Dear Mid-America Family,
It is hard to believe the General Conference Session has already come and gone. This year’s session was monumental in a number of ways. I will mention a few.
First, you cannot overemphasize the joy and excitement of being in one place with people from over 200 countries in the world. It is a rich experience! The diversity of our church now is truly something to behold. We as a church have taken seriously the call to go to every tribe and nation.
It is also amazing to see how Adventists from around the globe work together to create policies to help bolster mission, refine our Church Manual to help guide our congregations in their journey, and elect leadership for the coming quinquennium.
Much of my time in St. Louis was spent sequestered as part of the nominating committee. Our task was to prayerfully and thoughtfully select names to bring to the floor to be voted on by the body of delegates. We brought nominations for GC officers and vice presidents, along with department leaders and associates, as well as nominations to populate many committees needed to do the work at the General Conference.
How GC NomCom works
To give you an idea of how the nominating committee works, I will describe my experience as part of this committee. There were 277 people on the nominating committee from all around the world. Only 21 of them were representatives from the North American Division. MAUC had two representatives on the committee: myself and Charo Felix from the Iowa-Missouri Conference (who did an excellent job for all of us).
For me, what I care about the most is that I cannot detect anyone trying to control the room or manipulate an outcome. I want us to have a group of people whose hearts and minds are open to how the Lord is leading. And I felt from the very beginning we had that kind of committee.
The first thing that takes place on the nominating committee is that the incumbent GC president helps the committee select a chair and a secretary from among its members. Then he leaves the room and the committee proceeds with its work. This year Dr. John Wessley Taylor, president of Andrews University, was selected to be the chair and Magdiel Perez Shultz was selected as secretary.
Our first task was to bring a nomination for president. After three hours of prayer and discussion of multiple names, the committee voted to bring Elder Erton Köhler, incumbent GC secretary, as our candidate for president. Despite the desire within the nominating committee and among the delegates for a change in leadership, much respect and gratitude were shown for Elder Ted Wilson’s 15 years of service as our president.
After Dr. Köhler was elected, he joined the nominating committee as a guest to offer his insights on various positions we had to fill. He was a delight to work with and many excellent leaders were voted into office for the coming five years.
Worship and prayer
Worshiping together as a world church is truly a monumental experience. Approximately 40,000 people filled the dome on Sabbath morning, July 12. The congregational singing, the prayers, the special music selections—and of course, the sermon by our new president—were the highlights.
In Elder KKöhler’s sermon to the world church, he touched many hearts by the words he shared. A few of his thoughts that meant much to me were: “Our message is based on hope and security, not anxiety and fear…A hopeless world is in desperate need of a hopeful church…The church must be ready to meet the needs of the 21st century…We can adjust our methods but never change our Bible-based message…I count on your prayers, your support, and your kindness…Let us move forward together.”
My encouragement to each of us is to pray for and kindly support our new president, as he has asked. God has remarkable things in store for us as we move forward together!
