The Tribune

By JEFFARAH GIBSON

Tribune Features Writer

jgibson@tribunemedia.net

THE President of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is visiting the Bahamas.

Pastor Ted Wilson will be in Nassau on Saturday to visit members of the regional headquarters of the Atlantic Caribbean Union of Seventh-day Adventists (ATCU).

During Pastor Wilson’s visit he will attend a thanksgiving service and will address a group comprised of local Seventh-day Adventist members, church administrators, other religious leaders, and specially invited guests from the public sector, on the aims of the world church to initiate positive change.

The purpose of Pastor Wilson’s visit is to strengthen the church as well as forge relationships with other religious leaders in the Bahamas.

Pastor Wilson was elected as Seventh-day Adventist world church President in 2010.

He served as a church administrator in West Africa and Russia before returning to the United States. He was elected president of the Review and Herald Publishing Association in 1996.

The Atlantic Caribbean Union Mission in Nassau serves as the headquarters for three conferences, one mission, and six primary and secondary schools located in three countries (the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands) that comprise the Atlantic Caribbean territory. It is also the co-owner of one of the largest universities in the Seventh-day Adventist Church – Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville, Jamaica.

Pastor Keith Albury, public affairs director of the South Bahamas Conference, said: “While we are enthused to welcome our leader, ATCU believes this is not an opportunity just for spectatorship and pageantry, but rather a clear demonstration of the church’s focus in affecting its theme of revival and reformation in all corners of the globe. It is about what potential good can happen in our personal lives, in our families, in our neighbourhoods, and in society.”

Pastor Albury said it is the role of the church’s leader to visit the 130 Union Conference, Mission, and Union Church territories, constituted among the 13 divisions that execute the directives of the world church.

However, because Seventh-day Adventism is represented in more than 200 countries the denomination’s leader has chosen to visit the Bahamas.

Pastor Albury said: “This is wonderful for opportunity for the world church leader to commune with the other leaders here. This will give them an opportunity to interact share ideas and solutions to some of the problems we face as well as exchange ways we can evangelism can be strengthened. We hope that his visit fosters some degree of unity.”

Pastor Albury said the denomination hopes to once again increase the awareness of the structure and the contributions of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the region.

The visit comes shortly after the third anniversary of the ACUM since its formation in November 2010.
It is one of 21 unions which make up the

Inter-American Division of Seventh-day Adventists, one of the 14 divisions of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church. The worldwide membership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church stands at 16 million.