From November 5 to 9, 2020, the Annual Council of the Northern Asia-Pacific Division (NSD) took place via ZOOM due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the Annual Council, for two days from November 3 to 4, the officers’ councils and departmental interviews were conducted with the leaders from the Korean Union Conference, Japan Union Conference, Taiwan Conference, and Mongolia Mission, using the ZOOM breakout rooms.
All the meetings during the Annual Council, including sub-committees or standing committees and institutional constituency meetings, were conducted using the ZOOM conference platform electronically. Because of keeping social distance and mandatory quarantine regulation for people who are traveling into Korea from other countries in order to prevent the virus from being spread, the virtual meetings were the only choice which have never been an option before in the NSD year-end meeting history.
Although the virtual meetings were not better than the physical attendance meetings in the areas of emotional contact and interactive communication with face to face and eye contact, the attendance rate of participants was being kept very high from the beginning to the end day. Praise the Lord!
At the devotional message of the Annual Council opening day, the General Conference (GC) president Ted Wilson encouraged the participants by saying, “Nothing including the Covid-19 pandemic is going to stop the proclamation of everlasting gospel and the three Angels’ messages of the Revelation 14, because this is God’s movement, and this is God’s special people. I hope that each of you have fixed in your mind the amazing identity of who the Seventh-day Adventists are.”
During the Annual Council, the full expanded executive committee members received and approved the various agenda items including authorized meetings, budgets, and institutional reports. According to the treasury report, thankfully the church members gave tithes and offerings faithfully and generously by keeping a positive income balance and sound financial situation in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic causing fears of the global economic recession.
Especially I Will Go, NSD strategic plan, was presented to the participants by following the GC initiative which is the Adventist global movement launched in 2020. The NSD reported plan indicated the specific goals including membership and church growth, discipleship trainings, missionary sending, and various mission activities in the territories of the Northern Asia-Pacific Division, the Korean Union Conference, the Japan Union Conference, the Taiwan Conference, and the Mongolia Mission.
Since the year 2020 is the regular session time for the NSD institutions, the Taiwan Adventist Hospital, the Taiwan Adventist College, the Signs of the Times Publishing Association, the Adventist Multi-cultural Family Service Center, the NSD Leadership Training Center, and the NSD Geoscience Research Institute had their own constituency meetings in conjunction with this Annual Council. At their each constituency meeting, their new institutional board members were elected for the next five-year term. These newly composed boards will elect their institutional presidents or chief executive directors at their first board meeting respectively after the constituency meetings.
In addition, At the constituency meeting of the Taiwan Adventist Academy, a significant decision was made for transferring its ownership and governance from the Taiwan Adventist College to the Taiwan Conference. The constituency members who were the NSD Executive Committee members, the board members, and the school faculty members reached a decision on the transition by expecting that the Taiwan Conference will be recruiting more students effectively to the school.
Song SungSub, NSD Associate Secretary