From the General Secretary & CFO

General Secretary

Let me share with you what has been happening around our Conference.

A FEW HIGHLIGHTS

• There are some changes to the status of some of our groups or companies. The Sydney Indonesian Company will become an organised Church. They will be called the Sydney Indonesian Seventh-day Adventist Church.

• The Hurstville Chinese group that meets in the hall of the Hurstville Adventist Church, will receive Company status. They will be called the Hurstville Chinese Seventh-day Adventist Company.

• We have a church plant starting in Albion Park, which is down past Wollongong.

• 2020 baptisms were down from previous years. We baptised 89 people and had 9 professions of faith.

• Membership at 1 January 2020 was 9771 and ended the year with 9807 once deaths and transfers were taken into consideration. We had an overall growth increase of 0.37%.

FROM SCHOOLS LTD

• Adventist Education continues to be a blessing to our students and their families. A number of our schools have had Week of Worship (WOW) services this term. Many decisions were made for God. One school had 195 requests for prayer, 105 request Bible studies and 84 decide they want to follow Jesus publicly through baptism. Praise God for these decisions.

FROM AGED CARE LTD

• The Adventist Aged Care Residential Facility and Retirement Village rebuild and refurbishment at Kings Langley was officially opened. A 45-bed wing and 21 new independent living units was opened on April 20 by the Federal Member for Greenway, Ms. Michelle Rowland MP, and Pastor Terry Johnson. Also in attendance was Mr Mark Taylor MP, Member for Seven Hills, and Julie Griffins, Blacktown Deputy Major.

Thank you for your faithfulness to God and please continue to pray for our churches, schools and aged care facilities.

Cheonneth Strickland

Chief Financial Officer

Where have the 74 days gone since I started work at the Greater Sydney Conference? Life sure moves fast.

The 2020 financial statements have been finalized for our church, conference, and school entities, and all received unqualified audit opinions. The auditors commented on the high quality of our reports and standards of our financial processes—a wonderful commendation of the work of our church treasurers, school business managers and conference finance team.

Looking in the rear-vision mirror, how did we do in 2020 despite the impact of Covid-19?

• The School Company made an operating surplus of just over $3m, with five out of six GS schools contributing to the result. Enrollments in P-12 increased by 94 students, bringing total enrolment to 2,934. Completion of Stages 4 & 5 at Wahroonga School enabled play and basketball areas and the fit-out to the Wedge. This result was achieved while keeping within our two key KPIs of debt per student and debt ceilings.

• Church Ltd ended 2020 with a surplus of $1.44m, with retained tithe receipts of $12.58m, showing an increase of 6.3% over the previous year. We gratefully acknowledge the faithfulness of members in returning tithes and thank our Almighty God for His bountiful provision.

• E-Giving was the preferred means of returning tithes for almost 50% of our membership.

As we move into 2021, we continue to place our trust in “Him who will supply every need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:19).

Colin Raymond