North American Division Year-End Meeting Day Two: Assembling the Team and Reporting on the Work

On Oct. 31, 2025, the North American Division (NAD) of Seventh-day Adventists have elected one new vice president and elected five incumbent vice presidents on the second day of the year-end meeting. Ruth Horton, Ed.D., currently serving as union education director in Lake Union, is the new vice president for education.

Returning to their positions are Minervino Labrador Jr. as vice president for Multilingual Ministries; Adam Fenner as vice president for digital media; Wendy Everhart as vice president for ministry; Ivan Williams Sr. as vice president for strategy and leadership; and Calvin Watkins as vice president, evangelism and regional liaison.

Horton assumes the role previously held by Dennis Plubell. Plubell had been serving as interim vice president for education following the passing of Arne P. Nielsen in June 2024. Plubell had come out of retirement to fill the unexpected vacancy and will now be returning to his family in the Pacific Northwest. Williams has been carrying the dual responsibilities of the strategy and leadership Vice-President as well as Ministerial Association director since being elected to the VP role after the retirement of Paul Brantley. NAD president G. Alexander Bryant expressed his deep appreciation to both Plubell and Williams for filling these gaps.

The selection of vice-presidents, and other division leadership positions, happens through a nomination process. The NAD’s nominating committee is a standing committee and was appointed by the NAD Executive Committee in 2020. This year-end meeting is the last session during which they will serve, and a new nominating committee will be established at the end of this session that will then serve for the next five-year term.

The names proposed by the nominating committee are brought to the floor and then voted on by the executive committee, which is the majority of the attendees. This process helps ensure that a qualified, representative executive team is put in place that can address the diverse needs of the division’s membership and expand the reach of the Adventist message in an increasingly complex ministry landscape.

In other business, the secretary’s report was the main agenda item of the day and will be covered in full detail in its own article. [Article link coming soon.]

Another key activity of the year-end meeting, especially one that occurs in the last year of the church’s five year business cycle known as a quinquennium, is the receiving of reports of the progress made by special initiatives, activities at the level of the unions, and reports of the division’s ministry departments.

Jerry Lutz, Chesapeake Conference president, talks about the Reach Baltimore initiative during day two of the 2025 North American Division Year-End Meeting. Photo by Art Brondo

On this second day, both the Southwestern Union and the North Pacific Union shared their video reports of how God is moving in their territories through the Pentecost 2025 initiative. The executive committee also received the reports of NAD departments Adventist Community Services, Children’s Ministries, Adventist Education and Higher Education, and one from Oakwood University, the NAD supported historically black college and university.

The stories shared by the unions centered around their experience with the special, division-wide initiative Pentecost 2025, which gave small grants to congregations and schools in order to implement projects that they designed themselves to help them serve and reach out to their communities. Assistant to the president Rick Rimmers has helped lead this work and he called numerous staff members to the front and thanked them for all of the time and effort they have poured into this program, and the group also acknowledged the work of all of the field coordinators who implemented this across the division. “What we wanted to try to display,” said Bryant, “is that we’re stronger together. … and when we work together, we can have a greater impact. This is what ‘Together in Mission’ means.”

Showing appreciation for his colleagues, Rick Remmers, NAD assistant to the president, begins to call the Pentecost 2025 committee to the stage during the Friday morning business session at the 2025 NAD Year-End meeting. Photo by Art Brondo

Due to the overwhelming support for Pentecost 2025, the initiative will continue in various forms. Attendees took a vote as to what name the initiative should operate under in 2026 and “Pentecost and Beyond” was the majority selection.

The meeting closed by early afternoon so that delegates could prepare for the Sabbath and for their special Friday evening program where they will go to join a major, month-long evangelistic campaign in Baltimore that wraps up on Saturday, Nov. 1. Chesapeake Conference president Jerry Lutz passionately shared about the “Revelation Today: Hope for Humanity” evangelistic series launched Oct. 3 at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland. The series is sponsored by the Chesapeake and Allegheny East conferences in partnership with It Is Written and the North American Division and both NAD president Bryant and It is Written president John Bradshaw have preached each evening.

As part of the community engagement component, the campaign also included supporting activities such as Bible workers who have gone door-to-door; a medical, dental, and vison clinic; and an archaeology seminar. There has also been a series of Spanish-language events that have already produced a significant number of baptisms.

Attendees left the building looking forward to the next 24 hours of Sabbath rest, worship and fellowship together.