Northern Asia-Pacific Division helps lead the way

[Tom Wetmore]

Interesting chart as a part of their report that shows the number of women pastors within the Division, how many churches have women pastors and how many members are served by women pastors - http://www.adventistarchives.org/brc-northern-asia-pacific-division-presentation.pdf

[Tom Wetmore]

A fairly common perception was reflected in another thread that it "seems that the divisions most concerned about women's ordination are the divisions with the slowest rates of growth in church membership." A more extreme view is that if we continue down the path of WO and open the doors to women in pastoral ministry and leadership, that the progress will likewise be slowed. The implication sometimes expressed is that there is a direct connection between the move toward more gender inclusiveness in ministry and loss of focus on the gospel spreading mission, or even worse that the lack of growth is a sign of God's lack of approval of such ideas.

The Northern Asia-Pacific Division (NSD) stands as the strongest rebuttal of that superficial observation. The NSD was formed in 1997, dividing the territory of the former Far Eastern Division. The NSD territory includes China, Mongolia, Japan and Korea. The growth in NSD since 1997 has been tremendous. The membership has nearly doubled to almost 700,000, which is the about the same as the overall growth rate of the whole denomination. The worldwide membership of the Adventist Church has also almost doubled since 1997.

And what is the position of NSD on WO and the role of women in pastoral ministry? They are in favor of it without reservation. And what is their experience with women in pastoral ministry? The NSD has more women pastors (3,221) than than any other division, more churches (2,782) and members (252,500) served directly by those 3,000+ women pastors than any other division, and there are women pastors throughout their territory, not just in China. And I believe those numbers may well exceed that of all the other divisions combined!

So much for that theory...

[Joe_in_RP]

I suspect there's far more to the story than that chart. I remember reading somewhere that the Chinese government hires pastors. I don't know if it's true in the Adventist church.

 

I know there are many, many challenges in China. To somehow state that women pastors in China validate anything, is a stretch in my mind.

 

As someone who has been to China, I can tell you, these people are not anything like the Western world. It's a far more complex society.

[Tom Wetmore]

Complex society, yes. But sort of like your own observation that its a stretch in your mind to conclude anything from the presence of women pastors in China, it is likewise a bit sketchy to minimize a report from the Divison leadership, a reliable and trustworthy source, and put more credence in "I remember reading somewhere..." The point being that this is very current and reliable information confirmed by our own Church leadership. While there are indeed reports of government meddling in religion and churches, etc. in China, in more recent times we have been able to be in direct contact with our people there and get more reliable direct information rather than what gets filtered through the media, or internet sources which can be rather dodgy.