Nikolaus Satelmajer

While sometimes the reports at Annual Council seem to be routine and not the most exciting, we still receive a blessing when we listen to what is transpiring in God’s church around the world.

I suggest that those who plan for worship need to focus on defining worship and how to help those who are present to be enthusiastic participants.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church, in order to care for its worldwide mission, has 13 world administrative regions. Three of these regions—the Northern Asia–Pacific Division, the Southern Asia–Pacific Division, and the South Pacific Division—encompass the territories of the Pacific Rim. The editors of Ministry interviewed the leaders of these three regions—Jairyong Lee, Alberto Gulfan, and Barry Oliver, respectively—who addressed a wide range of issues.

When we are facing challenges, we must look for blessings, for if we don’t, those challenges will overtake us.

I’m inviting you to plan for a special worship service on October 24, 2009. The theme? Worshiping God as our Creator.

The focus of Hope Channel involves spreading the message of Jesus Christ, but it’s not the technology that’s important—it’s the message.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church for many decades has used technology as one way of carrying out its mission. Hope Channel is an important tool for pastors and congregations. During a recent interview with the editors, Hope Channel president Brad Thorp and vice president Gary Gibbs shared some of the latest developments of this television ministry.

Ministers of the gospel can learn from the spirited—almost evangelistic—defense of evolution by secularists.

Ministry provides an opportunity to experience and learn from diversity.

This ministry does more than just respond to disasters. ADRA is the Adventist Church’s clearest expression of its commitment to acts of justice, poverty reduction, and responding to human needs and human rights.

A church can appear to be successful without sound theology, but according to Scriptures, a truly healthy church must have a sound theology.

She was not a practicing Christian, and for her the Bible she now owned was a mysterious Book. Instead of risking potential problems, she decided to bury the Bible in her backyard.

How many people in your congregation read the Bible regularly? What about your denomination? You might be surprised at the low ratio. “Follow the Bible” is an initiative launched by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, but we believe that all denominations would benefit by designing their own programs to encourage greater reading of the Word of God.

Just as my daily list guides my daily activities, I find it helpful to make another list of important items. That list contains my study plans, reading goals, and relationships with individuals important in my life. This list also changes—items are added or deleted. December may be a good time of the year to review such a list. If you make a list, what would you include on it? How long would it be?

How do we deal with our past, present, and future?

We’ve devoted this issue to the work of the church in Inter-America and South America. These two organizational units represent some 45 countries that start south of the United States and go as far south as Chile.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church, in order to care for its worldwide mission, has 13 world administrative regions. Two of these regions, known as the Inter-American Division and South American Division, are among the fastest growing areas in the world. The editors interviewed the leaders from these divisions, Israel Leito and Erton Köhler, respectively, and spoke about a wide range of issues.

One of our hopes that we wanted to see fulfilled was conducting a contest for student writers—men and women who attend colleges, seminaries, and universities, who are studying for the ministry or in some other area of religious studies.

"Preaching each evening in an evangelistic meeting is spiritually exhilarating," states the speaker for the upcoming Discoveries '08 series. Such passion all preachers should possess.

Three outstanding ministers in the Adventist Church share their thoughts on various ministry-related themes.

Those of us who have been called to minister in God’s church are leaders. Whatever title has been attached to our role will not make us good, bad, or ineffective leaders.

What role does the legal team of the Adventist Church play in fulfilling the mission of the church?

In our discussions, we tend to focus on our personal likes and dislikes, and our opinions take on the role of authority. As important as these discussions may be, we tend to move away from the basic question of worship—who and what does worship involve?

Remember how you felt before you preached your first sermon? All kinds of thoughts raced through your mind—Did I study enough? Is the sermon properly organized? Will I have good eye contact with the congregation? Or will my eyes be glued to the notes? That’s how our team felt on March 31, 1998.

You might not think that an agency associated with insuring church properties is involved in sharing the gospel. But it is.

In a world in which millions do not have televisions, radio continues to be an indispensable method of sharing the love of God with others.

Millions of people—many in your area—have numerous needs. Because of war, disaster, and other crises, people experience great needs—shelter, food, clothing, health care, and lots of other necessities. What are we doing for those in need?

The editor of Ministry interviews Skip Bell and Mike Ryan, two men on a mission to produce servant leaders in the church.

The relationship between church and state has always been a complicated issue. In order to attain their goals, governments have, at times, turned to the church for assistance. On other occasions, the church has readily used the state for its purposes. But what happens when the goals of the state and the church are not compatible?

The first book that my parents bought me was an adventure story; the story of a young boy—a little older than I was—traveling from Germany to Africa.1 As I read the narrative, I imagined that I was on the way to Africa. After all, we lived in Hamburg, Germany, a major seaport. Each day I took the subway called U-Bahn to my school, and I envisioned that on that day I would not go to school, but I would get on one of the ships leaving the harbor. Africa—it sounded mysterious, inviting, and a place of adventure. In my mind I made that journey, but in actuality I did not make it to Africa until four decades later.

Church leaders and academicians from Africa ponder the present and future of ministry on their continent.

Whatever your role—pastor, chaplain, church administrator, evangelist, or teacher—ministry always has challenges, real and, at times, overwhelming. But such challenges are accompanied with their own rhythm of hope and enthusiasm.

A revealing and reassuring look at the financial operations of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Unfortunately the cross has been used for purposes other than to announce Jesus’ triumph over evil powers. Some centuries after the New Testament era, the cross was used by armies, with the hope that their political mission would be blessed by its presence. No longer was it a symbol of conquering evil; rather, it was used with the hope that its presence would conquer human enemies.

From the earliest days the Christian church has focused on growth. The book of Acts takes us on a breathtaking journey—following Paul and others as they shared the message of Jesus Christ. More recently, after a few years of ambivalence following the disappointment of 1844, Adventists embarked on gospel-proclaiming journeys. James and Ellen White, Joseph Bates, J. N. Andrews, and others proclaimed the message.

The ministry of the General Conference secretariat does far more than keep the official minutes of various committees. Their work changes lives.

Others do not know much of what we do. It’s not so much that we want to keep it a secret—although there are issues that we must keep confidential. However, many things that we do are not done in the public arena.

The work of pastors is complex. They are expected to preach, teach, evangelize, lead, visit, train, etc. Thus, they have a multitude of responsibilities. And unlike ministers (administrators, specialists, professors, etc.) who visit various congregations, pastors live with their congregations. Once the visiting minister leaves, the congregational pastor stays with the church. The responsibilities can be overwhelming— goals, budget issues, training, conflicts, expectations, family, and so forth.

What kind of authority do clergy possess?

We often start a new year with many goals. We may have promised that the things we did not accomplish in the previous year, we will do in the next year. Somehow it just seems a good time to make a list of goals as we anticipate a fresh start.

What does God see in this “garden of ministers?”

One of the prominent gifts listed in the Bible can be identified as the gift of teaching. But yet they often don't get the appreciation they deserve.

An Adventist theologian shares his reflections on the Scriptures, life, and several decades of distinguished training of thousands of ministers.

A look into the ministry of the BRI for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

How does a church with nearly 15 million adult members living in more than 200 countries and using hundreds of languages do its theology? The members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church must ask themselves this question and respond to it until the Lord Jesus Christ returns.

In some parts of the world the church has few young people, while in other parts they form the majority of the congregation. Whatever their numbers, the church has a responsibility to minister to them.

Whenever we preach or teach the Word of God, we invite each hearer to become a new person.

Sometimes ministers of the gospel need to give their voice to others, for otherwise some people will never be heard—they will never have a voice.

The Old and the New Testaments belong together as inseparable partners. We look at one and it reminds us of the other, and the more we study them, the more we realize how much they complement each other.

If markers and reference points are so vital in mundane aspects of life, how much more in those areas that affect our eternal destiny.

When Ministry made its debut in 1928 as an international journal for pastors, it was meant primarily to serve Seventh-day Adventist pastors worldwide. In that role, the journal served well until 1975 when the publishers, the Ministerial Association of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, decided to launch out into new frontiers.

Ministers work with people but cannot avoid numbers, either. How many members do you have in your church? How many come to worship? How many new members joined your church? Did your church reach the budget? What is your baptismal goal for next year? Numbers, numbers, and more numbers. They are all around us and just won’t go away.

Going beyond—often that is expected from ministers. More importantly, however, do we want to go beyond the minimal, the norm, the average or the expected?

One of the high priorities of the church continues to be unity. The other has to do with mission.

The last month of the year may be a good time to take inventory, not of the furniture, hymn books, computers and other items, but a different type of inventory an evaluation of what is important in our lives.

Documents may define a relationship but do not assure a good one.

I was almost 13 when I first went into a church building to worship. Up to that point, I had met only with small worship groups in homes. On that Sabbath, however, not only did I go into a church building for the first time, I experienced another “first” as well: I met a trained pastor.

A proposal suggesting consistent ways of dealing with pastoral sexual misconduct