The Seventh-day Adventist Church general conference beginning Wednesday in downtown Atlanta is expected to bring 70,000 people from around the world to elect a president and adopt social positions to guide the conservative Protestant denomination for the next five years.
Through July 3 at the Georgia Dome and World Congress Center, the event will allow members to "come together to elect leadership and to come together as fellow believers," said spokesman George Johnson Jr.
The church, based in Maryland, plans to adopt various statements that address making church a safe place for children, and ending violence against women and girls and global poverty.
A small, but vocal group of African American members are concerned that the church plans to dismantle its regional conferences, which have primarily served and been led by African Americans.
They cite a 2007 document called the Union of Churches Final Recommendations found on the Seventh-day Adventist Web site, which calls for a three-tiered structure including local churches, a union of churches and the general conference and its divisions. Missing are the local conferences and missions.
Church officials said they do not plan to vote to end regional conferences and called it a "rumor."
"I assure you there is nothing whatsoever -- directly or indirectly -- about the dismantling of the regional system," on the agenda, said Larry Evans, undersecretary for the general conference. "It's not something that the world church is going to decide at this meeting."
Mylas Martin, a longtime member and former journalist from Michigan, said he plans to call for the resignation of President Jan Paulsen. At stake, Martin said, are millions of dollars regional conferences bring in from their congregations and maintaining their voice in church affairs.
"We very much love our church,"Martin said. "But we are the ones threatened. It's not paranoia."
Paulsen, the current president of the world body, is a native of Norway. He has not announced plans to retire so he is expected to be a contender for the top position. If elected, this would be his third term.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church was founded in 1863, with doctrinal roots in the Advent Awakening movement in the 1840s, when hundreds of thousands of Christians became convinced that Christ would soon return. When that didn't happen, believers split into groups, including one that later became known as the Seventh-day Adventist Church. That group, which included Ellen and James White, was organized in Michigan with 125 churches and 3,500 members, according to church history.
Seventh-day Adventists observe the Sabbath beginning at sundown on Friday and ending at sundown on Saturday. They also believe that Jesus Christ's second coming is imminent and will be preceded by a judgment.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is one of the 10 largest international religious bodies, according to Adherents.com. It has more than 16 million members worldwide, including more than a million in North America, according to church statistics. In metro Atlanta, the church has more than 22,000 members.
Although most of the denomination's growth has occurred overseas, one of the fastest-growing churches in the U.S. is in Atlanta: Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church on Hamilton E. Holmes Drive.
The church, which has a strong community outreach ministry, is led by a dynamic 38-year-old senior pastor, the Rev. Carlton P. Byrd. In the last decade, the church's membership has risen to 4,000 from 2,500.
When he first came to the church, Byrd said, the median age of the congregation was 60. Now, he said, it's between 38 and 40.
"I cater to people who are not only our members but people who are not our members, but who are seeking the Lord," he said. "We knock on doors and we pray for people."
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