The name given to designate major areas of the church’s outreach. They are arranged to promote and guide specific phases of denominational activity. The department does not administer directly, but through the departments recommendations are made to the General Conference Executive Committee. Each department has a director, and one or more associate directors, assistants, and office staff as may be considered advisable. The departments provide counsel, promotional material, and supplies to the field, working in cooperation with the division, union, and local administrators and their departmental directors.
Each General Conference department is guided by an advisory committee, which meets periodically to assess the program of its department and to provide orientation in its overall thrust. Membership on the General Conference advisories is by General Conference Executive Committee action. The departmental director serves as chair of the advisory committee. A similar organization is followed in each world division and on union conference levels.
For articles on the activities of departments, see Church Ministries Department ; Communication Department ; Education Department ; Health and Temperance Department ; Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Department ; Publishing Department ; Trust Services .
The Ministerial Association, although not organized as a department, serves the church on the General Conference level.
Beginnings of Departmental Concept of Organization. Before the turn of the century the work of the denomination had grown to the extent that the General Conference president and secretary were no longer able to encompass all the demands of the field for counsel and direction. There were in operation separate denomination-wide associations, such as the medical, temperance, Sabbath school, and tract and missionary societies, but these were not a part of the General Conference administration. To meet the demands, the General Conference in 1887 added to its officers an educational secretary and a home mission secretary to guide in the conducting of workers’ institutes and city missions, and provided for an international publishing committee to promote the general interests of the publishing work.
Departments Organized . At the General Conference session of 1901 the departments were first organized, each with a chair (a member of the General Conference executive committee), a secretary, and an appropriate staff ( see Organization ). In 1909 the chairs became secretaries; the General Conference president was considered the chair. These departments were not administrative bodies, for they were not directly responsible for such institutions as schools, the publishing houses, or the medical institutions. Established as the medium of communication, they were to bring the needs of the field or of the institutions to the attention of the administration of the General Conference, and to represent the desires, the purposes, and the policies of the General Conference to the field and to the institution. They were intended also to bring the various fields or institutions into coordination one with the other in matters of operation, unifying as far as practical or desirable the operation of institutions.
At first these departments were lightly staffed, but the expansion of the work in the field and the growth in the number and size of the institutions, the increase in the complexity of the work itself, the demand for materials, supplies, literature, and the study of plans and techniques all required the addition of personnel and the formation of additional departments.
By action of the General Conference session of 1985, the departments of Lay Activities, Sabbath School, Adventist Youth, Stewardship, and the Home and Family Service were merged into one coordinated department-the Church Ministries Department.