Mission Is Our Calling

Rachel Ashworth, ANN

On April 11, on the second day of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Spring Meeting, Ted N. C. Wilson, president of the church’s General Conference and the meeting chair, introduced the first official Mission Refocus report. “Mission Refocus [is] . . . helping to finish God’s work. I firmly believe that the end of this earth is in sight and that Jesus is coming soon,” he said.

Erton Köhler, General Conference secretary and advisor to the Office of Adventist Mission, presented the report.

“Is Mission Refocus a project? Is Mission Refocus an initiative? What exactly is Mission Refocus?” Köhler asked in his opening remarks. “Yes, Mission Refocus is a project . . . an initiative, a movement, but more than [anything], Mission Refocus is a call for integration.”

Integration In Mission

Integration was emphasized throughout the segment, as Köhler appealed to Adventist world leaders to turn to the prophetic mission of the church in the face of crises and conflict. “Behind this movement is a prophetic movement. As this world is falling apart, God is raising a movement in which we are working integrated.”

This integration, Köhler noted, is a collaboration in which the entire church must be involved, not growing complacent and celebrating the Second Coming while focusing on the negative signs unfolding around it, but remembering that “the main signs, the positive signs, are related to a church that is rising mightily to fulfill the mission.”

Fulfilling The Mission

Köhler explained how the initiative is moving worldwide through two major steps, or “wings.”

The first “wing” of Mission Refocus began in January with the reorganization of Code 1 International Service Employees (ISEs), or missionaries who serve outside of their home division, which required careful analysis of divisions, unions, missions, and entities. Meetings with each division will take place to help reorganize 70 percent of resources to frontline work.

The second wing necessary to mobilize Mission Refocus throughout the world’s territories is adopting nonreached and low-reached areas by prioritizing 30 carefully chosen groups first. The report identified 10 countries, 10 urban areas, and 10 people groups from three missionary windows: the 10/40, urban, and post-Christian windows. Commenting on this action plan, Köhler said, “Mission Refocus is not a project that we are organizing and expecting something from you. We don’t have a time limit. We don’t have a number of people. We don’t have an exact place that you need to go to or adopt. We are just trying to raise a culture of worldwide mission—everybody supports everybody, because our global mission is the responsibility of each one of us.”

Answering The Call To Mission

Köhler invited Roger Caderma, president of the Southern Asia-Pacific Division (SSD), to the stage to share how Mission Refocus has moved in his territory since it was first introduced at the 2022 Annual Council.

Explaining how SSD organized and encouraged its institutions to become involved in mission, Caderma recalled a mission summit in Thailand attended by 500 church leaders from across the division. Of the event he said, “The motivation was simple: accept the challenge of the world church.”

In response to this challenge, SSD committed to sending 52 missionaries total, with 18 leaving SSD, to minister to the most vulnerable, unreached, and low-reached areas.

Köhler closed the Mission Refocus report by making it clear that the initiative is more than a movement. “It is an appeal for God’s church to turn toward His coming and His mission,” he said.