Rick McEdward, president of the Middle East and North Africa Union Mission (MENAUM) since 2016, was elected secretary of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists on July 6. Delegates to the sixty-second General Conference Session in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, voted to accept the Nominating Committee nomination of McEdward.
“As you can imagine, the last few hours have been challenging for me and my wife,” said McEdward after the delegates voted 1,630 to 153 to accept his nomination. “Please pray for us as we do our best for the Lord and His church.”
Lifelong Mission Experience
McEdward, 59, grew up in an Adventist family in Seattle, Washington, United States. But at the age of 12 he moved with his family to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where his father landed a job as an X-ray technician at a large military hospital. As far as the family knew, they were the only Adventists in the city.
“I remember stepping off the airplane as a 12-year-old boy and feeling the blasting heat of the Saudi air,” McEdward shared during an interview years ago.
McEdward recalled his time in Saudi Arabia as one of his greatest experiences and said it “set the tone for cross-cultural living for my whole life.” McEdward later lived on the Pacific island of Palau as a student missionary and, after his marriage, coordinated church planting in Sri Lanka and for the Adventist Church’s Southern Asia-Pacific Division from its headquarters in the Philippines.
He has also served as a pastor and, before joining the General Conference in 2011, as associate director of the Institute of World Mission at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Before being elected as president of the MENAUM, McEdward served as director of the Adventist world church’s Global Mission Centers for World Religions and associate director of the Office of Adventist Mission at the General Conference.
McEdward received his undergraduate degree from Walla Walla College (now Walla Walla University) in 1990 and his Master of Divinity degree from Andrews University in 1992. He completed a doctorate in missiology from Fuller Graduate School in 2013.
He is married to Marcia McEdward and they have two adult children, Julia and Joshua.
His Tenure as MENAUM President
As president of MENAUM, a church region based in Beirut, Lebanon, McEdward served in a region that is considered one of the most difficult places in the world to share the gospel. “The challenges are constant in the . . . region, where daily life is shaped by war, conflict, and resistance to our work,” he said in his report presented to the delegates of the GC Session on July 5. “Currently six of our countries are involved in ongoing warfare, and last year violence reached the doorstep of our union office.”
In 2018 McEdward oversaw the development of a media center for effective outreach to people of other faiths. This included developing a new strategy for reaching a discipling people who live in that restricted context.
During the past few months McEdward has been sharing a newsletter with an increasing number of stories and reports about “some of the most exciting of my time in the Middle East and North Africa Union Mission.” Despite the challenges related to religious freedom in some countries of a region, an increasing number of people are studying the Bible and accepting Christ and the Adventist message, he reported.
Among the good news he shared, McEdward reported that recently he was able to meet the first Seventh-day Adventists in “two of our hardest-to-reach nations.” He added, “The way God works is so amazing! I was able to see the work of the Holy Spirit bring new witnesses into the kingdom.”
McEdward also celebrated that he witnessed the launch of the first Seventh-day Adventist seminary in Arabic. “I was able to teach the first class of our brand-new Arabic Theological Seminary with 20 native Arabic speakers who are working for the Lord or who would like to be trained to be pastors,” he shared.
Another highlight has been meeting important national and international leaders. He recently reported on a meeting with government, religious, and business leaders from around the world. “During this meeting we were able to interact with leaders and gatekeepers in the Gulf Region,” McEdward wrote. “While these contacts do not create immediate impact, over time they will provide opportunities for our church.”
In his July 5 call McEdward invited Adventist members to “step into the impossible.” “When we think about the size of the task at hand, it certainly feels impossible, but when we remember that . . . God . . . is calling us, we can confidently obey His Great Commission,” he said. “Let us illuminate every dark corner of this world with Jesus.”