In El Salvador, church celebrates training of members in auditing of membership books
More than 1,700 church secretarial leaders and members from 708 churches in El Salvador hold colored balloons identifying their region, gathered during a special festival to celebrate the strides achieved in membership auditing at the Centro Internacional de Ferias y Convenciones in San Salvador, El Salvador, April 19, 2015. Images by Fabricio Rivera/IAD
May 8, 2015 | San Salvador, El Salvador | Fabricio Rivera/IAD
The Seventh-day Adventist Church in El Salvador recently celebrated the training success of hundreds of its leaders and members who have been auditing the church books across hundreds of local churches in the country.
Pastor Victor Burgos, executive secretary of the church in El Salvador, thanks the work of conference and mission leaders for overseeing membership audits in their fields during the past two and a half years.
More than 1,700 secretarial team members from all 708 churches gathered at the Centro Internacional de Ferias y Convenciones in San Salvador to participate in a special festival highlighting the many strides achieved in membership auditing in every church region. The event also provided additional training during the second stage implementation of the Adventist Church Management System (ACMS)—the church’s official platform software to manage local church membership.
“This celebration was important because it strengthened the commitment of the secretarial teams, celebrated the challenges which were overcome through the process and provided confirmation of the overall plan in place to put our membership books in order,” said Pastor Victor Burgos, executive secretary of the church in El Salvador, overseeing membership audits.
Burgos, who has been overseeing the work of the church’s three conferences and two mission offices said the training began in 2013. Plans are underway to further train the organized teams at each local church and complete implementation by September.
IAD Associate Secretary Pastor Pedro Iglesias encourages secretarial teams to continue their commitment to keeping church books clean and in order.
Churches send their membership reports on paper to their respective local conference or mission office where these are manually inserted into the ACMS software program, then the information is sent to the secretary’s office at the union level.
“The ACMS is now fully operational in our conference and mission offices and soon we will have all of our churches operating the system fully,” said Burgos. Each local church has a team composed of the pastor, the church secretary and a technical support person to make sure the program runs accurately, added Burgos.
Pastor Pedro Iglesias, associate secretary for the church in Inter-America, congratulated church leaders and members for taking the initiative to form teams in each local church and encouraged them to continue their faithful work in ensuring that the books are kept clean and accurate at every level through the ACMS program.
“It was so wonderful to see how excited all the members were and how the church is recruiting technically savvy young people to assist their church voluntarily through this important work,” said Iglesias.
With the cleaning of the books in the new system at this first stage, figures show that membership dropped to 198,629. That means there are 46,939 less members on the books since 2011, according to Burgos. In 2011, membership was 210,273. Baptism figures from 2011 to March of 2015 were 35,295, which would bring to 245,568.
Pastor Iglesias said 70 percent of Inter-America’s 24 church regions are undergoing major auditing with the ACMS program, so it is not unusual. Drops in members who are deceased, membership duplications in different regions, and unaccounted for members have in turn been reflected in the total membership of Inter-America which currently stands at 3.67 million – including the one million added during the last five years when membership stood at 3.4 million.
Delegation from the Santa Ana district in the west conference in El Salvador march in celebration of their achievements in implementing training in their region.
More cleaning of the books will take place across each local church, said Pastor Burgos. In the meantime teams celebrated working towards excellence in membership audits in the country. Team members were awarded plaques and pins for their commitment to the program.
President of the Church in El Salvador Pastor Abel Pacheco said he was thankful that the books are much more in order now.
“We had never visualized having our membership so clean, clear and in order as we have it today, and we are so thankful to God for this accomplishment and the commitment of all of our local field secretary leaders and their teams,” said Pacheco. “Getting to this point lets me know that our union is committed to having their books clean and so we are dedicating resources and time to continue facilitating that.”
To learn more about the church in El Salvador, visit unionelsalvador
To view photos of the celebration, click HERE