Less than a third of the pastors in the NAD have a strong posi6ve a7tudes about the exis6ng structure of the Seventh- day Adven6st Church.

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3 Less than a third of the pastors in the NAD have a strong posi6ve a7tudes about the exis6ng structure of the Seventh- day Adven6st Church. The largest number nearly half say they tend to agree with it, a more tepid level of support. Only one in eight pastors disagrees that the current church structure is appropriate. It is possible that this response reflects a sense of the improbability of change more than enthusias6c agreement that the current structure is s6ll the most appropriate aler more than a century. 3

4 The majority of pastors in the NAD agree with the view that there is too much duplica6on in the present structure of the Seventh- day Adven6st Church. Only one in five disagree with this percep6on, while nearly one in four are undecided. Pastors may care less about this concept than do church administrators simply because many pastors never deal with any element of the Church structure outside of their employing organiza6on. 4

5 The majority of pastors in the NAD do not see a need to merge local conferences in order to reduce the overall number of conferences. Nearly one in four disagree and one in five are not sure where they stand on this concept. The percentage of those who strongly agree is the smallest segment among the responses with most of those who agree selec6ng the weaker tend to agree response, which indicates that there may be some flexibility in opinions on this possibility if convincing evidence is presented to the pastors. 5

6 The majority of pastors in the NAD either disagree or are undecided about the necessity of having Union Conferences as part of the organiza6onal structure of the Seventh- day Adven6st Church. Only one in seven strongly agree with the need for Union Conferences with twice as many among those who agree selec6ng the less decided tend to agree response. Clearly support for the concept of Union Conferences is weak among pastors in the NAD. 6

7 Four out of five pastors in the NAD agree that the Church in the past has relied too much on big- name evangelists and not enough on ge7ng the local church engaged. Only one in seven pastors disagree with a very small number who are undecided. These data clearly indicate that there is a pent- up feeling on the part of pastors that the NAD needs to provide a much stronger focus on local outreach instead of na6onal/interna6onal or even regional evangelism campaigns. This is a concept that has been repeatedly addressed since the 1980s when the NAD introduced the Caring Church Strategy. 7

8 About half of pastors in the NAD strongly agree that the Church has treated evangelism too much as an event and not enough [as] a permanent and con6nuous way of church life at the local level. Overall nine out of ten agree with this perspec6ve. This is further evidence of the pent- up wishes of the pastors in the NAD for a clear priority on local church vitality and growth. Only six percent of the pastors disagreed with this view, a very small por6on of the total ministerial work force. 8

9 Nearly nine out of ten pastors agree that Transforma6onal Evangelism is the NAD s mission in work clothes and could be the unifying force to bring all departments, ministries and church organiza6ons into closer alignment. Almost two thirds strongly agree. Only a small frac6on disagree with this concept. It is important to understand this view in connec6on with the views displayed on previous pages which focus on local outreach. 9

10 The majority of NAD pastors do not agree with the idea that consolida6on of [Adven6st] schools is a good way to help them survive and remain strong. Less than one in five strongly agree with this approach. A larger percentage are undecided about this idea. In general, it appears that the consolida6on strategy does not have the support of enough pastors for it to be successfully implemented in many places, although it is unclear what percent of the pastors who indicated they disagreed or were undecided are located in communi6es where Adven6st schools operate. 10

11 Nearly four out of five NAD pastors see a need for a professional development system for pastors along the lines of other professions in North American society. Only one in ten disagrees with this idea. Clearly this needs to be a high priority for the NAD Ministerial Department and the local conferences who are the primary employers of pastors. It is unclear to what degree this opinion represents a cri6que of exis6ng policies and resources related to professional development for clergy in the Seventh- day Adven6st Church in North America. 11

12 The majority of NAD pastors agree that the denomina6on would do well to nurture a pool of excep6onally promising younger persons to be considered for administra6ve posi6ons in the future. Less than one in four disagree with this concept. This ideas has been discussed for decades and needs to be formalized in the NAD working policies and delegated to some appropriate ins6tu6on for implementa6on. 12

13 The majority of NAD pastors see their local conference office as a good resource for their local ministry, providing outstanding training, resource materials and other support services. What this ques6on fails to differen6ate is the degree to which these services and products are created in collabora6on with the NAD church resources system. It is also true that equal percentages of pastors disagree and agree strongly. Half of the pastors responding to this ques6on either selected the less enthusias6c expression of agreement or said they are undecided on this item. To what degree pastors are sa6sfied with the support services they get is a topic that needs more detailed explora6on. 13

14 Although there are olen expressions by pastors in the NAD that the amount of money allocated for Chris6an Educa6on is excessive and needs to be channeled to other ministries of the Church, in fact a rela6vely small percentage of the ministerial work force shares this view. Of those pastors who have a church that operates a school or cosponsors a school as a cons6tuency member, only one in four feels that too much of his or her church budget goes to support Adven6st educa6on. It appears that this is largely a localized problem in some communi6es and not an overall problem across the NAD. It is possible that this is related to specific situa6ons in which the financial feasibility of a school may be marginal. 14

15 A majority of NAD pastors report that they like the current way they receive resources for their local church and have no complaints. At the same 6me nearly a third disagree. There is no informa6on to indicate whether or not this is a problem located in some local conferences and not others. The fact that only one in seven pastors strongly agree indicates that there is room for improvement in the church resource system of the NAD. 15

16 The majority of NAD pastors do not feel that they receive too much resource materials from the combined levels of the denomina6onal structure, the various departments and ministries. Nearly a third simply disagree that it is too much stuff, while an equal number are not sure. Only six percent feel strongly that they get too much. This is another indicator that the pastors in the NAD are generally affirma6ve of the way the church resource system is working. 16

17 The majority of NAD pastors do not agree that I need certain resources for ministry but I don t always know where to find what works best for me. Although a total of 44 percent do share this opinion, a total of 56 percent either disagree or are uncertain of their opinion on this item. This is another indicator that the NAD church resources system seems to be working rela6vely well although some improvements may be needed. 17

18 Although the NAD resource agencies are compe6ng very effec6vely with both independent ministries and non- denomina6onal publishers, the resourcing of pastors in the NAD is largely rela6onal in nature with both the conference ministerial department and informal networks being used the most. Perhaps the most disturbing informa6on in the graph above is the large percentage of pastors in the NAD who evidently do not give much thought as to where to obtain resources for their local ministry. Does this mean that they are either opera6ng in an en6rely free- lance fashion or simply repea6ng the same things over and over again without benefit of new ideas or new approaches? If local leadership is largely informal and driven more by habit pajerns than 18

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