Adventist Church Aims at Adding 2 Million by 1990

Seventh-day Adventists, who concluded their 10-day world conference today, have set a goal of adding 2 million new members by the time they meet again in Indianapolis in 1990.

There is no reason to doubt the ability of this conservative, evangelical church to do it. A target of 1 million new members, which was to be accomplished between September, 1982, and June 15 of this year was even exceeded, officials said here.

Much of that growth will occur overseas: The percentage of U.S. and Canadian members in the now 4.5-million-member denomination has decreased to about 15%.

Doubled in Size

Nevertheless, in the United States alone, the 640,000 Adventist membership is twice as large as it was in 1960. The Adventist Church is relatively small compared to some mainline Protestant churches, but the significant difference is that the mainline churches have been generally decreasing in membership since the 1960s.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church--so-named because it worships on Saturday instead of Sunday and expects the second “advent,” or return, of Jesus Christ--has a growth rate comparable to Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormon Church, two other American-born churches with distinctive beliefs.

Adventists are theologically closer to standard Protestant churches than either Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Neal C. Wilson, who was reelected here for another term as General Conference president, asserted in his keynote address that, contrary to allegations, “our message is based on Scripture and is not a figment of someone’s imagination.”

Doing Church Business

The 2,300 delegates at the 54th world conference spent most of their time on internal church business.

Black African delegates were especially assertive in seeking representation in church offices. The election of an Ivory Coast delegate, J. J. Nortey, as head of the Africa-Indian Ocean division was seen as one result of that assertiveness by some observers. That division encompasses 31 French-speaking countries of Africa, where nearly half a million Adventists worship in 2,400 churches.

The question of whether to ordain women ministers, originally set for a vote here, was postponed until a General Council meeting in 1988 or 1989 after a special commission recommended more study in its report last March.