April 6, 2007 Silver Spring, Maryland, United States …. [Laurie Falvo/Office of Adventist Mission/ANN]
2006 was a record-breaking year for the world Seventh-day Adventist Church's office of Global Mission with some U.S.$5.3 million distributed to more than 1,800 projects around the world according to year-end totals presented to the Adventist Mission Committee, April 2, at the church's headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. Combined with funds from local church organizations, the projects totaled $13,994,745 worldwide.
The Adventist Mission Committee has also already approved 292 projects for 2007, with Global Mission funding $928,954 of the $3,492,383 budget. Additional projects will be approved throughout the year.
“These projects wouldn't be possible without the generous support of our donors,” says Gary Krause, director of the Office of Adventist Mission.
Many projects involve sending Global Mission pioneers to places where there are no church members. Global Mission pioneers are laypeople who dedicate several years of their lives to establish new groups of believers in unentered areas. One of these projects, in Indonesia, is in an area of more than one million people with no church members.
“Last year, more than 50 percent of all Global Mission projects targeted an area known as the 10/40 Window,” says Krause. “We intend to keep that focus on this challenging part of the world.” The 10/40 Window, an area stretching from northern Africa into Asia, where two-thirds of the earth's population live, is home to many of the world's major religions. It also has the largest and fastest growing cities, some of poorest people, and the fewest Christians.
The Adventist church has traditionally grown best on islands and in rural areas leaving cities largely unreached so the committee also approved six Hope for Big Cities projects to establish congregations in England's greater London area. These allocations are part of the overall Hope for Big Cities initiative, which involves planting churches in some of the world's largest urban areas. The Adventist church has traditionally grown best on islands and in rural areas leaving cities largely unreached so
Global Mission, part of the Office of Adventist Mission, focuses specifically on planting churches in unentered areas or people groups. Homer Trecartin, planning director for the Office of Adventist Mission, reports that both world mission offerings and Global Mission offerings and donations increased in 2006. “It is our hope,” he says, “that we will be able to reach many more people for Christ in 2007.”
Copyright (c) 2007 by Adventist News Network.
