Ministerial

August 30, 2016

Fast Facts

In the Northwest, there are about 14 million people and 100,014 Seventh-day Adventists, a ratio of 1:140.

There are 319 pastors in the North Pacific Union Conference (NPUC) to assist members in carrying out their mission.

The Northwest, considered to be the most secular area in the U.S., offers the greatest opportunity for reaching people with the gospel.

Mission

The NPUC ministerial department is committed to supporting our local conferences to take the Adventist message to everyone living in the Northwest and beyond.

Summary

The NPUC believes in the priesthood of all the believers and that the core of the Adventist mission is at each local church. The ministerial department exists to encourage and support the local conferences and members in advancing the Adventist mission throughout the Northwest. In addition to the hundreds of pastors and lay members who are actively doing evangelism, the NPUC supports the conferences in the Northwest by employing two evangelistic teams: Brian and Heidi McMahon and Jason and Misty Morgan.

What's Been Accomplished

ONGOING TRAINING — The ministerial department has created weekend training to help members develop soul-winning skills.

GLOBAL MISSION — Organized annual mission opportunities in diverse places such as the Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Peru, Costa Rica and the Philippines.

LOCAL EVANGELISM — NPUC evangelists have assisted with more than 50 major reaping meetings in response to conference requests.

SOUL WINNING — More than 1,500 evangelistic meetings have been conducted by pastors as well as lay leaders in the past five years.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT — One of five unions that offer the Andrews University Master of Arts in pastoral ministry program in both English and Spanish. In addition, the Ministerial Network Retreat provides training, resources and inspiration to ministerial directors, associates, personal ministries directors and evangelists.

The Challenges Ahead

CONFERENCE PARTNERSHIPS — Our conferences' ministerial departments need to continue working together, sharing resources, dialoguing and creating pathways to do ministry more effectively in the 21st century.

SOCIAL MEDIA — Our pastors need to learn to use social media for communicating ideas, programs, visions and a sense of mission in a culturally relevant manner in and out of the parish setting.

SHEPHERDS — Our pastors need to be encouraged to return to "being shepherds" and not merely "second-service preachers."

THE UNCHURCHED — We must find creative ways to reach the unchurched. We have in our backyard the city with the most unchurched people per capita in the United States — Portland, Oregon.