Dr. Anthony WagenerSmith joined the North American Division Evangelism Institute in 2017 as Associate Director. Prior to that, Anthony served in the Florida Conference for twelve years pastoring existing congregations, planting new churches, and developing training and resources for a church planting support system. Prior to that he spent time in a variety of ministries within North America including youth and young adult ministry, literature evangelism, and international missions in Taiwan and Guam-Micronesia. He is married to Liánro, a School Psychologist originally from South Africa, and they have two adventurous elementary-aged kids, Levi and Sage. He earned an undergraduate degree in Theology from Southern Adventist University (2003), a Masters of Divinity from Andrews University with an emphasis in Theological Studies (2006), a Doctor of Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary in Missional Church Planting (2016), and is pursuing further studies in Missiology.
Anthony develops mission focused leaders through the integration of theology and practice. Intentional areas of focus he brings to equipping leaders in the North American Division and beyond include: church planting, evangelism, disciple-making, writing and research, and coaching systems. Anthony is grateful to be a part of God's mission, serving in dependence upon His power, and in a spirit of collaboration with members, leaders, and organizations.
Growing up during communism in his native country of Bulgaria, Europe, Boyan developed a passion for reaching unchurched young adults. He worked as a pastor and church planter in the Rocky Mountain and the Texas Conferences since 1997. Boyan served as the Texas Conference Church Planting Director from 2015-2019 and has led the planting of over 45 pastor and lay led new church plants across Texas, Boyan is currently a full-time church planter in the Northern Washington DC area where his wife and their two children are passionately enjoying the challenge of planting a network of churches that keep reaching new people with the message of Jesus. Boyan has dedicated his life to God, his family and starting missional churches. His top three life interests are soccer, Formula 1 racing and chocolate!
Eduard and Sonia Schmidt work for the NAD Evangelism Institute. Currently he is the director. During the last two decades, they have developed and taught Master’s and Doctoral level classes in the areas of equipping and mobilizing for evangelistic ministry, church growth, personal and friendship evangelism, and pastoral ministries. They have been involved in personal and public evangelism for the last twenty-three years. conducting reaping meetings and visiting interests. They find their greatest joy in personally leading people to experience the joy of salvation found in Christ. Equipping them to become disciples who live up to their full God given potential. Empowering members to be ministers in the community, reaching the North American Division and the world with the distinctive, Christ-centered, Seventh-day Adventist message of hope and wholeness. They live in Southwestern Michigan.
Errol McLean joined the staff of the NAD Evangelism Institute in 2010 as an Associate Director. And Associate professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at the SDA Theological Seminary. Prior to this he served in the Bermuda Conference as pastor, departmental director and later as Ministerial Secretary. He has presented seminars on Diversity, Church Growth, Natural Church Development, Members in Ministry, Biblical Spirituality and Personal Evangelism.
Seminar Presentation: “Establishing a Missional Culture” Peter Drucker says "Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast". Many churches fail to recognize this and therefore fail at making the change for Growth. This presentation equip pastors and church leaders to develop the vision and values necessary to create a missional culture in your church. Members will discover their gifts and in collaboration with the clergy to embrace their biblical role in ministry and to advance a missional culture for growth.
‘Halsey Peat is the Church Planting director for the Ontario Conference. He also serves as Assistant to the President and is director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty. Halsey is a pastor at heart and has served local congregations in Ontario and in the British Union.
A former communications director, his workshop ‘Communicating the Gospel’ speaks to the DNA of the church being thoroughly engaged in the community. Other workshops include, ‘Communication and Conflict Resolution for Couples’ and ‘If You Want to be in Heaven by Eleven, You Must Start Before Seven’ designed specifically for married men.
Halsey desire is to see men, women boys and girls experience the joy of God’s salvation and become His disciples. This drives his passion for seeing new congregation planted and thrive.’
Jonathan Burnett is the Lead Pastor of the North Shore Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Chicago where he serves with Associate Pastor Felipe Soares & TFE Pastor Alyssa Hislop. He is Married to Jodi Burnett and they have two beautiful daughters Ellie & Haddie. The Burnett family feel called by God to grow healthy individuals, families and churches in the context of missional groups.
Pastor John T. Boston, II is a native of South Florida. He has swam with humpback whales in the South Pacific and journeyed with wild cheetahs on the hunt in East Africa, but his greatest joy comes from sharing a message of hope found only in Jesus Christ and His soon return. John has ministered in six continents and 42 countries while serving the Seventh-day Adventist faith community in the local church as pastor and as a conference departmental director. He has also served his community as a chaplain for the Columbus Division of Police, faith leader for President Barack Obama’s mentor initiative, My Brother’s Keeper, and a host of high impact community boards. He has been guest speaker at Colleges, Universities, HOPE Channel, the Trinity Broadcasting Network and many notable conferences and events around the world. In 2017 John was selected as a member of the 87th Joint Civilian Orientation Conference. This is the only outreach effort of the United States Department of Defense operated from the Pentagon. Pastor Boston has also traveled to the Syrian border to help assess and identify opportunities to support the largest humanitarian crisis in the last 50 years.
Most recently, John served as School Evangelist for the North New South Wales, Australia. In this role he supported the alignment of Seventh-day Adventist churches and schools while providing critical follow up support for decisions made by teens at conference events. During his time in Australia he helped lead the North New South Wales Conference in the highest number of baptisms in 39 years.
In June 2019, John was appointed as the Associate Director for Evangelism for the North American Division Evangelism Institute at Andrews University. He is responsible for the field schools and public evangelism education of the Adventist Theological Seminary students across the United States, Canada, Bermuda, Guam and Micronesia.
Pastor Boston is an alumnus of Oakwood University, B.A. Ministerial Theology and he holds a Master of Arts in Peace and Social Justice with an emphasis in Interfaith Action from Claremont Lincoln University. He is currently enrolled in the Doctor of Missiology program at Andrews University.
He and his wife Karla have one miracle child, Riley Madison of the YouTube series, The Adventures of Riley Madison.
Steve Leddy is Potomac Conference’s Evangelism Director and Church Planting Coordinator. He has a special passion to build relevant churches and ministries that appeal to and attract young adults and people who are unchurched. Additionally, Leddy is the founder of the Church Planting and Adventist Leadership School (CPALS), which provides hands on training for exceptional young adults with no ministry experience or education; the Church Planting Institute (CPI) which trains pastors and lay leaders to plant effective new churches in the areas they are serving; and Allies In Mission (AIM), which is a training program to dramatically increase the mission effectiveness and disciple-making potential of new and existing churches.
Sung Kwon has served as the executive director of the North American Division Adventist Community Services since 2001 and is an ordained minister of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He grew up with Buddhist and Catholic family beliefs and was baptized in 1991. He serves as a Chaplain (Major) for Civil Air Patrol, U.S. Air Force Auxiliary. He is a licensed consultant for the Standards for Excellence Institute, instructor for the Cultural Intelligence Center, and International Critical Incident Stress Foundation. He also has published “Burst the Bubble: Finding Your Passion for Community Outreach” by Pacific Press. He received a B.A. degree in Theology from Washington Adventist University, earned a M.A. in Public Administration from Wright State University, received a Milton Murray Fellowship for Harvard University Business School’s Executive Education program, and received a Ph.D. in Leadership at Andrews University and a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) in Urban Ministry at Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary.
