User:Barrydoliver

Barry D Oliver BA, MA, PhD, FAICD is the President of the South Pacific Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church based in Sydney Australia. He has previously served the Church in the South Pacific as a pastor, evangelist, lecturer and administrator. He is married to Julie, a teacher, and has three sons. He began serving as the church's General Secretary in 1997 and President in 2008.

Dr Oliver grew up in Goulburn, New South Wales. He attended Avondale College, the church's tertiary institution, completing a Bachelor's degree in theology. In 1973, the Olivers accepted a call to ministry in southern Queensland. They cared for churches in Maryborough and Hervey Bay, on the south side of Brisbane and on the Darling Downs over the next five years. Dr Oliver was ordained minister in 1976.

The church invited Dr Oliver to serve as district supervisor, evangelist and university chaplain for the Port Moresby district of Papua New Guinea at the end of 1978. Then after just one year he transferred to Rabaul as president of the church's New Britain New Ireland Mission. He then joined the Faculty of Theology at Avondale five years later and completed a Master's degree in religion.

Dr Oliver and his family moved to Andrews University in Michigan, USA, at the end of 1985. There he completed a Ph.D in Christian ministry and mission with a focus on Adventist organisational structure. The family then returned to Avondale for nine years. There he developed a comprehensive field-based training program integrating theory with practice in ministry and pioneered a form of church-based evangelistic training that helped students prepare hundreds of people for baptism.

Dr Oliver received the invitation to serve as General Secretary for the church in 1997 and then President in 2008. He has facilitated the introduction of reforms that have reduced administrative positions, releasing financial and human resources to better fulfil the mission of the church. He has also been involved with a legal restructure of church entities including the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, Avondale and Sydney Adventist Hospital.

Dr Oliver continues to research. He has almost 100 publications in print.

Dr Oliver's personal vision for the church is that we all will know, experience and share our hope in Jesus Christ.