. NZPUC has one ordained minister for every 60 Adventists, compared to TPUM with 1:127, AUC with 1:246 and PNGUM with 1:444.
The SPD’s kingdom growth rate—calculated as the number of baptisms and professions of faith minus missing members, those who have left the Church or died—stands at 4.35. According to General Conference associate secretary Dr Gerson Santos, this is the highest kingdom growth rate among all world divisions.
“I’m very excited to see this report,” Dr Santos said during the meeting. “A lot of people think if we emphasise discipleship, you may have less growth, and this is not true because evangelism is our priority when disciple-making is our goal, and this is what we are seeing here in the SPD. Thank you for the good work and praise the Lord.”
