October 12, 2026 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | Marcos Paseggi, Adventist Review

“Do we still take world mission seriously? When will our mission be complete?”

These pointed questions posed by General Conference secretary Rick McEdward opened a two-hour Secretariat Report during the Annual Council of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, October 11.

McEdward reminded GC EXCOM members that we have the privilege of joining God in His mission of restoring hope and joy to this world. It is the reason everything church leaders do should serve to challenge, inspire, enable, and support the mission of the church. “This is why Mission Refocus [an initiative to assess and redeploy mission resources globally] is so important,” McEdward explained. “It is our response to the divine calling to frontline mission.”

Rick McEdward, General Conference secretary, introduces the Secretariat Report during Annual Council 2026 in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, October 11. [Photo: Tor Tjeransen/Adventist Media Exchange (CC BY 4.0)]

How to Achieve It

A key to keeping mission relevant today is refocusing on specific “windows”—the world’s most challenging mission territories, where the church needs to be actively engaged. These territories include the 10/40 window, where most of the world population lives but where Christianity is a small minority; the urban window, the most populous cities in the world; and the post-Christian and secular window, mostly in Western Europe.

Reaching these populations requires some changes, including reorganizing the missionary-sending process. The Mission Refocus initiative aims to streamline that process and direct more resources to the places they are most needed. As McEdward put it, this means “actively moving budgets to the front line of mission.”

“We are improving our process of recruiting, sending, and processing new missionaries, making it more efficient,” McEdward reported.  “In addition, we are involved in training, coaching, and caring—with the primary goal to establish new congregations.”

Beyond the scores of figures, percentages, and ratios, real-life stories convey part of the richness of the Adventist missionary experience around the world. McEdward and his team’s report combined statistics and growing trends with firsthand experiences and the implications for a growing mission-focused movement.

Hensley Moorooven, undersecretary of the General Conference, poses with a copy of Mission Refocus, the Secretariat’s strategic plan. [Photo: Tor Tjeransen/Adventist Media Exchange (CC BY 4.0)]

Prepared for Mission and Each Other

Leaders shared, among several testimonies, the story of two young people who grew up thousands of miles apart. “The Lord was preparing them for mission and for each other before they knew it,” Elbert Kuhn, director of Adventist Volunteer Service (AVS), shared during a brief presentation. One of those two was a young Korean woman who was not even a Christian when she began to attend an Adventist university. “There she met Jesus and discovered one of the 300 mission schools for volunteers,” Kuhn shared. She was eventually baptized.

She then learned of a teaching opportunity at a school for Syrian refugees in Beirut, Lebanon. The young woman applied to serve and was accepted.

Thousands of miles from Korea, in the United States, a young man felt he was being called to mission service. That calling led him to study theology at Middle East University, Kuhn shared. “In Lebanon these two stories became one,” he said. “They met on a mission [project], they served, they fell in love, and they [got] married.” Now they are getting ready to be sent as long-term missionaries to an undisclosed country, Kuhn reported.

“This is more than a beautiful story,” Kuhn said. “It is a picture of what Mission Refocus really is.” He added, “Mission is not something we do in isolation. It is an ecosystem.”

“Mission is not something we do in isolation. It is an ecosystem,” said Elbert Kuhn, director of Adventist Volunteer Service, during the Secretariat Report October 11. [Photo: Tor Tjeransen/Adventist Media Exchange (CC BY 4.0)]

Connection With OneVoice27

Mission Refocus efforts are connected to OneVoice27, an initiative that seeks to share Jesus as never before through social media and other activities in 2027 and beyond, McEdward said. According to him, those two initiatives are not two separate mission programs but only one, focused on sharing Jesus. It is expected that Secretariat and Adventist Mission will increase their presence as liaisons to the initiative, McEdward said.

Every part of Secretariat will be involved. This includes Global Mission, which will dedicate US$5.4 million to 110 unentered cities and $540,000 for digital ministry in the 10/40 and post-Christian windows. Adventist Mission has been working with divisions around the world to select cities for emphasis. From Bangkok, Jakarta, and Karachi to Munich, Paris, and London, Adventist Mission is working with church regions to bridge the gap between digital ministry and church planting, McEdward reported.

Global Mission Centers will be the strategists and coaches of these efforts, and International Personnel Resources and Services (IPRS) will send missionary families to many of those cities “to bridge digital ministry with in-person follow-up.”

McEdward also explained how the Institute of World Mission will continue training and mentoring people to serve cross-culturally, while VividFaith will post calls to serve as part of OneVoice27, and Adventist Volunteer Service will equip young people as digital pioneers. Secretariat teams are working to develop an interest tracker and identify ways to support disciple-making and the reclamation of former members.

“As you can see, every aspect of Secretariat is integrated for mission,” McEdward said. “And the best way to get involved in Mission Refocus is to start by your personal involvement in OneVoice27.”

Gary Krause, director of Adventist Mission, discusses the three “windows” of special mission emphasis, including the 10/40 window, where Christians are a small minority. [Photo: Tor Tjeransen/Adventist Media Exchange (CC BY 4.0)]

Sending More Missionaries

In the last part of his report, McEdward reminded GC EXCOM members that currently the Adventist Church is sending one missionary per 45,000 members globally. “I think we can do better,” he said. “Imagine if every union, conference, mission, institution . . . every local church were engaged in missionary focus. Is it unrealistic to have one missionary for every 10,000 members in the world?” He added, “What about one missionary per 5,000 members in the world church? If so, we would have 4,800 full-time cross-cultural missionaries. And I cannot hide that I pray for more.”

McEdward invited some pioneers to share some stories of how, in his opinion, God has been working and opening doors in previously unentered areas. They included a testimony by Delmar Reis, president of the Albanian Mission. While the country, closed to the Christian faith for decades, is extremely secular, perspectives have changed as the Adventist Church prays and makes efforts to connect with its citizens.

Two Stories, One Example

Reis shared the story of Era, a woman who met an Adventist missionary family 25 years ago. Recently, after praying to be reconnected with God, she met a group of Adventist volunteers and discovered there was an Adventist church in Tirana. She began to attend church, received Bible studies, and was baptized on September 5. “As it says in Acts 18:10, the Lord reminded me [that He still has] many people in the city,” Reis said.

Another story came from North Carolina, United States, where Sergio Quevedo, a former local church pastor in Charlotte, shared how his congregation chose to look beyond its own community and become a “sending church” for missionaries. Quevedo reached out to Reis to explore how the congregation could support the fledgling Adventist work in Albania.

Leaders of the Institute of World Mission, which trains missionaries to be deployed across cultures or returning from service, pose for a group photo during the October 11 report. [Photo: Tor Tjeransen/Adventist Media Exchange (CC BY 4.0)]

“As I was thinking of how to raise the funds to send missionaries, I got a call from one of my elders informing me that the church air-conditioning units were [not functioning], and that we needed $100,000 to replace them,” Quevedo shared.

Quevedo went to the board and told them that despite their ordeal, now they had an opportunity to support a center of influence in Albania. “Let’s take care of God’s mission,” he told the church board, “and God will take care of business here.”

The church members agreed to move forward, but as the time to replace the air-conditioning units approached, they still didn’t have the money and didn’t want to take funds away from the mission in Albania.

A few months later they were surprised to learn that some members had received refunds for insurance claims and poor house repairs totaling $50,000, and they were donating it to the church. When air-conditioning technicians assessed the problem, they found that only one unit needed replacing; the other could be repaired and last another five years. The cost? $50,000. “If we focus on God’s mission, He takes care of our needs,” Quevedo said.

Now the challenge is for every church region and institution to replicate this model, partnering to increase the number of missionaries around the world, McEdward said. He asked, “Can we go to new areas, no matter the challenges? Can we display the love of God to new areas of the world? Can we shine brighter as a church so that salvation will be known to the ends of the earth?”