Avondale University is migrating their practicum management, reporting and review processes across to the MD Portal, with aims to be ready for first Semester 2026. The project was initiated by Pr Neil Thompson at Avondale University, with funding for the project being provided by the SPD Digital Transformation committee.
From 2026, students completing practicum subjects will use MD to nominate their preferences for practicum location, upload their compliance certificates and receive updates on approvals from Avondale and Location supervisors.
The experience has the added benefit of helping students become familiar with the Portal before they commence work in the field as an employee.
"This will greatly simplify the administration, security and ease of access for the students and their data, help us stay up-to-date with compliance, and bring everything together in one place. The bonus is that it helps us further prepare students for future denominational employment." says Pr Thompson.
"Avondale has always played a massive part in preparing students for pastoral ministry within the church and school envonment," says Pr Russ WIllcocks, project lead at AdTec. "This just adds to that value!"
Discovery and design took place in April 2025, and the build phase commenced in May. It is hoped that testing will start by September, with the first Practicums registered in the system to start in Semester 1, 2026.
The digital landscape of ministry in the North American Division is evolving — and Thrive, has been named as a cornerstone of the newly renamed Adventist Connect (formerly Adventist Information Ministry).
With the recent announcement of AIM’s rebranding to Adventist Connect, the North American Division has signaled a significant pivot toward supporting local churches and schools in the digital mission field. Among the three core pillars of this transformation is Thrive, a powerful tool designed to help churches not only capture interest but build lasting, personalized discipleship pathways..
"Thrive will help pastors and volunteers manage and track interests. Specifically, it will enable personalized follow-ups and customized discipleship for any individual,” says Brent Hardinge, director of Adventist Connect.
Slated for launch mid-2025, Thrive aims to make follow-up more intentional and efficient by allowing churches to:
What makes Thrive distinct is its seamless integration with Adventist Connect’s other digital tools — the Frame website platform and the Engage Connection Center — ensuring that digital interest is not just gathered but guided toward local connection and community.
As churches and schools transition to Frame starting late spring 2025, Thrive will provide the backend muscle for nurturing those who respond to digital appeals — from Bible study requests to community service sign-ups.
“The name Adventist Connect encapsulates our vision: to help churches, schools, and ministries build community relationships, establish a strong online presence, and thrive in digital ministry,” Hardinge emphasized.
Thrive is being built with a mobile-first mindset, modern UX principles, and a keen understanding of the discipleship cycle. Churches will have access to dedicated support, training resources, and onboarding assistance to ensure Thrive can be used effectively, regardless of size or technical experience.
“Adventist Connect is an outgrowth of this ministry’s strategic intentionality in leveraging digital assets in the mission of the church,” said NAD president G. Alexander Bryant. “I praise God for our leadership team that has brought us to this point.”
Thrive is more than a system — it’s a ministry accelerator. As Adventist Connect rolls out its full suite of digital tools, Thrive is poised to help churches do more than connect — it helps them grow.
MDLite has undergone a major optimisation as part of a wider upgrade on the MD Portal, optimising both the infrastructure and code for faster syncing in MDLite. The average sync times on first Sign in have dropped from around 2-3 minutes (depending on strength of connection) to 8-15 seconds. Subsequent syncs have dropped from around a minute to less than 2 seconds.
These updates will make the experience of using MDLite even better for pastors, especially in low-data areas like the Trans-Pacific nations where internet can be patchy.
As part of the upgrade, MDLite also received some new notifications, some new visuals and a sync progress bar for easier and more informed navigation.
Technology is expensive to create and maintain, making the need for collaboration with other parts of the world church a necessity if costs are to be kept to a minimum for the world church. Since 2022, the team at AdTec has refined their vision to support the world church, actively building a network of relationships across several Divisions with a view to collaboration, shared innovation and efficiencies.
Part of this effort requires that AdTec be present at key events and opportunities, and is able to share clear and simple marketing information that allows prospective users the opportunity to explore product features. Marketing websites for each product are below:
MD md.adtech.org.au
THRIVE thrive.adtech.org.au
Hope VA hopeva.org.au
MDLITE [email protected]
Additionally AdTec is working closely with leaders in the global tech space with an interest in being a technology leader and provider to the world church as the global mission needs continue to shift dynamically. In 2024 at the request of the World Church, AdTec gifted the domain adventist.cloud to the world church to use it to host global platforms to be used around the world.
In August the MD team at Adtech completed the training of the MD Helpdesk, a chatbot that answers questions related to using the portal, along with basic theological questions as well. The Helpdesk is available with a single click from within the portal, and will serve to provide clear and simple 'How to' and 'Why' responses for any user of the MD Portal, including lay leaders. The MD Helpdesk took time to train largely due to the fact that the MD Portal had to first be extensively documented, and a large number of articles sourced, compiled and checked for accuracy before the bot could be trained.
From time to time there will be questions stump the MD Helpdesk, which is all par for the course. If you come across any curly questions that stump the bot, please do let us know at [email protected].
The MD team is exploring the use of AI to summarise the large amounts of data now present in the MD Portal to improve insights for pastors and chaplains, as well as for administrators at every level of the church. Imagine being as you create your Ministry Map, being prompted with poignant considerations as you shape ministry plans with your team. Or when you create a Competency Review, having AI suggest possible resources to develop your strengths, questions to consider, or trends in your development over time.
For administrators, we believe that the use of AI could significantly enhance the potential for great conversations, providing insights both across the team and across time - guiding team training events, helping with coaching comments, and honing in on specific resources to develop the individual.
MDLite is a mobile app version of the MD Portal, which is similar in almost every way, with the exception that it has simplified Ministry reports in place of Ministry Maps, In 2024 MDLite was successfully launched in Laos, where pastors are exploring the benefits of simpler online Ministry Reports, and access to resources and documents - a first for the pastors in Laos. It is hoped that the Laos pilot will assist with valuable information to continue to shape MDLite for the Asian context, with a view to the church in SSD benefiting from the time, effort and cost savings the app brings both to the field and to Administration.
In 2024 under the leadership of Pr Victor Kulakov, Ministerial Secretary at the New Zealand and Pacific Union (NZPUC), the MD Portal was expanded to the Cook Islands, French Polynesia, bringing a new emphasis on ministry leadership and development, and granting unprecedented access to resources for the pastors in these territories.
The Portal is also being translated into French to allow pastors in French-speaking territories to use MD in their own language from mid 2025. The translation project is a joint partnership between AdTec and the NZPUC, and will open doors for other French-speaking nations to also engage with MD.
Following the success of the pilot in North New South Wales, the South Queensland Conference will roll out Thrive in 2025. As one of largest Conferences, South Queensland hosts large Summer Camps, Big Camp, and over Easter 2025 will host a large Pathfinder Camporee at Samford, North West of Brisbane. The move to Thrive will put an end to relying on email alone to send contacts through to the churches for followup. Instead, now the Youth Department will simply upload their decisions list to Thrive and assign each name to the relevant church for followup. Thrive will handle all consent processed, screen Bible Mentors, and ensure that church members are reminded to followup their contacts in a timely manner.
As Thrive is integrated with other tools (event software, membership Database etc) these process will be further automated, cutting effort and costs required to see that our young people are nurtured on their Journey with Jesus. In time and as more Conferences engage with Thrive, Union and Division wide contact-generators (like Faith FM, Websites, Hope VA etc) will also feed their contacts directly into Thrive for local church followup.
In a desire to manage spiritual journeys with greater care, North New South Wales Conference in February became the first Conference to soft launch the new Thrive app.. Working with its pastors, chaplains and Bible workers, President Cristian Copaceanu and his team have been working with Adventist Technology to embed Thrive, establishing a new level of diligence when it comes to contact follow up.
The Thrive app is designed to scaffold the discipleship journey, solving a number of historical challenges that the church has faced in seeking to nurture every person who desires to grow in their relationship with Jesus, toward baptism and beyond.
Starting with contacts coming through from Summer camps over the year end, the NNSW Conference Youth Department was able to import all decisions for Bible study directly into Thrive, instantly assigning them to the correct Pastors and their churches for followup. A similar process is in place with the Arise Bible school, and in time, it is envisaged that this opportunity will be available to all entities, churches, schools, camps and Big Camps where decisions are made for Christ - around the Conferences, Union and Division.
In cases where contacts were also attending Adventist schools, Thrive facilitates the sharing of contacts, enabling Pastors and Chaplains to combine their efforts to work together seamlessly.
Further supporting the discipleship journey, Thrive also reminds leaders and church members responsible for follow up to continue with regular contact with each person at regular intervals, escalating a contact if no activity is logged within a reasonable timeframe.
In the words of Pr Matt Atcheson of Adventist Technology, who is also the technical lead on Thrive, “We hope that in time, Pastors, Conferences, Unions and the Division will be able to see the discipleship movement at each level of the church in real time, leading to better planning, resourcing and decisions.”
