On Sunday, the Seventh-day Adventist Church held its 2021 Annual Council, with reports of the denomination stating the church's accession dipped for the first time in 16 years.  The conference was held at Silver Spring, Maryland, The Christian Post reported. 

Adventist Church's Accession Dropped

The director of the Church's Archives in the Statistics and Research Department, David Trim, noted how the COVID-19 pandemic affects the accessions of the church, Adventist News reported.

In 2019, a record of 1.3 million accessions will become approximately 800,000 in 2020. This lower rate, below 1 million, was the first time on record since 2004.

Trim argues that a decrease in public evangelism meetings caused a drop in accessions. Yet, he believes it was also the decline in personal witnessing, calling it "the crucial importance of interpersonal contact."

Trim believes the dip of rate was due to dropped audits and pastors paying more attention to their parish's well-being amid the COVID-19.

Although accessions decreased, other denominations' metrics have shown development, Seventh-day Adventist World Church Statistics 2020 webpage reports.

The Summary of Statistics on  Dec. 31, 2019, shows it had a total of  91,140 churches. It went up to around 92,186 churches on Sept. 30, 2020. 

Furthermore, the total membership on Dec. 31, 2019, was 21.5 million and increased to about 21.7 million on Sept. 30, 2020.

Report Includes Death

Trim's report also targets deaths, aside from accessions and losses. He notes that even though there were low 2020 fatalities, he believes people lack understanding of the two-year losses due to death. 

The local church unrecorded the occurring fatalities due to failed meetings of congregations, and records were not always kept up amid pandemics, as Trim suggests. This results in added death to 2021 that came from 2020. 

Before Trim concludes his Secretariat Report, he points out that people have a lot to be grateful and work for, even though the church had been affected by COVID-19.

Erton Kohler, the newly elected Seventh-day Adventist Church Secretary, said people should focus on God instead of the crises we have. He added that people must always believe that "our greatest challenges precede His greatest miracles."

Church Continues Training and Sending Missionaries

Despite having the COVID-19 pandemic, the Adventist Church pursues instructing and sending missionaries, including International Service Employees and Adventist Volunteers everywhere.

Adventists around the world still answer the call "I Will Go," even though systems changed due to the pandemic. 

Since March of 2020, 40 new missionary families have arrived at their host locations. As of now, there are 373 ISE families around the globe.

New Believers Reached Through Global Mission

Director of the Office of Adventist Mission, Gary Krause, stated, they are praying "for a mission that is stronger than crises."

For the past years, they have seen Adventist Mission advancing through the dedication of people  "willing to say 'I Will Go,'" he continued.

Global Mission settlers establish parishes in new areas, including unreachable groups.

In 2020, a new church was planted every five hours amid a pandemic. Now, a total of 1,736 new Adventist Churches were assembled around the world.

Krause added that various aspects of  Global Mission have "one thing in common," which is "to help us start new groups of believers."