2011 NSD ANNUAL COUNCIL

PRESIDENT'S REPORT(Oct. 28, 2011) / Jairyong Lee

1. Introduction

The Northern Asia-Pacific Division (NSD) serves for 1.6 billion people in the vast territory of the northern part of the Asia-Pacific. The Christian population in this area is about 45 million, and that is about 3.6% of the total population. The Seventh-day Adventist church membership of NSD is 650,000 as of June 2011, and accordingly the Adventist ratio against population is 1 to 2,461 while the world ratio between Adventists to population is 1:397. During the last quinquennium, we have baptized 105,012 people. We thank God for these precious people who have joined our church, but we should never be satisfied with this number. By the grace of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit we are looking for a far greater harvest of souls in the near future.

It is true that the NSD territory is full of mission challenges. There are numerous hindrances to the gospel work. Almost 96.5% of the population in NSD are non-Christians. They are affiliated with Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism, Muslim, Shamanism, and Atheism. The wall of denominational prejudice is seriously high in many places. Mission challenges are in everywhere and it seems they are constantly growing day by day. How soon can we really finish the gospel work in the NSD territories?

2. Spiritual Revival and Reformation Needed

The gospel commission that Jesus left with His followers is to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything” Jesus has commanded them. (Matt 28:19-20) The very reason of the existence of God’s church on earth is “for salvation of men.” The mission of the church is, therefore, “to carry the gospel to the world.” (AA, 9)

In order to accomplish the gospel commission in the Northern Asia-Pacific region, the NSD was organized, and pastors and laity are diligently working together to proclaim the good news of Jesus to the people. We are certain it is God’s work and God will surely finish the work through dedicated men and women who are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

Ellen White asserts, “A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs. To seek this should be our first work” (1SM, 121). We certainly need the spiritual revival and reformation for mission. I am glad that all our unions, conferences, local churches have been praying more systematically for the spiritual revival of churches. We will continue working together until all our churches experience the full measure of spiritual revival and reformation.

3. NSD/Union Leadership Changes

During the last twelve months, there have been some leadership changes in both the NSD and its unions.

In the NSD office, Dr. Barbara Choi has arrived to work full time for the NSD. Dr. Choi had been working for about 5 years for the NSD Health Ministries Department on a part time basis while working as a health professor at the Hong Kong Adventist College. By her joining to NSD office, we have strengthened the Health Ministries Department. She is also working as the associate director of NSD Mission Strategy and Research Center to take care of the extraordinary mission projects in China that had been vacated by Pastor Tadaomi Shinmyo’s permanent return to Japan.

Pastor David Ripley and his wife Mrs. Patricia Lynn Ripley arrived in Korea on August 31, 2011 to assume their work as Secretary and Assistant Secretary of NSD Ministerial Association. Before joining NSD, they had worked for many unions and conferences in North America for a number of years. We pray that the Lord continuously bless their ministry in our division territories.

The new officers were elected during the 36th session of the Japan Union Conference: Pastor Masumi Shimada as the president, Yutaka Inada as the executive secretary and Mitsuhiro Sinasue as the treasurer.

Pastor Allan Deblois, a new secretary/treasurer of Mongolia Mission Field has arrived with his family on May 1, 2011. With these new church leaders, the work at the NSD office as well as in the field has been surely strengthened in a great measure.

Pastor Park, Kwang Soo was also appointed to serve as the Director of 1000MM as of March 1, 2011.

4. NSD Mission Projects

The Northern Asia-Pacific Division is one of the most challenging divisions in terms of mission. We see the enormous amount of demand for mission work in NSD every day. Evangelism becomes more challenging in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Mongolia and Korea. The churches in China are struggling for lack of trained pastoral workers and financial resources. They are desperate for spiritual trainings of their workers. The North Korea is still in the misery and darkness without the light of the biblical truth, however, our earnest prayers are with them for many decades.

What we actually have in our hands is very limited. With human and financial resources that currently avail us, it seems almost impossible to accomplish our mission. We need be more creative and extraordinarily bold for mission strategies with efforts and undivided consecration to reach out to the un-entered territories with the gospel message.

As a division with enormous mission challenges, the NSD has greatly emphasized the importance of mission with a general motto of “Mission First.” In the last few years, the NSD has launched a few significant mission projects to support the work in the field and I am more than happy to give a brief report on the progress of these mission initiatives.

 

1) The 1000 Missionary Movement

The 1000 Missionary Movement (1000MM) trains and sends hundreds of Adventist young people every year to various countries of the world for frontline mission work. These young people devote one year of their lives to the Lord in the mission field as volunteer missionaries. In the last 19 years since the inception of the movement in 1992, 5,712 young people from 58 countries have joined the 1000MM and given a precious year of their lives in the mission field as missionaries. Through their efforts 55,770 people have been baptized, 721 church buildings were constructed, and 1,306 churches and companies were established in 40 countries. It is encouraging to know that 73 young people from China have come to the Philippines to join the 1000 Missionary Movement.

Young people are the present and the future of the church. Without them the future of the church is not promising. Unfortunately, however, so many young persons are departing from the church. One of the best ways to retain young people in the church is to give an opportunity to them to work as volunteer missionaries in the mission field. We need to create more mission opportunities for our young people to foster their mission spirit.

2) Pioneer Mission Movement

 

Since the Pioneer Mission Movement (PMM) was approved during the NSD Midyear Committee held in Hong Kong in May, 2002, over the past 9 years, 66 (3-two times) PMM pastors have left their home countries to serve in foreign lands as pioneer church planting missionaries. Some of them have returned after the completion of their six year term, and at present, 40 pastors are working as PMM missionaries in 11 different countries including Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Korea, Mongolia, Congo, Uganda, Kyrgizstan, Kazakhstan and the Philippines.

Recently, nine Korean pastors were selected for the 10th group of PMM missionaries who will be sent to Mongolia, China, Korea, Russia, Uzbekistan, Thailand and Indonesia beginning March 2012. They were screened by local conferences and recommended by the Korean Union Conference and finally selected by the PMM Management Committee on the basis of recommendations, interviews, a written test, and a physical examination. They are in training of 100 hours of missionary training before they depart for their assigned countries.

 

3) Golden Angels

 

In order to support the evangelistic activities of PMM pastors in the field, the Golden Angels singing group is organized every year with eight volunteer musicians who are singing missionaries. The group is supporting about 20 public evangelistic meetings a year in various countries of NSD. Tens of thousands of people have been touched by their music and experienced the love of God for them.

 

The Golden Angels DVD-7 was released in June 2011, and the music DVDs are loved by many people. The 8 members of 2011 Golden Angels who are from Korea, Philippines, Hong Kong and Mongolia visited Mongolia in August to produce the Golden Angels DVD-8. Another batch of 8 young musicians has been chosen and ready to serve as Golden Angels in 2012.

4) His Hands Mission Movement

Since May 2007 when the His Hands Mission Movement (HHMM) was approved during the NSD Midyear Committee in Macao, 2,925 church members in Korea, Mongolia, Japan, Taiwan and China have joined the Movement to work for the homeland mission/evangelism.

The HHMM volunteer missionaries dedicate a minimum of 10 hours a month in face-to-face outreach and evangelism for a minimum of three years. They go out in pairs to seek souls. Ellen White emphasized the importance of this sort of witnessing program: “Calling the twelve about Him, Jesus bade them to go out two and two through the towns and villages....In our own time evangelistic work would be far more successful if this example were more closely followed” (DA, 350). Our goal is to train and dispatch 9,000 His Hands missionaries during quinquennium in order to strengthen the homeland mission.

5) Mission Day

The NSD has celebrated a mission day every year since 2004. On mission day, all NSD workers are participating in prayers, seminars, testimonies and also visiting home to home with printed gospel messages. The mission day activities are reminding all workers of the mission that has been given by the Lord to each one.

Many institutions in the NSD territories are also celebrating their own mission day with various mission activities. We are encouraging 127church institutions in NSD to have their mission day celebration.

5. Communication & Leadership Advancement Program

English is the most recognized language globally in this modern world. It is used as an official language in most international meetings regardless of the geographical locations of the venues. In the Seventh-day Adventist Church, without much exception, English is used as the official language for worldwide church activities, meetings and communication between institutions.

The purpose of the Communication & Leadership Advancement Program (CLAP) is to stimulate, motivate, and encourage young pastors of the Northern Asia-Pacific Division to understand the importance of English for future church leadership, and to equip them with a good level of English proficiency. Most of curricula are about the Adventist church leadership development.

CLAP was launched in 2008 with 37 participants from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and Mongolia. They took four two-week intensive total English immersion sessions over two years and 33 of them graduated in June 2010. Beginning March 2011, a new group of 35 people are participating in the CLAP program for two years.

6. Earthquakes and Tsunamis in Japan

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 in the afternoon, there was a strong earthquake with the magnitude of 9.0 in Japan. It strongly shook the north eastern part of Japan, and the ensuing strong tsunami waters utterly devastated the huge area in a few minutes. Nearly 30,000 people have lost their lives or still missing. The crippled nuclear plants in Fukushima emitted significant amount of radiation. Many Japanese people are still suffering from the consequences of March 11 earthquakes.

There are 17 Seventh-day Adventist churches, companies and several church schools in the earthquake stricken area. We thank God for there were no casualties among our church members and our school buildings had minimum damages. The NSD and JUC leaders visited the churches and schools in the area immediately after the earthquakes and encouraged the church members. The ADRA Japan has extended a great help to the people in the disaster stricken areas. The prompt action of JUC leaders to the disasters and immediate response to the General Conference and the world church for their prayers and financial assistance to meet the need of the people in Japan were very much appreciated.

7. NSD ASI Convention

The 10th NSD ASI Convention was held in Jeju, Korea from September 1 through 4, 2011. About 350 Adventist business people from all over the NSD territories have come to attend the convention. The well prepared programs helped the participants spiritually revived and make new commitment to the mission of the church.

Elder Song, Jong Hyun was reelected to serve as the president of NSD ASI for next three years. Elders Chun, Choong Kwon (Daniel Chun) and Elder Kazuo Hori were chosen to serve as vice presidents. We appreciate the commitment of ASI leaders and participation of all members with positive spirit in the ASI activities.

8. NSD New Office Building Construction

The NSD new office building construction plan was approved by the NSD Executive Committee at the Midyear Committee in Hiroshima, Japan on May 17, 2011. The building committee was appointed with the involvement of Elder Ken Osborn to serve as the chairman and Elder Sung, Gui Mo as the secretary. Since May 2011, the committee has met 6 times and prepared the architectural drawing and submitted it to the military office for a building permit. As soon as the building permit is issued by the military authority, the construction will commence. I would like to request all of us to pray together for the success of the construction of this historical NSD office building.

9. Chinese Hope TV Launched

The Chinese Hope TV was finally launched on July 1, 2011 after more than two years of preparation. The Chinese Union Mission media team has prepared more than 1,000 half-hour programs on health, family, cooking, education, music, as well as sermons and religious issues. Through these 24 hours a day, 7 days a week TV programs, now we are able to approach more than 1.3 billion Chinese speaking people with the gospel messages.

 

We would like to express our special appreciation to the Hope Channel International workers and the Chinese Union Mission media team for their collaborative efforts to make the Chinese Hope TV a reality.

10. The Great Controversy Book Distribution Plan

Adopting the General Conference initiative of the Great Controversy Book Distribution, the NSD has set an initial goal of 3 million books. When the Lord opens the door of opportunities in China more widely, we will be able to distribute additional multi-million copies. In conjunction with the “Mission to the Cities”, we will plan to distribute this book to approach millions of people in urban areas.

Ellen White said, “I am more anxious to see a wide circulation for this book than for any others I have written; for in The Great Controversy, the last message of warning to the world is given more distinctly than in any of my other books” (Colporteur Ministry, 127). May the Lord bless us as we work together for mass distribution of this precious book to the people in our territories next two years!

11. Concluding Remarks

In spite of enormous mission challenges we face in many parts of NSD, the Lord has abundantly blessed His work in this division territories. As long as we work together with the spirit of unity trusting in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Lord will continue to lead us to accomplish the great gospel commission in the vast territory of our division.

Dear Executive Committee members, thank you for your untiring support, advice and cooperation. Please continue to pray for the bountiful harvest of souls in the NSD territories. There is still a great amount of work to do for the completion of the gospel work, however, by the grace of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit, we shall certainly accomplish our mission in the near future.

May the Lord continue to bless the NORTHERN ASIA-PACIFIC DIVISION!