Who We Are
The Office for Regional Conference Ministries exists to strengthen communities, expand opportunity, and improve lives across generations.
Serving Today. Building Tomorrow.
Organizational Overview
The Office for Regional Conference Ministries (ORCM) exists to strengthen communities, expand opportunity, and improve lives across generations. Rooted in the history and mission of the nine historically Black-led Regional Conferences of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, ORCM serves people of every background through research, innovation, development, and community-centered solutions in education, economic empowerment, justice, health and wellness, and environmental stewardship.
Through the Regional Conference Retirement Plan, we advance retirement security for pastors, educators, and ministry workers who have dedicated their lives to service. Through the Dream Factory, we build on congregation-tested approaches to community transformation, engaging students, retirees, and leaders in developing, refining, and scaling sustainable solutions through the Regional Conference network.
What We Do
Four parts of one identity. Each stands on its own, and each depends on the others.
01Research
We seek understanding before action. Through research, analysis, history, and institutional intelligence, we help the Regional Conferences see today's realities more clearly so they can make wiser decisions for tomorrow.
Explore02Innovation
We imagine what could be. Through creativity, experimentation, and collaboration, we explore new ideas, test new possibilities, and design the future of Regional Ministry.
Explore03Development
We strengthen the capacity of the Regional Conferences through financial development, ministry development, and people development.
Explore04Agency
For much of our history, the people served by the Regional Conferences had too little voice, and too few advocates with real influence, in the rooms where decisions about them were made. The Regional Conferences were born from that reality.
Leaders from our community now serve at every level of the church. Agency is how we honor that progress and build on it: ensuring the priorities of the nine Regional Conferences are understood, grounded in evidence, and represented as an institution, not only through the individuals who lead.
Agency is also self-determination: shaping our own future, telling our own story, building resources of our own, and preparing the leaders who will carry our voice forward.
And agency is what makes our work last. Research, innovation, and development build capacity; agency is the ability to use it. We equip people, congregations, and institutions to lead and sustain their own solutions, so that impact continues beyond any single program, grant, or season of leadership.
What Shapes Us
To strengthen communities and improve lives across generations by building sustainable capacity through research, innovation, development, and agency rooted in the mission of the Regional Conferences of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Supporting ministry and retirement with excellence, compassion, and stewardship.
Integrity, Collaboration, Service, Excellence.
Healthy regions. Thriving communities. Eternal impact.
ORCM and the Regional Conferences are committed to being…
Commitment 1
Churches and ministries their communities cannot imagine living without.
We help churches become so woven into the fabric of their communities that neighbors cannot imagine life without them. This means ministries that meet real needs, build real relationships, and bear real witness to the gospel.
Commitment 2
Working together around shared priorities rather than isolated efforts.
No conference, no church, no ministry can do this work alone. Strategic alignment means the nine Regional Conferences identify shared priorities and move together — multiplying impact that no single conference could achieve on its own.
Commitment 3
Building ministries with excellence, systems, and leadership worthy of the mission.
Faithfulness requires competence. We help conferences build governance, systems, finances, and leadership pipelines worthy of the mission we have been given — so ministry is sustainable for the next generation.
Commitment 4
Preparing today for the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow.
We refuse to merely react. Forward-facing ministry anticipates demographic, technological, and cultural change — preparing today so the Regional Conferences are ready to meet tomorrow's opportunities.
Who leads this work
Meet the team guiding ORCM’s ministry. This directory is updated as current information is confirmed.
Executive Director, Office for Regional Conference Ministries
roger.bernard@orcmrp.org
