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InfoGraphics: A Full Breakdown of General Conference Delegates by Division, Gender and Age

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The charts below tell the numerical story of how delegates are apportioned by age, gender and geography at the upcoming General Conference Session in San Antonio. The first image is a graphical representation of the delegates by gender and age.

Compare those numbers with the 2013 statistics (the most recent numbers available from the Office of Archives, Statistics and Research) on church membership by gender and age. It's important to note that the "under 30" category here includes all baptized members under the age of 30, whereas delegates under age 30 in the image above tend to be college-age and above.

The next image provides membership data for the 13 divisions and 2 world fields that make up the Seventh-day Adventist World Church.

The final image lists the number of delegates from each division, that number as a percentage of total delegates, the number of members in each division, that number as a percentage of total members, and the differential between delegate percentage and membership percentage. It is important to point out (as Bonnie Dwyer explains in more detail here) that delegates are apportioned primarily on the basis of church structural units rather than on membership. This chart shows some of the gaps between membership and representation at General Conference Session.


Bonnie Dwyer also explains why, although the General Conference does not have a membership base aside from the 3,946 members who live in the Middle East and Israel, territories that were recently attached to the GC. The article provides a chart with the ratios of delegates to members for each division.

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