Institute of Church Ministry and Evangelism, South Pacific Division

MILTON HOOK

Milton Hook, Ed.D. (, Berrien Springs, Michigan, the United States). Hook retired in 1997 as a minister in the Greater Conference, . An Australian by birth Hook has served the Church as a teacher at the elementary, academy and college levels, a missionary in , and as a local church pastor. In retirement he is a conjoint senior lecturer at Avondale College of Higher Education. He has authored Flames Over Battle Creek, Avondale: Experiment on the Dora, : Reformist Theologian, Gospel Revivalist, the Seventh-day Adventist Heritage Series, and many magazine articles. He is married to Noeleen and has two sons and three grandchildren.

During the time it existed, the Institute of Church Ministry and Evangelism provided resources to assist local churches in the South Pacific Division in their A report produced by Dr. Alwyn Salom while he was director of the planning and implementation of evangelistic and Institute of Church Ministry and Evangelism. ministry events between 1985 and 2010. Photo courtesy of Barry Oliver. The Institute of Church Ministry and Evangelism (ICME) was founded by Dr. Alwyn Salom in 1985. At the time, Salom was the head of the theology department at Avondale College, training young people to minister in local churches and grow congregations.1 The age of traditional crusades was waning and alternative methods of evangelism were needed. In the past, not much attention had been paid to the secular population. It was generally recognized, not only in Seventh-day Adventist circles, that individual congregations owned individual problems and those must be identified before solutions could be found. A needs-based approach was imperative. Salom did not rely on anecdotal diagnosis, but sought to find verifiable causes of slow church growth and match them with effective remedies. Significant Research In 1991, Salom left Avondale College to become one of four associate secretaries in the church ministries department of the South Pacific Division.2 He found that other Protestant church groups were as keen as himself to do some self- examination of their churches and had used a survey method as a diagnostic tool to uncover problem areas. Their preliminary findings were published in 1991 under the auspices of the National Church Life Survey (NCLS). Salom joined the group, making minor adaptations to their survey for use in Seventh-day Adventist churches. The results formed a part of the 1991 survey conducted by NCLS that was published in 1994. Among his findings, Salom determined that Seventh-day Adventist church members represented a broad spectrum of understanding respecting the doctrine of inspiration, ranging from a regard for the Bible as merely a “valuable book” to one that saw it as the dictated words of God Himself. In comparison to other Protestants, a higher percentage (85%) of Adventists owned positive feelings about their church. More than double the number of Adventists gave a tithe or more of their income to the Church in comparison to other Protestants (76% compared to 33%). The number of Adventist willing to try alternative methods of evangelism was the lowest of all Protestant groups and the highest of those having mistrust of new initiatives. Less than ten percent of Adventist members wished to reach out to the secular community. Three-quarters of Adventists regarded the church building as a vital aspect of their worship compared to sixty percent of other Protestants. Ninety percent of those who had transferred from other denominations to join the Adventist Church had joined because of friendship with other Adventists.3 The NCLS was able to identify three hundred anonymous respondents who had switched from an Adventist congregation to a mainstream Protestant group. Only seven percent cited theological reasons. The most common cause was restrictive ethical standards. Not all were young people. Surprisingly, ten percent were over seventy years of age.4 In August 1995 under the auspices of the ICME, Salom conducted a survey of randomly selected Seventh-day Adventist churches in Australia and New Zealand. He received a return from 433 of the 488 congregations he requested to participate. One important finding of his analysis showed that the attendance of baptized members on any given Sabbath was only sixty-five percent of the reported membership list. He estimated there were twenty thousand members no longer attending. In other words, the total figure in the annual statistical report, 58,555, was, in real terms, more like 38,000. By implication he was suggesting delegation numbers at conference sessions of all levels were grossly inflated, administration numbers were disproportionate and money could be saved by reducing the print runs of periodicals such as the Sabbath School Lesson Quarterly. His blunt message was that church rolls needed to be “cleaned up” and a concerted effort needed to be made to reclaim lost sheep.5 Salom did not expect church members to intuitively understand how to redress the hemorrhaging. He used ICME to develop practical solutions. He conducted seminars and workshops to instruct members in how to reclaim non- attenders and how to reach secular society. The latter was considered to be the easier path to follow. Salom recognized it was axiomatic that secular people were averse to meeting in a church, so he advised that searches be made to locate “neutral settings” such as office buildings or disused warehouses in which to meet. Worship groups known as “church plants” began to function in scattered locations from New Zealand to Western Australia. Many were conducted by lay members without what secular attendees would think was the intimidating presence of a cleric.6 Later Developments At the close of 1995, Salom officially retired from his post at the South Pacific Division office, but he continued to serve voluntarily whenever called upon. In mid-2000, the office of ICME reopened at Avondale College with Steve Currow as director, a position he held until August 2002. He offered church and community profiling, church growth workshops, and tours to churches and church plants where alternative worship styles were operating. He also maintained a liaison with NCLS and with CLS-NZ. Christian Life Survey New Zealand studies were conducted in 1997, facilitated by Stephen Currow and in 2001, facilitated Travis Manners representing the Adventist Church, the latter study intentionally aligning with the New Zealand census.7 Salom, in his synopsis of the 2001 NCLS, reported that ninety-seven Adventist congregations numbering 4,354 attendees had taken part. The survey indicated there had been a large swing towards a preference for contemporary music in worship services. Only one third of respondents took part in evangelistic activities and one quarter were shy about discussing their faith with other people. Eighty percent of members reported that they deliberately welcomed new attendees.8 Edith Cowan of the University in , Western Australia, conducted an Australian Community Survey, asking the question, “Why don’t Australians go to church?” Results were published in 2002 and Salom shared some of her findings with Adventist readers of the Record periodical. The report stated that eighty percent of Australians are infrequent or non-attenders at church. Various reasons were cited such as “boring,” “too busy,” “disagreement with moral tenets,” and “bad experience with church people.” Those least likely to attend church were employers and skilled tradesmen. Those most likely to attend were farmers, professionals working with people, widows, young married people, and people over sixty years of age.9 Much of the research analysis that Salom gleaned during his fifteen years with ICME was published in his book titled The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia, first advertised in 2003.10 In 2003, when Douglas Robertson was a lecturer in the theology department at Avondale College, he served part- time in the office of ICME on campus. By this time, its title had been abbreviated to the Institute of Church Ministry (ICM). Robertson assisted by developing resources for the theology students to use later in their work. By that time the NCLS was in direct contact with Seventh-day Adventist churches, conducting surveys and providing the results to ICM. Salom, in 2004, took the ICM program to Japan and introduced it to Yasuki Miamoto.11 While Salom was conducting a seminar at Toowoomba Seventh-day Adventist church in February 2007, he accidentally fell and died soon after as a result of his injuries.12 Robertson continued to coordinate further work by NCLS in Adventist churches until Dr. Terry Butler was appointed by Avondale College, initially as part-time director from May 12, 2008 to December 31, 2008, responsible to the Dean Faculty of Theology.13 In late 2008 the Institute of Church Ministries and Evangelism Board changed its name to the Center for Religion and Society Research.14 Butler’s appointment was continued until February 12, 2010, when it was withdrawn. The Center for Religion and Society Research was discontinued at February 7, 2010.15

SOURCES “Institute of Church Ministry Seminars, Consultancy and Research,” [2002]. South Pacific Division of the General Conference Archives, Cooranbong, . Box 2415, folder: Institute of Church Ministry. Kaldor, Peter, John Bellamy, Ruth Powell, Merilyn Correy, Keith Castle. Winds of Change: The Experience of Church in a Changing Australia. Homebush West, NSW: Lancer, 1994. Maberly, Nalissa. “Worship Institute Opens.” Record, January 29, 2005. Ray Roennfeldt to Terry Butler. Letter dated March 9, 2010. Held in the personal collection of Terry Butler. The correspondence filed of the Vice-Chancellor, Avondale University College, Cooranbong, NSW, Australia. Robertson, Douglas and Raymond Roennfeldt and Bruce Manners. “Alwyn Philip Salom.” Record, April 21, 2007. Salom, Alwyn [P]. “Are Any Churches Growing?” Record, October 5, 1996. Salom, Alwyn [P]. “A Health Check for Your Church.” Record, April 22, 2006. Salom, Alwyn P. “Church Census Shows the Reality.” Record, March 9, 1996. Salom, Alwyn P. “Second Study on Adventists Released.” Record, November 11, 1995. Salom, Alwyn [P]. “Why People Don’t Go to Church.” Record, November 30, 2002. Seventh-day Adventist Yearbooks. Hagerstown, MD.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1991-1995. “The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia.” Record, August 23, 2003. Vivienne Watts to Terry Butler. Letter dated February 7, 2010. Held in the personal collection of Terry Butler. The correspondence file of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Avondale University College, Cooranbong, NSW, Australia.

NOTES 1. “Institute of Church Ministry Seminars, Consultancy and Research,” [2002], South Pacific Division of the General Conference Archives, Cooranbong, New South Wales, box 2415, folder: Institute of Church Ministry.? 2. “South Pacific Division,” Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1991), 289.? 3. Alwyn P. Salom, “Second Study on Adventists Released,” Record, November 11, 1995, 10-11.? 4. Ibid.? 5. Alwyn P. Salom, “Church Census Shows the Reality,” Record, March 9, 1996, 10.? 6. Alwyn [P.] Salom, “Are Any Churches Growing?” Record, October 5, 1996, 6-8.? 7. “Institute of Church Ministry Seminars, Consultancy and Research.”? 8. Alwyn [P.] Salom, “A Health Check for Your Church,” Record, April 22, 2006, 9.? 9. Alwyn [P.] Salom, “Why People Don’t Go to Church,” Record, November 30, 2002, 6.? 10. “The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia,” Record, August 23, 2003. Note: The book is cited in Philip Hughes, ed. Charting the Faith of Australians: Thirty Years in the Christian Research Association (Nunawading, Victoria: Christian Research Foundation, 2016), 22.? 11. Nalissa Maberly, “Worship Institute Opens,” Record, January 29, 2005, 7; Douglas Robertson, email message to author, January 23, 2020.? 12. Douglas Robertson, Ray Roennfeldt and Bruce Manners, “Alwyn Philip Salom,” Record, April 21, 2007, 14.? 13. Terry Butler, email to editor Barry Oliver, April 13, 2020.? 14. Ibid.? 15. Vivienne Watts to Terry Butler, letter dated February 7, 2010, held in the personal collection of Terry Butler and the correspondence file of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Avondale University College; Ray Roennfeldt to Terry Butler, letter dated March 9, 2010, held in the personal collection of Terry Butler and the correspondence filed of the Vice-Chancellor, Avondale University College, Cooranbong, NSW, Australia.?

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