As the Oregon Conference enters a brand-new year, Dr. John McVay has already begun serving as our new conference president. Kaleb Eisele, OC writer and social media manager, spent some time with Dr. McVay discussing his first week, his ties to ministry in the area, and some of the challenges and opportunities we can look forward to facing together in 2025.
Dr. McVay, welcome to the Oregon Conference! How are you feeling about your first week?
Well, this is day two in the office and it's going very, very well! Lots of great conversations about good things that are happening in our area and lots of conversations about the wonderful churches and schools that make up the Oregon Conference, and good chats about how we can help them do their good work.
You're a familiar face here in Oregon – you've come out for our camp meetings and spoken many times, and you have personal connections to the area.
Well, yes, quite a few! You'll remember that Walla Walla University has a campus here, the second largest campus for that institution, and having been the president of Walla Walla University for 18 years, I've spent a little time in Portland for that reason. But going well beyond that, I do have a lot of family connections here. My mother was born in the Portland Adventist Sanitarium (Portland San), for example, and my grandfather worked at the Portland San, those kinds of connections. My father graduated with a theology degree from Walla Walla College and accepted an invitation to be a pastor here in the Oregon Conference. As a result of that, I spent the first seven years of my life here coming to camp meeting and being a pastor's kid. It was a great place to do some growing up!
And you have other connections here as well, right?
Oh, absolutely. Now we have a daughter who's a pastor here in this conference. She had her first daughter yesterday and our fourth grandchild! So that's, of course, a wonderful thing.
Take us through a little bit of your ministry and professional background.
Well, I first trained as a pastor, and I began my professional life as a pastor in Georgia. Then we moved to Pacific Union College where I began an academic track, but I took a break from that to pastor the campus church there at Pacific Union College. That had an administrative component, too, because you discover you’re president of this or chair of that in that role. It was good. I returned to be the chair of the theology department there at PUC and eventually went to Andrews University and served as associate dean and then dean of the seminary. That's where the administrative tasks began to ramp up and I became responsible for bigger budgets and all that kind of thing, but also the teaching and close work with pastors. During my time there I continued to minister in a variety of ways. For example, I was an on-call chaplain at the local medical center and often ministered in those kinds of settings. Later I received the invitation to come to what was then called Walla Walla College as president, and I began 18 years of very fulfilling and wonderful service there.
What are some of the things you learned about leadership while serving in that role?
In the higher education environment, there are a couple of things that are really important, I think. Number one is a collaborative style of leadership where you're listening to other opinions. You're not listening so long that you never get anything done, but you're trying to listen thoroughly and well and understand the different points of view so you can start to gather a consensus of the senior leadership team around what needs to happen next. Then you act on that, you make the decisions that need to be made, and you move forward. Another thing is that in higher education, best practices mean a lot. So, if you're struggling with some issue, you find an institution that's doing something similar – and hopefully succeeding well at it – and you study them carefully. So, the idea of identifying best practices and learning from those is very important. I think we do some of that currently – certainly on our education side – and we could probably do a bit more on the church side where we even learn from one another within the Oregon Conference. When someone's doing something interesting that's succeeding and bringing them joy and fulfillment and growing the Kingdom, we have to really study that example and see what we can learn from it.
As you look forward to this coming year, what are some of the challenges and opportunities that we have as we move forward together?
Well, it's no secret that we've been through a difficult time here in the Oregon Conference, a challenging time, fiscally challenging and challenging on a lot of levels. We certainly need to be on a quest for the abundance that God wishes to give us. Often, we want to immediately go to the finances, but there's an abundance beyond that that I believe God wishes to grant us in this moment – an abundance of joy, an abundance of commitment to Christ as the risen and returning Lord, an abundance of unity as we work with each other and refresh our sense of what it means to be advancing the Kingdom of God together. To be on a quest to experience and to live into that abundance and the fullness that God through His Spirit has for us is a big deal, I hope, in 2025!
As you were considering and praying about this role, how did you come to your decision? What made you decide to enter into a difficult time like this?
Like a lot of people, I'm a complex person and I would probably have to really think through just how we arrived at this decision, but eventually we just sensed God's call, and as we prayed about it, it just seemed like we should make ourselves available. Part of it is that personal element. I was born in Corvallis when my dad was pastor of the Albany church. I remember so fondly places like Klamath Falls and Cottage Grove and these churches where my dad pastored. This is, in a very real sense, home. We have the opportunity to try to add some value, and maybe a dash of stability, to our context and just to learn afresh the wonders of what the Oregon Conference is, - the people. I had the privilege of being at the Albany Church this past Sabbath for the installation of their wonderful new pastor, and to sit at potluck with these amazing people and to hear some stories of why they find being a Seventh-day Adventist and part of a particular congregation so very fulfilling. This is all joy.
As we all consider how to move into this year together, what do you think are some of the key ideas that we should keep in mind about how to make the best of what we have and how to try to do what God wants for this area and this group of people?
Well, Kaleb, that's a really good question. If I had to pick a few ideas, I would begin with Jesus; the claim and the call of God upon us to preach the Three Angels messages, to share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and His soon return. That task is so big that it wouldn't matter if our budget was four times as big as it is! It would be a pittance in comparison to that grand challenge. When I say Jesus, I'm talking about the fact that Jesus has ascended to heaven. He occupies the throne of the cosmos. He says to us, ‘Ask and you will receive. If you ask in my name, I will provide you what you need to accomplish this grand and unthinkable task of really preaching the gospel meaningfully in the Oregon Conference territory and beyond.’ So, to take what little we have and to place it in His hands and ask Him to make much of it is, I think, the grandest thing we can do. He is the exalted, the risen and ascended and soon-to-return Jesus. And to honor and worship Him and lay claim to the abundance He wishes to provide to us is at the very heart of what we should do. Maybe we'll just stop with that one. That one seems so all encompassing to me that I'll stop there.
I wonder if you'd be willing to have a prayer for that for this conference. As you said, it's been a difficult time and people have been through a lot.
I would be delighted to. Risen Lord Jesus, we thank you for the privilege of being part of the Oregon Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. And we thank you for the grand challenge that you have placed before us to share with our friends and neighbors the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of what it means to belong to our risen Savior. And we ask that as we have now entered into a brand-new year, 2025, that we might sense your presence. That we might live in the presence of the risen Christ, in your very presence, and might find joy and fulfillment and success as we dedicate our hearts and our lives to you. And we pray it in your name, amen.
Well, Dr. McVay, we're looking forward to working with you.
Thank you, Kaleb.
