At the GAiN Conference in Thailand in 2024, AdTec staff met with the team from the South East Asian Division to explore how Hope VA could help them take the gospel deeper into unreached people groups and territories. Following further discussions in subsequent months, Hope VA will be rolled out in SSD from 2025, beginning with an English version on WhatsApp and Messenger in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.
Translation into Tagalog and Bahasa will also commence, in order that people living in the Philippines and Indonesia (two of the largest WhatsApp users in the world) will have access to Hope VA in their own language.
To keep costs to a minimum and mission at its best, all learnings, content and IP for Hope VA is shared freely with new countries, including social media advertising samples, landing pages, technology and lessons. We are excited to see what difference Hope VA will make when as she is released onto social media platforms in these countries in 2025.
The Northern Conference, part of the Southern-Indian African Division (SID) is based in Johannesburg South Africa recently explored the potential of the Ministry Development Portal to help their pastors better lead, develop and resource their leadership from internship to Retirement. Training sessions took place at the Northern Conference Minister's meetings in Sedaven in October, with continuing training and support being provided as the team transitions from activity-based reporting to leadership-style Ministry Mapping tools designed to help pastors more fully engage their local church leaders. "This is just what we have been looking for!" said Pr Reece Anderson when he discovered the MD Portal. It is hoped that other Conferences in SID will benefit from the pilot in Northern Conference.
In 2024 AdTec and Adventist Media teamed up to take Hope VA to the next level within the South Pacific Division. When early testing showed the potential for Hope VA to reach thousands online in ways that post or web-based Bible studies were unable to do, it made sense for Hope VA to become Adventist Media's new digital Bible school. This new collaboration leverages the media skills of AM with the technical skills of AdTec. At the Mission and Union levels, Pr Wayne Boehm has been working with Bible school staff across Papua New Guinea to realign processes, structures and ministry positions to maximise online reach through Hope VA. Together AdTec and AM have also been streamlining the flow of data from advertising to landing page to Hope VA so that realtime data can be used to improve social media advertising and drive missional decision-making. Similar efforts are planned for the Missions of the TPUM.
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.
"Hope VA" is a virtual assistant who offers a range of Bible studies to any student who sends her a message with the words 'Bible study". Hope VA is promoted online by Adventist Media, and supported behind the scenes by AdTec. The exciting part of this project is the ability to see connections being made in real time, as we are now able to track attendees from their first connection through to their studies with Hope VA. Already she has become the most active evangelist in PNG already, with around 1000 students engaging with her on WhatsApp at any one time.
Recently Hope VA was expanded to the Messenger platform which is being trialled by across the TPUM in 2025. In recent months we have begun a collaboration with the South East Asian Division (SSD) and are planning a rollout (in English) across the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, with local translations to follow soon after.
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.
