Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms (1 Peter 4:10, NIV).
In a previous post, we saw the extent to which employees at Seventh-day Adventist institutions believed that they served the mission of the church through their work, as urged in 1 Peter. In this post, we look at a list of possible goals for the church presented to the employees and which they thought were the most important.
The survey asked: “Many suggestions are made about things that the Seventh-day Adventist Church should be doing, and some of them are listed in the following table. Please rate what you think the wider Seventh-day Adventist Church should be doing.”
The options given were as follows:
- Provide meaningful worship services
- Increase the number of people who attend church on a regular basis
- Reduce poverty, disease, and ignorance
- Teach an ethical viewpoint
- Share the message and teaching of Jesus with the world
- Lead people to accept Jesus as their personal Savior
- Convince people of the teachings of the Church
- Prepare people for the soon return of Jesus
- Persuade people to join the Church through baptism
Participants were given the opportunity to rank the options as follows: “I do not know/does not apply”; “Should NOT be a purpose or goal of the Church”; “I feel neutral about this as a purpose or goal of the Church”; “An important purpose/goal of the Church, but not one of the top two”; and “One of top two or three purposes/goals of the Church.” The following figures give us a big picture of the findings.
Important Goals of the Church for Employees of Educational Institutions
Important Goals of the Church for Employees of Non-Educational Institutions
The three activities employees thought were the most important goals of the Church were to “Lead people to accept Jesus as their personal Savior” (80.6% educators; 73% other employees), to “Prepare people for the soon return of Jesus” (70.3% educators; 70.9% other employees), and to “Share the message and teaching of Jesus with the World” (79.8% educators; 70.9% other employees). These goals ranked in the top three for both educators and non-educators, followed by “meaningful church services” for educators and “reduction of poverty” for employees in other roles. The results suggest that employees are embracing the missional goals of the Church regardless of their role or the kind of institution they work in.
Ellen White wrote, “Each member of the church has a part to act in order that the body may be preserved in a healthful condition. We are all members of the same body, and each member must act a part for the benefit of all the others. Not all members have the same office. As the members of our natural body are directed by the head, so as members of the spiritual body we should submit ourselves to the direction of Christ, the living head of the church” (Ellen G. White, “The Duty of the Minister and the People, Review and Herald, July 9, 1895).
In the next post, we will look more closely at the way these goals were ranked, as well as which goals employees thought should not be one of the purposes of the church.
You can access the full report here.
Created in collaboration with the Institute of Church Ministry
Published by ASTR on 2/10/2026.