ANR Bulletin No. 6 ? GC Session 2005, St. Louis, USA
Adventist News Review
Trans-European Division of the
Seventh-day Adventist Church

Monday, 4 July 2005

INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF MISSION

EURO-ASIA

The Euro-Asia region is the largest geographical region of the
Adventist church, comprising the 12 countries that make up the
Commonwealth of Independent States: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus,
Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russian Federation,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. To illustrate its
size, Artur Stele, president of the Euro-Asia Division, pointed out
that the region covers 11 time zones and the distance across some
6,200 miles (10,000 km).

The main report took the form of a video packed with statistics and
fast paced images. Adventists have 147,000 members in the region,
with 62,300 of these baptized in the last five years. To accommodate
the new members, 781 new churches have been built and another 277 are
under construction.

NORTHERN ASIA-PACIFIC

The Seventh-day Adventist Church may divide the world into thirteen
regions, but in terms of population, the church's Northern Asia
Pacific area claims a full quarter of the world's people. Covering
the countries of China (with dependent territories Hong Kong and
Macau), Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia and Taiwan the
region totals a membership of 546,000 spread over 1,731 churches.

North Asia Pacific President Jairyong Lee reported baptisms of 97,439
people in the last five years. Yet he also expressed the challenge of
countries like North Korea where there is no Adventist church, even
though there is evidence of many people keeping the Sabbath. He also
recognized that only three percent of the region's population is
Christian. With secularism, materialism and political ideologies that
detract from God he stated the church has had to look for special
ways of reaching out to touch people's lives. [John Surridge/Victor
Hulbert/Taashi Row/ANN/ANR]

TED ELECTIONS

Early this afternoon, delegates voted to re-elect Pastor Harald
Wollan as executive secretary and Pastor Jóhann E. Jóhannson as
treasurer for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European
Division.

BUSINESS

Another excellent leadership presentation was discussed by the floor,
this time concentrating on the area of integrity. Many delegates on
the floor called for this and the other leadership documents to be
made available world wide. Currently, these can be read and
downloaded in mp3 format at www.adventist.org.

Lists of other elected leaders from around the world can also be
viewed on this website.

COVERAGE OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE SESSION

Ray Dabrowski, General Conference communication director, informed us
that nearly 400 press individuals have been registered including
reporters and technical staff. ?Everyday we are in contact with the
local media, TV, Radio and Press and we have been inundated with
questions. The coverage is quite extensive. Our newsroom provides the
official coverage of the Session with items released as they are
ready onto the internet. In some cases this is in real time, as with
the election of the President which was released within a minute or
two of the announcement.?

Dabrowski continued, ?Everyday the newsroom has morning briefings
about upcoming items and opportunities are given to become acquainted
with interesting areas that might be covered by the media. The
Session is also covered on the Hope Channel; a 1 hour news and
commentary broadcast on TV. Benjamin Schoun, AWR Director, says, ?We
have radio production every day in 5 different languages; English,
Spanish, Portuguese, French and Swahili, prepared by reporters and
producers from various studios in their respective countries
including the network of radio stations in North America.?

William Johnson, editor of ?Adventist Review? (AR), comments, ?AR
prepares, prints and distributes daily a 32 page colour bulletin of
the session. This contains the official business, the verbatim of the
speeches from the floor, the actions taken, the devotional messages
and the nightly division reports as well as general news items with
photo?s of interesting people. Thirty thousand copies are produced
with 5,000 distributed here at Session and the rest sent by mail to
our regular subscribers. The AR website also contains all the Session
information. We are greatly assisted by a team of secretaries who
record and transcribe every word that is spoken from the floor. An
editorial team then boils that down so that everybody speaks good
English. Just for example, during the second half of Friday
afternoon, 15,000 words were edited down to 7,000 words.?

Carlos Medley, Editor for ?Adventist Review On-Line?, states, ?The
full content of each daily bulletin is put on the internet as well as
multimedia, audio and video feeds. It is our hope to incorporate all
the sermons that are printed in AR in a streaming video form that
people can watch on the web site. We will carry news updates from the
Hope Channel as well as audio updates from the Adventist Radio
Broadcasters Association, so that our readers can have a holistic or
enhanced experience when they visit the web. In a normal month we
will get approximately 44,000 visits to the web site from 130
countries. Initial indications show there will be quite an upsurge of
visits to the website due to the Session.?

Warren Judd, general manager for ?Adventist Media Productions?
informs us ?My role is to care for the technical aspect of what we
call audio visual broadcast for the GC session. That can be anything
from events in the Edward Jones Dome to what happens on TV and in the
committee rooms; the projectors and sound systems. We release
portions of the session on Hope Channel internationally; the morning
worship sessions, the evening programme including the music,
devotional and division reports, and we package them together and
transmit them with various time delays to nearly all regions of the
world. A one hour news and information package plays every night, so
in a sense people who are not here learn more about events than
people that are here.?

Informing us of personnel and equipment Judd says, ?We have
altogether 140 people in the crews; 6 cameras in this building but 10
other cameras in other parts of the building recording interviews,
news and continuity. Approximately 20 km of cable including lighting
and sound cables have been laid.

Brad Thorpe, ATN director, informs us, ?As of Sunday morning 2 July
we had received from 42 different countries, 412 emails and
approximately 20 faxes indicating active GC Session viewers. On
average Hope Channel receives approximately 25,000 hits per day. As
of 3 July we have received 502,000 hits already in July; this is
directly due to GC Session response.

Dabrowski concluded, ?We are overwhelmed and delighted that the
session is available through these various means to those who cannot
attend it here in St. Louis.?

INTERVIEW WITH ELLA SIMMONS

At her first press conference this morning, Ella Simmons, the first
woman vice-president for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, answered
questions related to her new appointment.

While no formal job description has been publicly defined for her
yet, she revealed that informal talks about her role focused on
education, with an inevitable focus on women's issues.

Asked about the relationship between the ordination of women and a
position like hers, she remarked, "I am not feeling or hearing of any
connection
. [but] nor do I have to be ordained to fill this
position.
I am all about what God has called me to do." She took
time to clarify that personally she was not called to be "a pastor,
but always a minister."

Her comments revealed an extremely gracious, articulate and deeply
spiritual mind and heart. Recognising the historic nature of her
election and the demands of her new task she declared, "I will be in
prayer all day, every day." In closing, she asked the world church
"to pray that I will always hear God's voice and no other", for good
health and strength, as well as for her husband and children.

[Contrary to what was reported yesterday, Ella Simmons was not
currently at La Sierra but left that position within the last year.]

GC SESSION PHOTO GALLERY

If you wish to see photo?s of the session please visit the following
site:
http://news.adventist.org/specials/2005/gcsession/2005-06-30/gallery/index.html

[ANR Team/ANR]


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