Leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist church unanimously voted at an April 14 business meeting to put into action a plan to distribute globally 2 million books written by one of the church's founders, Ellen G. White. The project called, "Connecting With Jesus," was initially presented at Annual Council, the fall business meeting for the church's leaders.

"We need to get these beautiful messages ... into the hands of thousands of believers who do not have access to them," Ted Wilson, a vice president of the world church, told meeting attendees.

At Annual Council a document outlining the project said the need arises out of an apparent decline in readership of these volumes, despite a belief in their relevance to the church today.

Wilson stressed at the 2004 meeting that getting the ten books, a small cross section of White's writings, to believers was "crucial."

The books, which will include study guides, will be distributed over a five-year period and financed by the church's world headquarters, regional and local administrative offices around the world. The goal is for each Adventist family to have a set of the books. It was also suggested that each family who receives a set of these books would pay a fraction of the cost.