We are pleased to report that the Adventist Church Accounting System (ACAS) is now live, replacing the old Tithes and Offerings system! Commencing development in May 2021, the new system, went live after 18 months of development in November 2022. During that time Adventist Technology supplied between 4 and 7 of our own team fully engaged in the project at any given time, including roles from product ownership, development, testing, and project management. We also used software developers from an external company that helped to guide us in architectural matters and provide us with flexible development capacity.
What was really exciting during the project was the level of support and engagement from Conference staff in testing and in managing their church treasurers to make the changes as seamlessly as possible. The results of this effort ensured that the most churches continued working in the system with minimal disruption during the changeover. Huge thanks go to Conference support staff for their efforts in managing, training and supporting their churches during migration. We also appreciated the significant investment of their time in the months leading up to go live to make sure all data was migrating appropriately and helping us test various elements of the new system. This has a long project thus far, but it’s important to note that it is not yet complete. The initial go live was the direct replacement of T&O, phase 1. We are not in a cycle of bug fix and minor enhancements, expecting early to mid 2023 to proceed to phase 2 for more significant improvements.
In 2022 we discovered the Hope Robot Project which was designed in Brazil and is being used to great effect to provide Bible studies on social media chat platforms via "Hope" - a virtual assistant who offers a range of Bible studies to any student who sends her a message with the words 'Bible study".
In South America, she is known as the most active evangelist in the Division - studying with over 20,000 students per month. In the past 3 years she has helped many thousands of students complete 2 complete study courses. Of these, over 12,500 have accepted the invitation to connect with a local pastor or church family. The team in Brazil know of at least 1,200 of these who went on to be baptised and join the local church.
Here in SPD, we are working collaboratively with Adventist Media and a local team to oversee Hope's work in PNG, with plans to expand to other parts of the Division as interest in the project spreads.
Want to know more about this project? Let us know at [email protected].
Remember Adhub? Designed to support members and leaders with discipleship journeys from first contact and before, through to baptism and beyond, adhub was designed and created to meet a vital need - helping the church disciple others in a way that made sure people didn't fall through the cracks!
The concept was powerful, and the technology was being used effectively in a number of locations, but the project itself encountered several and varied challenges which ultimately overcame its progress - much to the disappointment of those who had designed it, and those who were using it.. So... we are currently working on a new solution that overcomes those same challenges! Late in 2022, a project charter was mapped out together with the AUC, and together we are now building version 2 - using cheaper and more agile technology. Once built and tested, the plan is to first trial and prove the concept in the South New South Wales Conference (thanks team!), before reviewing the next steps. Those next steps will either be to further strengthen the project as built, rebuild it for higher capacity and wider rollout, or retire the project if it's not proving fruitful.
For more information on this project, or to send us your naming suggestion, reach out to us at [email protected].
The Ministry Development Portal (MD) was born with the dream of helping pastors and chaplains lead themselves and their ministries better - helping them to be the most Spirit-filled, resourced and fulfilled ministers on the planet. Built by ministers for ministers, as far as features go, MD is now complete!
2023 marks a change from building the tools we need to helping leaders use them, all the while improving them based on user feedback. Mid 2023, we will be unveiling the new elders training module where pastors can find templates for training their elders with key activities, resources, and experiences. We hope this will be a game-changer for the local church.
Another goal we have for 2023 is to see how easy we can make the system for self-proclaimed "dinosaurs" and "dummies". So expect to see options for simple navigation to help you find what you are looking for.
Another milestone that we have accomplished in 2022 is MDLite—a partnership with the TPUM and the Fijian Mission to pilot a project modelled on the idea of a simplified version of MD on a mobile device. The project will help with many other aims, updating database and reporting systems, boosting our ability to resource and develop pastors in the Pacific, further supporting the journey from being a Mission outpost to a Conference mission base.
MDLite leverages existing systems within the MD portal, making it cost-effective and hopefully widely applicable to parts of the world where mobile is a better platform for leadership development, and its offline mode means that it is ideal for regions where data access isn't always available. Back in the day, the church in Australia and New Zealand would often send containers of books to the island fields. In future, our leaders there will have direct access to the same articles and resources via MDLite - delivered via mobile device!
MDLite features the Auxano Library, REAP cycle, simplified Ministry Reports, Internships, Profile and Preferences.
Your feedback is welcomed and encouraged. MD is built BY local leaders, FOR local leaders—so please keep your suggestions coming. We will also do some intentional listening projects, addressing various features, to see what Ministers and Chaplains need. Available only via invitation from your Conference Ministerial Secretary.
Please send your feedback and suggestions to us at [email protected].
Need help? Got ideas? Let's talk mission!
Technology is playing an ever-increasing role in the communication, storage and use of information - all of which are foundational to effective ministry and evangelism. Accordingly Adtech is working hard to repositioning itself as a mission partner in the hearts and minds of pastors, chaplains and spiritual Carers. The Techhub at Empower23 will feature workshops, a techdesk, tech tips and ideas and hangout spaces where Ministry Leaders from across Australia can come and spend valuable time talking mission, getting help, or just hanging out with colleagues and friends.
The techhub will feature loads of prizes each day, including cable and wireless phone chargers, tech-safe backpacks and more! Ministry Leaders can visit us at College Hall, Avondale Uni.
For more information see aucempower.com.au or email us at [email protected]
The eGiving facilitates the electronic collection of tithes and offerings for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific Division. The app enables the returning of tithes and giving of offerings to all churches set up for eGiving using credit or debit cards. Defaults for churches and credit/debit cards can be set up to make repeat giving easy. During the pandemic this app was vital to the strength and support of the church and its mission, seeing both giving and the number of givers dramatically increase. Recent updates to eGiving have enhanced the emphasis on giving to your local church and its ministries.
Available on web, Apple App Store and Google Play store.
Are you creating catchy web or social media content for your ministry? Do you need a PDF solution to work on your documents on multiple devices? Do you use more than 1 Adobe Product and want the opportunity to try all the Adobe products? Well this is the article for you!
We have been able to obtain a great deal to support the different church entities and it’s ministries through a per user subscription with Adobe. Below are the prices of the common Adobe products many of our customers are currently subscribed to:
Adobe Acrobat Pro - $16.04 a month
Adobe Audition - $16.04 a month
Adobe Illustrator - $16.04 a month
Adobe Indesign - $16.04 a month
Adobe Lightroom - $16.04 a month
Adobe Photoshop - $16.04 a month
Adobe Creative Cloud (all applications) - $33 a month
If an Adobe product isn’t listed above and you are interested in purchasing Adobe through us please send a request to [email protected] and we will be happy to obtain a quote for you.
It is a 12 month commitment charged monthly per subscriber. The subscription is from May to end of April and new subscriptions are prorated depending what is left in the 12 month period upon joining. In April we will reach out to each entity to confirm if all subscribers would like to keep continuing their subscription for another 12 months.
If you are interested in obtaining an adobe product through us please speak to the authorised person in your Conference/Mission/Union (usually the CFO) and we can organise this to be put onto your account through them. If you aren’t sure please who to speak with then please put a request into [email protected] and we can facilitate the approval process for you.
If you are interested in this offering but you are already locked into an Adobe subscription and want to move over then please reach out to us because we have helped other conferences move their licenses over mid contract.
The 2 major meeting platforms used within SPD are Microsoft Teams and Zoom. For interest sake in the last 12 months our Zoom users have held over 55,000 Zoom meetings, those 55,000+ meetings have been over 26million minutes in total duration and 1.14tb in recording storage has been used. Using Teams and Zooms as meeting platforms have enabled churches to conduct meetings, church services, bible studies, prayer meetings remotely and connect more people together. Some have done a hybrid approach where they still meet physically at the church and those that are unable to make it remote in.
If you haven’t already you are able to upgrade your license to an Enterprise plan for $15 a month. The Enterprise plan lets you hold meetings with upto 500 participants, webinars with upto 1000 participants and you can record all your meetings and hold it in cloud storage for the duration of your subscription.
If you would like to upgrade your subscription please speak to the authorised person in your Conference/Mission/Union (usually the CFO) and we can organise this to be put onto your account through them. If you aren’t sure please who to speak with then please put a request into [email protected] and we can facilitate the approval process for you. This offering is available to all church workers aswell as any church member in any role requiring Zoom hosting capabilities.
Please note the latest version of Zoom as of November 2022 is version 5.12.8. There are currently 203 device with an unsupported version of Zoom installed. It is highly recommended to always keep Zoom uptodate so as to ensure you have the latest security patches aswell as allow you to use the latest features of Zoom. To find what version of Zoom you have installed you can do it a few ways. One way is by opening Zoom up and within the menu going to Help\About Zoom:
If you need to upgrade your Zoom application on your device you can your profile picture which will bring up the Zoom menu and then you can select “Check for Updates”
If you have Desktop Central installed you can open up the Self Service Portal and search for Zoom and install the latest package to your computer.
The other option is to download the latest installer direct from Zoom’s website.
OneDrive is a cloud service from Microsoft that connects you to all your files. OneDrive is part of your Office365 subscription and you have 5TB in total storage.
“So should we book a meeting 10am your time or 10am my time?” Have you scheduled a meeting with someone in New Zealand, Western Australia, Fiji, Sydney, Tahiti, Port Moresby or another country and when you send your invite you are worried if you got the time conversion correct?
Outlook has 2 ways to help make scheduling between different time zones easy for you!
Step 1: Open Outlook
Step 2: Click on Calendar
Step 3: Right click the time scale on the left hand side and click "Change Time Zones"
Step 4: Scroll down to "Time Zones" Section and now you can add up to 3 time zones and set a label and press "OK"
Step 5: You now have 3 time zones in your time scale to create an appointment from the calendar by double clicking.
Step 1: In Outlook create an appointment as per normal
Step 2: Select "Time Zones"
Step 3: Set the desired time and date and select the desired time zone
Step 4: Fill out the rest of your appointment and press "Save and Close"
Step 5: This will now send the invite to all attendees on the "Marquesas Islands" Time Zone but it will appear in everyone's calendar in their own Time Zone.
“What is the recommended email application to use for work email?” is a common question Adventist Technology receives often. The answer is Microsoft’s own application “Microsoft Outlook”.
Step 1: Install the outlook app from App Store 
, once the app is installed
Please note you will need iOS version 14 to see the device compatibility list for iOS 14 you can search for “iPhone models compatible with iOS 14.7”
Step 2: Search the app in the home menu and open up the app
Step 3: You will be asked to Add an Account, go ahead and click Add Account. Enter in your email address and click sign in.
Step 4: The outlook app has detected that your email address is an O365 account, reenter your email address and click Next.
Step 5: Enter your password and click Sign in
Step 6: You will only be prompted to this screen if you have set up MFA on your account, open up the Microsoft authenticator app on the device that you have set up MFA on. Enter the 6 digit code that has been generated from the app. Once you have entered the code in, click Verify.
(Note: You will only be prompted to this screen if you have been enrolled for MFA).
Step 7: You can click Maybe Later as we are only setting one account in the outlook app for now.
Step 8: Once you get to your inbox, this means that you have successfully setup your email account in the outlook app.
If you require further assistance on setting up your account, feel free to email us: [email protected] or call: +61298473265. We are more than happy to assist you.
Step 1: We highly recommend that you use the official Microsoft Outlook app to set up your Adventist email account.
Please note, in May 2022 you will need to have upgraded to at least Android 8.0 or else your Outlook on your Android device will stop working.
Step 2: Install the outlook app from Google Playstore 
, once the app is installed, search the app in home menu and open the app.
Step 3: Click on the option to Add Account
Step 4: Enter your email address and click Continue
Step 5: Enter in your password and click Sign in
Step 6: You will only be prompted to this screen if you have setup MFA on your account, you will receive a drop-down notification as shown on the screenshot, you will need to approve the sign-in request to complete setting up your account in outlook. (Note: There is a time frame of 10 seconds countdown for you click on the drop-down notification to approve the sign-in request)
Step 7: Once you have clicked on the notification bar, this window screen will show up; click on Approve
Step 8: After going through a loading cycle, you will be asked if you would like to add another account. You can choose the option Maybe Later.
Step 9: Once the app opens up your inbox, you have successfully setup your email account on the outlook app.
