After celebrating Sabbath together, attendees returned to work on Sunday morning, Nov. 2, 2025, for the fourth day of the North American Division (NAD) Year-End Meeting and the third day of business sessions. After an opening prayer by Pastor Amalia Goulbourne of the Florida Conference, attendees watched the first episode of a ten-part documentary web series about the Pentecost 2025 initiative entitled Faith at Work – Stories of Hope and Service. “When we started Pentecost [2025],” explained NAD president G. Alexander Bryant, “the heart’s desire of those of us who were leading in this endeavor was to try to help encourage and inspire our churches and our members that God can still use us to do evangelism in the North American Division.”

The first episode focuses on a Ukrainian Adventist Church in Chicago, Illinois, partnering with three congregations from other denominations to support the more than 60,000 refugees who came to the city after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, and to specifically raise money for a charity that makes prosthetics for people who lost limbs in the conflict.

Next, the nominating committee brought forward recommendations for leaders in Secretariat and Treasury. These included electing Jorge Ramirez as undersecretary, and Bonita Joyner Shields and Orna Garnett as associate secretaries. In Treasury, Chad Grundy was elected as undertreasurer and C. Michael Park and Sharon Mabena as associate treasurers. These leaders are all incumbents.

For ministry department directors, the executive committee elected one new department director and 14 current department directors on the third day of the year-end meeting. Willie Hucks II, DMin, is the incoming director of the Ministerial Association, which supports pastors and church leaders across the division. Hucks most recently served as the assistant to the president for Mission and Culture at Andrews University; and he was also an Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Homiletics at Andrews. He fills a position that was held on an interim basis by Ivan L. Williams. Williams had moved from the Ministerial Association Director to the NAD Vice President of Strategy and Leadership when elected on Oct. 27, 2023, to the vice president role, filling the vacancy created when Alvin Kibble retired in 2021. The complete list of ministry department director elections is:

In other business, the attendees assembled for these meetings are legally known as the executive committee of the North American Division and one of the functions they serve is to be the “membership” for the various corporations in which the division is the sponsoring entity. As the membership, they have the powers of creating or closing an organization, appointing its board of directors, setting its bylaws, and other such “ownership” functions. Outgoing General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists’ General Counsel Karnik Doukmetzian walked the group through the process of adjourning as the executive committee and reconvening as the membership of each corporation. The NAD has nine such separately incorporated entities, which are generally non-profits, and today the group took up their membership duties in turn for three of these – the Pacific Press Publishing Association, the North American Religious Liberty Association, and Christian Record Services, which offers services to the blind and sight impaired. Because this is the beginning of the new five-year business cycle of the church, appointing the boards of each entity was a key task.

[Video reports and summaries of their accomplishments can be found here.]

During their meeting, Pacific Press president Dale Galusha thanked the outgoing board for their support over the last five years, especially through the upheavals of the pandemic. Among its many products, the press produces a lot of small booklets designed for sharing. Galusha passed out a new booklet they have developed for children called ‘Screen Smart’ that they will soon be widely distributing.

An emotional moment that afternoon came when Bryant called retiring Christian Record Services president Diane Thurber to the front to present her with the President’s Award of Excellence in recognition of her 22 years of service in the church and her pivotal role in restoring the financial health of Christian Record.  “When she took over Christian Record Services in 2015, it was owned by the General Conference, and they had come to the conclusion that it would probably not make it,” said Bryant. “It just was in deep decline. Madam Thurber took this ministry, made some very, very difficult decisions at that ministry, and has it on firm, solid [ground]. I want to thank you.”

Thurber proudly introduced the new president of Christian Record Services, Dexter Thomas, who was selected through a process led by a professional executive search firm, Faith Search Partners, and who is also the first president of the organization who is blind himself. Thomas shared about the financial picture of the organization and how much they depend on the yearly offering and the generosity of giving by supporters at the end of the year. He both thanked attendees for their support and encouraged them to please promote awareness of the ministry. This report was accompanied by a powerful video testimony of a woman who had lost her sight at the age of 15 after being shot in the face.

The final corporation presentation was from the North American Religious Liberty Association, which is the advocacy arm of the North American Division’s Office of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty, and they shared how they are focusing on involving younger generations, especially college students. The membership approved their new board of directors.

Attendees also received an update from the membership “nurture and retention” initiative from associate secretary Bonita J. Shields, while the team distributed copies of My Church Family, a short book designed to help new members and believers understand, grow, and thrive in their church family. The book, introduced as a concept at the previous year’s meeting, went to press in January 2025 as it was timed to support the year of the Pentecost 2025 initiative. It is available to order at cost from AdventSource. And it is offered in multiple formats: English, French, and Spanish editions in both standard and pocket sizes, large print versions; Braille editions in English and Spanish, and audio formats for the blind community through Christian Record Services. “Our prayer is that this book will be a resource [for new members], said Shields. “You know, when we bring people into our family, it’s a different culture, different lingo, and so the primary purpose of this book was to help our new members, our new believers, feel like they understand their new family.”

Another key activity of the year-end meeting is the receipt of reports from various division entities. This is especially true for the meeting that occurs in the last year of the church’s five-year business cycle, known as a quinquennium. On this third day, four of the nine unions (Mid-America Union, Lake Union, Pacific Union, and the Atlantic Union) shared their video reports. The executive committee also received the reports of NAD departments Family Ministries, Stewardship, and Adventist Chaplaincy Ministries, which can be viewed here, and affiliated organization NADEI (North American Division Evangelism Institute), which is based at the seminary of Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan.

In other business, a discussion ensued around the Defined Benefit Funding for the Retirement Plan. Because of the detailed nature of this issue, it is covered in full detail in its own article. There was also a launch of major new developments in digital outreach, which is also covered in its own article.

The meetings closed at 5 p.m. The group will return on Monday for two additional days of business sessions.