October 14, 2004 Silver Spring, Maryland, United States …. [Mark A. Kellner/ANN]
The Administrative Committee of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (ADCOM), will establish a process to consider issues and questions surrounding the nomination and election of world church leaders and department heads, delegates to the church’s Annual Council voted on Oct. 14.
The move follows a report from an ad hoc committee, established this week after an earlier session voted to examine the matter. The ad hoc panel’s suggestions were presented to the executive committee meeting on the last day of its annual session.
“There are large questions here that can’t be addressed simply in the course of one discussion of our time together,” said Lowell Cooper, a general vice president of the world church, who brought the matter to Annual Council. He then offered the motion.
Two concepts that will be studied do not require amending the Constitution and Bylaws of the world church. One would task “an existing office or group of individuals” with the responsibility of preparing job descriptions of each position to be filled; a curriculum vitae for incumbents and divisional counterparts; a performance evaluation for incumbents; and to make this information available to the Nominating Committee during a world session. That committee would not be limited to just that pool of candidates, however.
The second proposal would be for the Executive Committee of the world church to appoint an “exploratory committee” at the last Annual Council before a world session, which would receive suggestions of nominees for offices other than that of world church president. A similar amount of information on these candidates would also be compiled.
The ad hoc committee’s suggestions also said that any move to limit the number of positions voted at a world session would require a constitutional change. The panel also said other ideas “deserve careful reflection,” including: whether a nominating committee should be appointed and charged with completing some of its work before a world session; whether a nomination for world church president, or for president, secretary and treasurer, “could be accomplished at some point prior” to a world session; and whether a search committee would be preferable to a nominating committee process to identify potential leadership position candidates.
While those questions remain to be discussed, those at the Annual Council were pleased that the church was examining the issue. Donald G. King, president of the church’s Atlantic region in North America, said “these are not horse and buggy days,” and that the ad hoc suggestions were “a bold attempt to review and improve” the nominating process.
Pastor Jan Paulsen, world church president, assured Annual Council delegates that nothing would be brought before the world session without it going to the executive committee first.
Copyright © 2004 by Adventist News Network.
