Inter America Concludes Its 2004 Mid-Year Meetings

Miami, Florida, United States…[Libna Stevens/IAD]

The Executive Committee of the Inter-American Division (IAD) held it’s Mid-year plenary Meetings May 17-19, one of two annual sessions conducted by the leadership of the church in the territory.

The opening session of the meetings, which were streamed live on the internet, included guest speaker for the week Pastor George W. Brown, former IAD president and live interviews were conducted by telephone with lay persons in each Union, who gave their impressions of the impact the church is making in their respective territories. Other reports included membership growth presentations and projections from the union fields, by the secretary Juan Perla and the treasurer’s report indicating the financial health of the Division. A very important document entitled “Procedures for the Resolution of Organizational/Inter-Organizational Crises in IAD,” as well as distribution of delegates for the 2005 General Conference Session and policy amendments, were among the items voted.

Other highlights of the meetings that were discussed and voted included:

Policies and amendments were voted for a new IAD Publishing Ministry structure to oversee the territory’s publishing houses, colporteurs and publishing teachers. New policies were voted for the Adventist Mexican Editorial Group (Grupo Editorial Mexicano Adventista or GEMA), the publishing house in Mexico which will serve only the membership in Mexico. The IAD Publishing Association (IADPA), based in Miami, will continue to serve the rest of the territory in the Inter-American Division, under the leadership of its new President Pablo Perla. Both publishing houses will function with separate boards in consultation with the IAD Publishing Ministry. The newly elected IAD Publishing Ministry director is Mirto Presentación, formerly executive vice president for IADPA, along with newly voted Associate Director Isai Villarreal, former Training director for the Publishing Ministries.

IAD’s Missionary Magazine, “The Sentinel”, will now be known as “Priorities for Today.” The newly revised magazine will include new sections and more pages, and will publish its first issue January 2005.

The Strategic Planning Committee presented a report on the progress of the churches in IAD which are involved in strategic planning. These churches rely heavily on church members involvement in church growth and the various ministries. As a result, church membership has increased disproportionately to the number of available pastors. The union leadership identified churches with 200 members or more, to intentionally implement a strategic plan catering to the needs of each church. Prepared presentations and information will be available to involve active members of these congregations.

A brief report was presented on the progress of the upcoming satellite evangelism series to take place in Trinidad on October 15-30. The theme of the series is “Live the Life”. The chosen speakers will be lay preachers from the 15 unions covering the Division territory. The IAD is offering 10 free satellite receivers with each order or 10 or more placed by the Union.

Results of the first Adventist Family Survey were completed and presented by a team of professors from Loma Linda University. Approval was given by the committee to develop a consistent program of Family Life education in each local church. It was also decided to expand the Family Life Education Syllabus to include other areas identified in the survey, and to empower pastors in each conference and mission to address family issues in their own families and families of the church. It was voted to implement training programs to empower more lay persons to counsel fellow members in their own churches, and to implement Family Life Courses in the curriculum of graduate and undergraduate ministerial students.

The Inter-American Division’’s next annual executive committee meeting will be held in Trinidad, October 26-29, 2004.

For more information on above items, go to www.interamerica.org.