How is the Seventh-day Adventist Church structured?

Answer 1

The Seventh-day Adventist church is governed by a form of democratic representation which resembles the presbyterian system of church organization. Four levels of organization exist within the world church.

1. The local church is the foundation level of organizational structure and is the public face of the denomination. Every baptized Adventist is a member of a local church and has voting powers within that church.
2. Directly above the local church is the "local conference" or "local mission". The local conference/mission is an organization of churches within a state, province or territory (or part thereof) which appoints ministers, owns church land and organizes the distribution of tithes and payments to ministers.
3. Above the local conference is the "union conference" or "union mission" which embodies a number of local conferences/missions within a larger territory.
4. The highest level of governance within the church structure is the General Conference which consists of 13 "Divisions", each assigned to various geographic locations. The General Conference is the church authority and has the final say in matters of conjecture and administrative issues. The General Conference is headed by the office of President; in June 2010 Dr. Jan Paulsen was replaced by Ted N. C. Wilson by a vote of the General Conference Nominating Committee. The General Conference head office is in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Each organization is governed by a general "session" which occurs at certain intervals. This is usually when administrative decisions are made. The president of the General Conference, for instance, is elected at the General Conference Session every five years. Delegates to a session are appointed by organizations at a lower level. For example, each local church appoints delegates to a conference session.

Tithes collected from church members are not used directly by the local churches, but are passed upwards to the local conferences/missions which then distribute the finances toward various ministry needs. Within a geographic region, ministers receive roughly equal pay irrespective of the size of their church.

The Church Manual gives provisions for each level of government to create educational, healthcare, publishing, and other institutions that are seen within the call of the Great Commission.

Another answerWe have a general conference (GC) which oversees the world church.

Then there are the divisions (in my case, the North American division).

Then there are unions, such as Pacific Union (CA, OR, WA, etc) or Lake Union (MI, MN, WI, etc).

After that, there are local conferences (TN, WY, CO, FL, etc).

Some conferences are further divided, depending on the size of the state/region. Each local conference oversees the local churches/pastors and schools/teachers.