Letter From the Editor – What’s Next?

I’m told that Nunawading is the geographical centre of Melbourne, which means the Victorian Conference Office is centrally located for those in the vast metropolis of Melbourne. I recognise that for anyone from the rural areas of Victoria, Nunawading isn’t on their doorstep.

I want to give you a “heads up” that the Conference Executive Committee has already voted that one of the items for discussion at the 2025 Constituency Meeting will be the location of the administrative office for our Conference. From my perspective, Nunawading is a great location – with Nunawading Christian College, AdventCare Whitehorse, the Nunawading Seventh-day Adventist Church, Pavilions – the new retirement village and the Conference Office all on the one estate. So why talk about relocation?

Near on 40 years, the Conference Office has been the administrative headquarters for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Victoria and also for Adventist Schools Victoria (ASV). It worked well for many years, but right now we simply cannot all fit into the current Conference office, which no longer meets current standards (it doesn’t have a lift) and is no longer considered fit for purpose.

The obvious answer would be to add a new wing to the current office. That’s been explored in the past but for zoning reasons we’ve been told that we cannot expand.

Our Conference still has by far the lowest staff when compared with other conferences of a similar size and we’re happy with that because our priority is providing for local churches. However, with the growth of our schools and growing matters of compliance, of necessity, our ASV team has grown. Consequently, the conference office can no longer accommodate both the Conference team and the ASV team – and then there’s the lack of storage space since sheds were demolished so Pavilions could be built.

Adventist Schools Victoria have been operating from rented facilities at Burwood for about the last 12 months. We value being together with ASV. From a missional perspective and for many practical reasons, it makes sense for the ASV administrative team to be together with the Conference team; however, that is simply not possible with the current office. So, we’re currently considering other options, and we want to talk about this with our constituency at the meeting in September 2025. Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas with us. So please pray that God will continue to guide His church in Victoria. Your prayer support is highly valued!

So let me turn to the theme for this edition of IntraVic – Loving God and Loving our Neighbours. Yes, we do love the ASV team – and we wish they were able to be our neighbours!