September 2, 2011 – Miami, Florida, United States….Libna Stevens/IAD
Seventh-day Adventist Churches throughout Inter-America will officially begin recruiting thousands of its members to become part of a select group of one million active disciples on Sep. 3, 2011. The initiative, coined as Vision One Million, is one of the most ambitious orchestrated recruiting activities ever organized and is part of the church’s five-year plan for all 21 church regions comprising the Inter-American Division (IAD).
“The main purpose for this initiative is to prepare people for the kingdom by recruiting, training and challenging, one million members on three specific steps ,” says Pastor Balvin Braham, associate director of the ministerial association of the IAD and creator of Vision One Million. According to Braham, essentially it’s recruiting members who want to be committed to living a spiritually renewed life, fostering functional relationships with whomever they come in contact with and addressing specific needs within the church and in the community.”
It’s a phase that will take several years of orchestrated efforts to accomplish but one that top church leaders of the IAD agreed to implement throughout the territory during its executive committee meetings earlier this year in May.
“This initial part of the vision is to focus on the individual to aspire to attain a spiritual renewed lifestyle in Christ,” emphasizes Braham. The plan goes hand in hand with the IAD’s ongoing spiritual revival and reformation initiative began this year in motivating members to nurture a prayerful life and study the Bible daily.
According to the plan, recruiting the one million will involve registering members who will commit to 12 aspirations for enriching their spiritual life like utilizing their gifts and talents, submitting to the guidance of the Holy Spirit daily, engaging in spiritual revival, sharing their faith with non-believers, and more.
Once the one million members are registered during the coming weeks and months, training will take place at the local church level and each year’s plan starting in 2012 will focus on a number of activities to aid in evangelism outreach.
Already, many church regions in the IAD territory began sharing the program with pastors and church elders on targeting willing and committed members ready to be part of the select group, says Braham.
The church in the Dominican Republic has begun planning on reaching 80,000 of its members to become part of the initiative, says Braham. In the Venezuela Antilles region, the church also began recruiting part of its 45,000 members it wants to target. Guatemala has committed to 60,000, Puerto Rico has committed to seeking out 10,000 and throughout Mexico, the church plans to recruit some 200,000 active members.
Recruiting the one million will not be a challenge, believes Braham. “We know that we have an active church already involved in spiritual revival,” he adds. “Our unions are basically planning to recruit at least 30% of their membership as part of the core catalyst group for the Vision One Million initiative.”
The initiative will be enhanced as each of the church’s ministries and departments begin to link their own activities and programs in the training process to equip members with a balanced lifestyle ready to be witnesses to a surrounding community in need of a Savior, according to Braham.
Leaders are expecting that the coming six months will secure the select one million members to be committed and actively seeking their neighbors and friends with the gospel. Plans are underway for one million visitors to be brought into Seventh-day Adventist Churches across Inter-America on March 24, 2012.
“It’s about living the gospel as a lifestyle, it’s about a spiritual revival and reformation, it’s about more than just numbers, a vision to recruit, train and challenge believers,” says Pastor Braham.
For more information and resources on Inter-America’s Vision One Million initiative, go to http://visiononemillion.org
