Adventist Mission

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Office of Adventist Mission
TypeReligious/Non-Profit
Founded1863
HeadquartersSilver Spring, Maryland, USA
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
  • G T Ng
  • Gary Krause
  • Michael Ryan
Number of employees
3,000+
ParentGeneral Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
SubsidiariesGlobal Mission
Websitemission.adventist.org

Adventist Mission is the official mission office of the Seventh-day Adventist Church's world headquarters. Its main purpose is to provide coordination and funding for the Seventh-day Adventist Church's worldwide mission work.[1] Adventist Mission has coordinators in all 13 regional headquarters of the Adventist Church and sponsors work in more than 207 countries and territories.[2] To meet the Adventist Church's growing need to consolidate its overseas mission activities, Adventist Mission was formed in 2005 at the General Conference World Session held in St. Louis, Missouri. This new organization brought Global Mission and the Office of Mission Awareness together so that they can better collaborate on projects and initiatives.[1]

History[]

Since the 1870s, the Seventh-day Adventist Church has developed a mission focus. Through the years, Adventist church members have generously supported mission through their tithes (10% of their income) and mission offerings because they believe the gospel commission. Church members believe that they're called to help the less fortunate, the poor, the sick, and those who don't know about Jesus.

First Adventist Missionaries[]

First Official Adventist Missionary
John Nevins Andrews.jpg
John Nevins Andrews United States
Born1829
Poland, Maine
DiedOctober 21, 1883
Basel, Switzerland
OccupationMinister, Editor, Church Administrator, Missionary
Spouse(s)Angeline Stevens Andrews (1824-1872)

John Nevins Andrews left for Europe in 1874 as the first official Adventist missionary. A former president of the General Conference, the world church's governing body, he set out to organize a group of believers in Switzerland.[3] Andrews helped start a publishing house in Switzerland and an Adventist periodical in French, Les Signes des Temps (1876.) Andrews died October 21, 1883, and is buried in Basel, Switzerland.

In 1883 Abram La Rue, a shepherd and woodcutter from California, had an ambition to take the gospel to China. When he wrote to General Conference, they told him that at 65 he was too old. They also said that they didn't have the money to send him. Still determined to go, La Rue negotiated his way onto a ship where he could work his way to Hong Kong. He arrived there in 1888 and began working as a colporteur for the next 14 years.

In 1887, the first SDA missionaries were sent to Cape Town, South Africa.

In 1892, George James went as a self supporting Seventh-day Adventist missionary to Nyasaland where traveled the area preaching and playing his violin. He died of malaria in 1894 on the Shire River, Nyasaland. The first Adventist supported missionaries in British Central Africa were Joseph Booth (a newly converted British missionary) and Thomas H. Branch with his family from Colorado (the first SDA black missionaries). In August 1902 they arrived at Plainfield Industrial Mission in Cholo, Nyasaland. This SDA Mission was bought from the Seventh Day Baptist Church in 1902 and was later renamed Malamulo in 1907. In February 1903, Joseph Booth was supported by the SDA church to travel through Nyasaland, Tanganyika, and Kenya looking for locations for new SDA mission locations.

The first Adventists missionaries in East Africa were Abraham C. Enns and Johannes Ehlers from Germany, who arrived in Tanganyika in November 1903, soon taking residence on the southern part of the Pare Mountain ranges in the northeast among the Wapare people. They were soon followed to the region by Arthur Carscallen and Nyasaland native Peter Nyambo, both recently graduated from Newbold College in England, who settled in Kenya among the Luo people along the eastern shores of Lake Victoria in November 1906.

Mission Ship[]

Pitcairn as originally constructed.png

In 1890 the Adventist Church raised the money for a missionary ship, The Pitcairn, to be built to sail missionaries to the South Pacific. After six successful mission voyages in the 1890s, carrying missionaries to the Society Islands, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji.,[4] the ship was sold for commercial use and later lost in the Philippines in 1912.

Initiatives[]

Over the years the Protestant denomination has shown a commitment to mission which includes a worldwide humanitarian work, and international volunteer program, satellite television and shortwave radio blanketing the globe, an extensive publishing program, thousands of schools, a large network of hospitals and clinics, the Global Mission pioneer program, and hundreds of cross-cultural missionaries.

Current[]

Adventist Mission has a series of programs and initiatives to respond to current mission challenges. There has been an expansion into supporting holistic mission to the cities, including a rapidly growing number of urban Life Hope centers (centers of influence) that serve as a platform for putting Christ's method of ministry into practice and Global Mission's church planting programs.

Global Mission[]

Global Mission is the frontline mission arm of Adventist Mission, an office of the Seventh-day Adventist Church's world headquarters. The organization sends volunteer missionaries, typically for one or two years, to reach people in areas of the world where there are no Seventh-day Adventist members. Together Global Mission pioneers and cross-cultural Seventh-day Adventist missionaries are working to "Tell the World" about the love of Christ in some of the world's hardest-to-reach places.

Global Mission was voted at the 1990 General Conference Session as a special initiative to reach people in the so-called 10/40 Window with the gospel. Typically Global Mission pioneers work within their culture and language group. Unlike typical missionaries they already know the culture, and are thus more easily accepted by the community.

Urban Mission[]

In 2010, Adventist Mission started a comprehensive urban outreach program.[5] This was largely in response to one of Adventist Church's most prominent founders, Ellen G. White's advice more than 100 years ago that the church had “neglected” the cities. She recognized that there are certain classes of people “who cannot be reached by public meetings.” She championed holistic urban ministry centers, called Centers of Influence, which would connect the church to the community.

Today the rapidly growing urban areas of the world loom as their greatest mission challenge. In most parts of the world, Adventist churches, institutions, and services tend to be located outside cities instead of where the majority of people live.

Building Bridges[]

Global Mission centers develop methods and models to enable Adventists to understand and share with people from major religious and people groups more effectively. The six centers are:

  • Global Center for Adventist-Muslim Relations based in the United Kingdom
  • World Jewish-Adventist Friendship Center based in France
  • Center for East Asian Religions based in Thailand
  • Center for Secular and Postmodern Studies based in Brazil
  • Center for South Asian Religions based in Trinidad and Tobago
  • Global Mission Urban Center based in the United States

Past[]

Tell the World[]

In 2005 Adventist Mission took on promoting the Seventh-day Adventist Church's "Tell the World" initiative. This broad vision is the denominations mission objective through the year 2010. The ultimate goal of "Tell the World" is to provide every person on earth with the chance to know Jesus Christ.

Seven Key Goals:

  • Spiritual Growth
  • Community Involvement
  • Personal Witness
  • City Outreach
  • Church Planting
  • Evangelistic Programming
  • Media Ministry

Hope for Big Cities[]

Hope for Big Cities focuses on establishing Adventist congregations within the rapidly growing populations of the world's largest urban areas between 2005 and 2010. Special offerings that will provide seed money for new churches particularly in cities where the Adventist Church is struggling to gain a foothold. At least 25 cities around the world are expected to benefit from this program.[6]

One of these projects is in Abidjan, the commercial and administrative center of Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa. Local church members plan to start a three-phase evangelistic effort in an unentered part of the city. Fewer than 10,000 Adventists live in this nation of nearly 17 million people.

Another project will provide funding to send an evangelist to remote villages in an unnamed country where two years ago a number of Adventist teachers went to start small schools. In addition to teaching reading and writing, the teachers befriended families in the area and taught them about God. Local families were so impressed by the teachers that they asked for an evangelist to come and hold open meetings within their villages, so that the entire community can learn more about God.

Media[]

Adventist Mission produces a number of quarterly and yearly promotional material which is used in local congregations to inspire church members to support overseas missions with their personal resources. They include:

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Office of Adventist Mission
  2. ^ Adventist World Statistics
  3. ^ Adventist Mission Archived December 8, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Finau, Leuti & Langi 1992, p. 88.
  5. ^ "Life Hope Centers". am.adventistmission.org. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  6. ^ Adventist Mission Archived February 9, 2008, at the Wayback Machine

Sources[]

  • Finau, Makisi; Leuti, Teeruro; Langi, Jione (1992). Island Churches: Challenge and Change. University of the South Pacific - Institute of Pacific Studies. ISBN 978-982-02-0077-7. Retrieved 2015-01-25.
  • George R. Knight, The Fat Lady and the Kingdom (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press, 1995)

External links[]

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