Seventh-day Adventist Church world headquarters
May 6, 2008
In This Issue:
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ADRA to assist Myanmar cyclone survivors
Basic supplies, medicine part of emergency response
May 6 Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
New Adventist Chaplaincy director plans more training, recruiting
Ministry to hospitals, universities and armed services a growing field, Councell says
May 6 Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
Can you text me now?
Adventist Church in the Philippines to 'Tell God's Love' through cell phones
May 2 Manila, Philippines
No pulpit, no problem: New Adventist lay training center wants 'spiritual entrepreneurs'
Center offers free training, online resources for personal evangelism
May 6 Orlando, Florida, United States
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ADRA to assist Myanmar cyclone survivors
May 6, 2008
Silver Spring, Maryland, United States ... [ Nadia McGill/ADRA/ANN Staff ]
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The Adventist Development and Relief Agency is joining other aid organizations in responding to survivors of Tropical Cyclone Nargis, a 10-hour storm that killed an estimated 15,000 people and left nearly 3,000 unaccounted for when it slammed Myanmar last weekend, the Foreign Ministry said.
ADRA is expected to provide food, water, medical supplies, shelter and clothing for hundreds of thousands of displaced people. In some villages, officials estimate the 130-mph cyclone decimated 95 percent of the homes. Five regions of the Southeast Asian nation remain in a state of emergency, while crews begin tackling downed trees and other debris.
Foreign Ministry officials welcomed international aid yesterday and requested roofing materials, temporary tents, water purifying tablets, blankets and mosquito nets. ADRA emergency response personnel based in Yangon, which sustained a direct hit, are evaluating widespread damage and will focus their relief efforts on the most urgent needs.
ADRA officials said their relief efforts would likely expand in the coming weeks. Additional information about ADRA can be found at
www.adra.org.New Adventist Chaplaincy director plans more training, recruiting
May 6, 2008
Silver Spring, Maryland, United States ... [ Taashi Rowe/ANN ]
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Chaplain Gary Councell is the new director of Adventist Chaplaincy Ministries. He says chaplains build credibility for the church by nurturing relationships with people who have never heard of Adventists. [Photo:Rajmund Dabrowski/ANN]
On the surface not much has changed for Colonel Gary Councell since he became director of Adventist Chaplaincy Ministries on May 1.
The retired Army chaplain still gets up at 4 a.m. to get to the office between 5:15 a.m. and 6 a.m. His department still endorses Adventists serving as chaplains in hospitals, on public university campuses and in the armed services. He still works on getting Sabbath accommodations for Adventists in the armed services and he still has the same office that he had when he became associate director for the department two years ago.
After spending more than 30 years in active duty, Councell started work at the Seventh-day Adventist world church's headquarters in 2005, literally the next day after retiring from the United States Army.
Life turned out differently than planned for the kid from Ohio who was once set on becoming a U.S. Park Ranger. With aunts and uncles who served in the Second World War and the Korean War it was almost inevitable that Councell would end up in the Army. Only he had a different purpose.
Councell, 64, says he became a chaplain to provide the kind of support to soldiers his own father didn't have when he was drafted during World War II, two weeks after becoming an Adventist.
"Back then there were no Adventist chaplains to help our members who served. My own father had all kinds of problems, from Sabbath-keeping to diet to not wanting to carry weapons, and he had no one to assist him standing for his convictions," he says.
Now Councell oversees a department that endorses 350 Adventist chaplains in the U.S. and consults with ACM departments in many countries on keeping current the endorsements of the some 300 Adventist chaplains globally.
So instead of kicking back and enjoying mountaineering, bicycling, camping, reading, playing the trumpet and visiting Civil War Memorial battlefields, Councell says "a love for our people -- our church members" brings him into the office each day.
He also adds that he is motivated by "a sense of vision about the direction I want to take the department."
He says plans include recruiting more prison chaplains, appointing a full time coordinator for public campuses, establishing fully independent chaplaincy training programs in more regions of the world church and helping more seminary graduates realize that "chaplaincy is a viable expression of ministry just as vital as the pastor/evangelist."
Councell is especially passionate about the last point.
"With more seminary graduates than churches to minister in we have a lot of graduates who are not getting employed by the denomination," he says. "They need to understand that chaplains are called to ministry just as pastors are."
The message must be getting across because Councell says he gets more calls from ministers wanting to be chaplains than about any other issue.
Before coming to the Adventist church's world headquarters, the grandfather of five worked at the Pentagon as director of information, resource management, facilities and logistics in the office of the Chief of Chaplains. He previously served as the senior chaplain for all the military chaplains around the Pacific Rim.
Councell was also the second Adventist to earn the rank of colonel, an accomplishment that only eight out of 100 army chaplains ever make.
Still, he says it would be nice if more churches gave the chaplaincy a little more respect.
"We tend to look at end results only: numbers of people baptized. But chaplains plant seeds and then nurture them. We are building credibility for the church and making contacts with people who have never heard about Adventists," he says.
Outside of the office, Councell continues to minister whenever he can by volunteering as an interim pastor to local churches and as a substitute preacher to other churches on some Sabbaths -- a carryover from his chaplain career.
He says even though he works for the church he sees this as his form of personal ministry.
With this kind of commitment to the church it makes sense that recently retired ACM director Chaplain Martin Feldbush says, "I purposely recommended Gary. We come from different backgrounds but we share philosophical goals for the department. I trust his judgment."
And William Broome, an Adventist Chaplain at the Pentagon who has known Councell for 25 years, did not hesitate when asked if Councell was the right man for the job.
"Gary understand how chaplains work and as a faithful man of God he understand what chaplains need," Broome says.
Can you text me now?
May 2, 2008
Manila, Philippines ... [ Taashi Rowe/ANN ]
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Some 14,000 SIM cards created exclusively for Adventist cell phone users in the Philippines will go out starting May 22. Some of the features of the card include allowing users to send inspirational messages, Bible verses and prayer requests. [Photo:Jonathan Catolico/ANN]
The text capital of the world will soon have the option of a distinctly Adventist tone.
Members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Philippines are teaming up with Globe Telecom, Inc., a major telecommunications provider in the Philippines, to create a cell phone chip or SIM card unique to Adventists.
A SIM or Subscriber Identity Module is used to connect a mobile phone to the subscriber's selected network and reload air time. SIM cards are used in cellular devices as a removable card/chip that stores the personal identity information, mobile number, phone book, text messages and other data.
Jonathan Catolico, communication director for the Adventist Church in the Southern-Asia Pacific region, is hoping the card will be used by some 250,000 Adventists, or about a quarter of the church's membership in the Philippines.
Part of a church project called "Committed to Tell God's Love," Advent SIM card users can minister to others by using the unique features of the card: Bible verses, daily prayer, prayer requests, Bible trivia, news, a directory of Adventist churches in metropolitan cities and towns and abbreviated versions of the church's core doctrines.
"If one church member sends an inspirational message already incorporated in the SIM card to someone he wishes to inspire, he or she is already actively involved with the soul-winning program of the church," Catolico says.
A percentage of each text message charge will also be donated to special church projects.
Rodolfo Bautista Jr., a part-time professor of Bible and History at the Manila Adventist Medical Center and Colleges helped spearhead the project. He says the Advent SIM will be a useful tool to reach a generation hooked on sending short cell phone messages to their friends.
"A young person can have at least 300 persons in his phonebook who are not Adventist so the card makes it easy for them to do personal evangelism," Bautista says.
In 2002, the Adventist Church in the Philippines started a "mobile ministry," a simple procedure of sending inspiration messages to any mobile phone subscriber, Catolico explains.
But the project went into high gear in 2007 when Bautista heard that Globe had already created community specific SIM cards for six other religious organizations in the Philippines.
He then worked with the church to form New Breed of Public Servants, an organization under the church's Public Affairs department that would work with Globe to create specialized SIM cards for the Adventist community.
The first 14,000 cards will be available starting May 22. Catolico estimates that 100,000 cards will be distributed by 2009. He hopes to expand the program to other Adventist churches in the region.
The cards will be available at church gatherings like satellite evangelism events, church work meetings or through mission treasurers. Each of the more than 3,000 Adventist churches in the Philippines will have a licensed provider for those who would like to reload their cards.
Catolico will present the marketing ministry at the world church's Global Internet Evangelism Network in July.
No pulpit, no problem: New Adventist lay training center wants 'spiritual entrepreneurs'
May 6, 2008
Orlando, Florida, United States ... [ Elizabeth Lechleitner/ANN ]
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Lay evangelist Ken Norton, who directs the newly-formed Lay Institute for Evangelism, says anyone can learn practical evangelism. [photo: courtesy LIFE]
"Don't worry," Ken Norton tells uncertain church members during his guest-preaching gigs. "I have my license." He means his driver's license, not his ministerial credentials.
The 36-year-old lay evangelist might joke about his youthful looks, but he wastes no time getting down to business: what the Seventh-day Adventist Church needs, he says, are more "spiritual entrepreneurs."
Former Church Planting director for the Adventist Church in Florida, Norton now heads up the Orlando-based Lay Institute for Evangelism (LIFE), where successful evangelism doesn't depend on ministerial credentials or years in the mission field.
"Anyone anywhere can learn how to be an effective evangelist," Norton says. "We want members to be able to impact their communities for Christ in a relevant and practical, not a complicated, way."
Launched last August by the Adventist-laymen's Services and Institutions after an Oregonian Adventist entrepreneur left part of his estate for an outreach training center, LIFE combines onsite and online training which is unique among Adventist-run organizations, he says. "Plus, most of the programs are free, which is always a good thing," Norton says.
The online programs and how-to manuals are particularly useful for members in regions of the world with little access to outreach materials or guest speakers, Norton says. "Somebody from this small rural community in New Zealand wrote the other day and said they were using the online health and nutrition training to run programs in their community. So we're tapping into a need that's out there."
LIFE also offers a grown-up version of the student mission trip. Called Operation MissionLIFE, the 9-month intensive is half practical training and half frontline mission work. During the program's first half, students get Bible Worker certification, foreign language training and classes on cross-cultural ministry before demonstrating what they've learned during four-and-a-half months of field work.
"A lot of it is just word of mouth at this point. We think it'll keep growing," he says. In part, because of LIFE's do-it-yourself message: evangelism isn't confined to the pulpit, or even the so-called "mission field," Norton says. A missionary doesn't have to be someone "trudging through the jungle with a tattered picture roll, swatting mosquitoes and living in a grass hut," he adds.
Lay-driven efforts, whether they take place in Thailand or a friend's living room, are integral to the Adventist Church's success, he says. "Many church members don't realize that when Jesus said 'go and preach the gospel," it isn't just a church initiative that can be yawned at or ignored. It includes them as much as it does church leadership."
As LIFE grows, the lay organization will play an increasingly "critical role" in training young people in particular for practical ministry, says Ron Christman, secretary-treasurer for ASI. "If we're going to raise engaged, successful young people, we need to ingrain this culture of ministry in them from the very beginning," he says.
For more information on LIFE's resources, visit
www.thelayinstitute.com.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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ANN World News Bulletin is a review of news and information issued by the Communication department from the Seventh-day Adventist Church World Headquarters and released as part of the service of Adventist News Network. It is made available primarily to religious news editors. Our news includes dispatches from the church's international offices and the world headquarters.
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Ground 7 News is a review of news and information issued by the Communication Department from the Seventh-day Adventist Church World Headquarters and released as part of the service of Adventist News Network. Reproduction of the ANN podcast is encouraged. When rebroadcasting this material, in full or in part, the words "Source: Adventist News Network" must be mentioned before and after the podcast.
ANN Staff:
Rajmund Dabrowski, director; Ansel Oliver, assistant director; Taashi Rowe, editorial coordinator; Elizabeth Lechleitner, editorial assistant. Portuguese translation by Azenilto Brito, Spanish translation by Marcos Paseggi, Italian translation by Vincenzo Annunziata and Lina Ferrara and French translations by Stephanie Elofer.
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